If not the public, the people whose rights are reserved by the Bill of Rights and the rest of the

Getting back to that breakthrough in the fight against

censorship that started early in the sixties, you have to wonder,

given such books as the Kronhausen's book Erotic Art (and its

sequel), where has all this erotic art, much of it dating back

centuries, been all that time?

The world's largest collection of erotic art and literature is in

the basement of the Vatican.  The British Royal Museum is the

second largest collector of erotic art, also locked up in the

basement.  Beyond that, all those wealthy philanthropists, the

ones who open art museums to the public or otherwise make

large grants to the arts, all seem to have basements with locks

on the doors.  They were, always have been, and probably

always will be, the biggest collectors of erotica…whether it is

legal for the rest of us or not.  "The rest of us" is a significant

This may seem like a stretch, comparing Bill Bennett to the

Vatican (or maybe not, considering both declaring themselves

so righteous and above the rest of humankind that they feel

entitled to dictate both virtue and vice to us lesser beings), but

it is all pretty much summed up in his statement regarding his

eight million plus lost bucks playing slot machines (which is a

loser's game to start with…poker, craps, maybe).  "It's not like I'm spending the milk money," he says. 

That's it exactly.  He's rich.  He's entitled.  Funny how no one sees the clear admission of the whole concept

of entitlement in that one statement, which, admittedly, sounds reasonable at first glance.  But it is the very

fact that it sounds like a reasonable thing to say that makes the point that everyone misses.  He is rich,

therefore he is entitled to certain privileges or even vices to which a poor man is not entitled and who must

have his vices legislated for him to the point of inflicting punishments, we all know, no man of wealth or

Then we have Rush Limbaugh, the ultimate in hypocrisy--the man who for years has condemned any and all

drug users, expressing no sympathy or understanding for their habits, yapping and yowling his endorsement

of the very worst of penalties for any or all drug use by lesser beings than himself.  But he, of course, is

above that.  Why?  He's special.  He's rich.  He doesn't have to steal or push drugs or whatever (like Bennett,

not spending the milk money on gambling), he can, it has been alleged, afford to "doctor shop," an illegal

practice for your average drug user, unless, of course, you have the money to do so, or, it has also been

alleged, pay hush money or whatever the entitled can afford to do, thus putting him above all the

condemnation he assigned to others.  At a time when we have people in detention without being charged, or

forfeiting assets without a conviction, only an accusation, these allegations don't even seem to be pursued by

otherwise pretty damn gung ho drug warriors…especially in Florida where Jeb Bush's daughter gets a

"compassionate conservative" gentle understanding, while everyone else’s son or daughter goes to jail,

doing hard time for lesser offenses.  We also know that both Henry Hyde and George W. Bush have been

excused of misconduct because of "youthful indiscretions" that applied up to the age of forty, while both

will legislate against not only those under forty, but even endorse laws to try juveniles as adults.  (And how

come thieves in big business are still walking around free while Tommy Chong did time for selling

glassware--well, bongs--on the Internet?  Rush does a rich-man's rehab, and is off the hook.  Everyone else

is facing "minimum sentences," legislated by Congress and enforced by the Attorney General and gang of

There was a time in England when gin was outlawed…not bourbon or scotch or brandy--just gin.  Why? 

Because poor people drank gin.  In the heat of the antismoking campaign, it is being impressed upon us that,

statistically speaking, the poor and uneducated are most apt to smoke.  Okay, but if so does that not make

the punitive tax on tobacco a discriminatory punishment directed specifically at the poor and uneducated? 

Again, we have a blatant endorsement from the powers-that-be that there is, and always will be a class

distinction, and that the poor will either be not entitled or simply punished for vices overlooked in the

wealthy and powerful, including those expensive-cigar-smoking businessmen and politicians, including ex-

presidents who allegedly used intern's vaginas for humidors.  It’s also a little know fact that both Obama and

McCain smoke.

