The Salacious Verses

Controversial author Salman Rushdie's making a buzz (and maybe going for another fatwa) with a forthcoming essay on the vital contribution pornography makes to freedom. Writes Rushdie:

Pornography exists everywhere, of course, but when it comes into societies in which it's difficult for young men and women to get together and do what young men and women often like doing, it satisfies a more general need. While doing so, it sometimes becomes a kind of standard-bearer for freedom, even civilisation.

The essay, "The East is Blue," will appear in the forthcoming XXX: 30 Porn Star Portraits.