In Victorian times it was not unusual to find a copy of the Kama Sutra or even the Eighteenth Century novel

Fanny Hill: A Woman of Pleasure (finally approved by the Supreme Court in America in the late 1960s),

usually both illustrated, in the libraries of wealthy men or British Lords or anyone who was above the

"common people," not to mention multimillionaire land developers in Southern California who had locked-

up basement galleries (and still do) of erotic art, when erotic art was illegal to everyone else in the country,

especially those common people, the common people whom we had to protect from themselves lest they

become immoral evildoers corrupting the general culture.  And let's not forget that President Clinton, in an

act of instant moral outrage, fired his Surgeon General for the incredibly nasty bit of advice that mutual

masturbation was a pretty good form of safe sex to--who else?--the common people.  He, of course, was

above such things, we can all be quite sure.  If not, he must have considered himself…entitled.  Then you

can follow that up with Larry Flint shooting down a string of Speakers of the House by exposing their own

"sexual entitlements."  These things do get forgotten when condemning the “bad behavior” of us more

I get asked that one a lot.  I shouldn't have to answer it, but I'm

willing, if not happy, to do so.  As I mentioned above, I did study

fine art, not commercial art, and I did spend a great deal of time

pursuing a career as a scenic artist and set designer.  I'd say that is

probably obvious in what is now fine art, inasmuch as many, if not

most of my pictures, go into considerable background settings, or

which are, in a word, scenic.  In fact, in some cases, at least to me,

the setting came first--the erotic part I added almost incidentally

because it was erotic art I had chosen to pursue and associate with

my name as a fine artist.  The  picture here, the one with the two

boughs of a cherry tree in the foreground framing two girls in a

meadow is an excellent example.  The truth is all I wanted to do

was that tree.  I grew up on a farm, and one of my great passions as

a teenager was to take my drawing pad back to the woods and

sketch pictures of trees.  I love trees…I really do.  Granted, I

probably could have done nothing but landscapes, maybe street

scenes and a few interiors of interest, but I did feel something of

even greater interest, and perhaps even more attention-getting and

consistent thematic material was needed.  I didn't pull erotica out of

a hat, however.  I was inspired.  In part it was a product of the

times, specifically, as also mentioned above, the loosening up of

general attitudes, not to mention Supreme Court rulings on the subject.  And, of course, besides my passion

for trees as a kid, I did also discover sex…eventually.  Put the two together--trees and sex--what more could

In the beginning I pursued the possibility of working with an art dealer.  It did seem the way to go at that

time.  In fact, I left Phoenix for Los Angeles in part because I could not find a dealer in that rather

conservative town who had the guts to present erotic art, even though some would have liked to, seeing, I

presume, some potential in my work strictly as fine art, subject matter being another issue.  My first contacts

in Los Angeles, beginning in 1971, were with what we then called "underground" newspapers, some further

labeled as "sexual freedom publications."  In fact, my first published erotic work was by mail to a "Sexual

Freedom Publication" in San Francisco, a fairly well known publication at the time, which was something of

In Los Angeles I had little trouble getting my artwork published in a large field of those small underground

newpapers—actually tabloids, at least in layout and dimensions.  I also determined where I might find

dealers, being new to town.  That turned out to be a stretch on La Cienega Blvd. between Santa Monica and

Melrose.  I spent the day there, portfolio under my arm, in one door and out, on to the next dealer, letting

them know up front it was erotic art, up and down both sides of the street.  My first two visits summed it up

pretty well, and I should have quit there: one said, "That's too erotic."  The next said, "That's not very erotic

at all."  Other comments were equally discouraging, usually after waiting various periods of time because it

was obvious I was just another artist, portfolio and all, an opening kind of rudeness and disregard for what

they would never admit are the people who bring them their livelihood, not really the customers who do the

buying because those customers would not be there if not for all those artists.  Another interesting discovery,

repeated more than once (and I've even heard it from other artists) was the consideration that paintings

should have lots of orange in them.  "Why?" I had to ask.  "Because interior decorators look for it because it

compliments the beige couch."  Seriously.  Forget about asking, "What the fuck does that have to do with

It took one day to rule out dealers.  I started from there by illustrating and/or doing art features for those

underground newspapers, which eventually led to writing for, and beyond that, even editing a few of those

papers, which, of course, got me into the political and social counterculture, where I was quite comfortable. 

(I also took a job as set designer and technical director for a little theatre in Hollywood…in part to make

friends in a strange town and otherwise become part of a familiar community.)  I did do some business with

art dealers, however, as long as it did not involve consignment.  In one such exchange I traded a couple

hundred dollars worth of paintings for a bunch of secondhand frames--paintings, which, I found out later,

had retailed out of that gallery for a couple of grand.  But that was okay, encouraging, even.  Mostly I

needed the frames to create an exhibit so I could do a long-running and quite popular street show,

established for over ten years, showing on

weekends on the corner of La Cienega and

Melrose--that main art-dealer neighborhood,

where West Hollywood meets Beverly Hills. 

That is how I made my living for the next

several years, including selling lots or originals

and reproductions of my work to dealers from

around the world who came by the show--if

they paid cash up front.  I also sold to a number

of celebrities, mostly movie stars or singers;

although one rather famous Hollywood art

director, whom I personally admired as a set

designer, was probably the most meaningful

client I had at that show…at least to me.  I

estimate I've sold about a thousand originals

and probably 20,000 reproductions of my

work--mostly hand-colored prints--through

street shows and various other outlets over a

period of about ten years. 

If you've read the opening text, you will recall I

mentioned that a great deal of work was lost in a fire. 

Fortunately, what originals I had at the time were, for

the most part, in portfolios, which, with great thanks

to the Lo

I still run into people I've never met who have my work or otherwise are familiar with it.  I’ve even had

The inspiration itself, back in the sixties, was based on a couple of things, the first being the aesthetic or

beauty of erotica itself, but also the fact that it had been brought out of the shadows of rich men's basement

collections and not only presented to but obviously appreciated by the public in general…a fact I further

proved to myself selling it personally to a multitude of buyers at very open shows on the streets of West

Hollywood and elsewhere, including the Los Angeles City Mall, next to City Hall, where my buyers

included police and fire captains, personnel from the Mayor's Office, and city prosecutors.  This was after I

had my lawyer threaten the city with an injunction if they did not allow me to exhibit my erotic art, which

someone from the city attempted to stop me from doing, claiming it was immoral, and which was an issue

that came up after being invited by the promoter to do the show and having paid my entry fee.  My lawyer,

incidentally, always took his pay in my artwork, usually for the same service.  I do not believe,

unfortunately, that I could exhibit my work today, not only at the City Mall, but most any place else that

public.  Things have changed drastically in that respect.  We live in a very uptight country nowadays, losing

individual freedoms on a major scale almost daily…but that's another story, one I do get into elsewhere:

As I said, I do get asked, "Why erotic art?" quite a bit.  As I also said, it was, in part inspired by a loosening

up of censorship, in the sixties; Court rulings to back it up; the book Erotic Art by the Kronhausen's; D. H.

Lawrence, whom I had been reading since about the age of twelve (although I was married with children

when Lady Chatterley's Lover became legal), and who also did erotic art in addition to writing; other erotic

artists who were obviously testing the water; but most of all it was simply, as an artist, a matter of art and

aesthetics.  Some people see it still (always have and probably always will) as "dirty" or "nasty" or just plain

"evil"--that evil that rears its ugly head and corrupts the virtue of otherwise righteous men; no one actually

seems to worry about women, who, incidentally, if you include couples, my most frequent clients, probably

When the Virtue and Vice Police in Saudi Arabia sent a bunch of young girls back into a burning school

building, to their death, it was because they came out without "covering" first. It was not their virtue that

was being protected--it was the virtue of all those righteous men who they feared would be corrupted to the

point of rape if they were to see the bare arms, legs and hair of all those nine or ten year old girls.  It is the

female body that is the instrument of Satan, thus the girls and women are not the victim--they are the evil

doers, in some places so evil that they are the ones put to death if they provoke a righteous man to rape

Is not the real sin to see filth or ugliness or sin and evil in nudity or sex, when, in relations among consenting

adults it is, in fact, a thing of beauty and joy?  So, that is how I attempt to portray the subject matter.  I see

its beauty and its joy, even its incredibly human humor, and represent it as such.  Hopefully I can share or

maybe even inspire a more healthy, not to mention aesthetic comprehension in the minds of some when

there are others who would inspire a false concept of ugliness, evil and incredible feelings of guilt and

inhibition, both as individuals and as a society--that guilt and inhibition, which, in more cases than not, is the

Granted, there is a dark side to sex, just like there is a

dark side to religion, politics, business and all the

other aspects of family relations or human relations in

general, but I personally feel the dark side is best

portrayed in literature and drama, not in pictures one

might hang on a bedroom wall…but that's just me. 

Some artists thrive and even become famous for

depicting the dark side of human nature, which is, of

course, in every respect their right.  I just don't see it

as something someone would want to live with

hanging on their walls.  If I had a social comment in

my erotic art, it is definitely on the light side of being

In most art, someone paints a sunset or the way the

light falls across a field of sunflowers because it's a

moment's beauty they want to share, another way of

anyone at saying to anyone at all, "Hey, come look at

this sunset.  Isn't that something?"  So, why not

making love too?  There it is, a recorded moment's

joy or beauty to be shared with the rest of the

world…if they are willing to see the joy and beauty

Doing art shows on the street or in other public

places, I have always had those few people who are

offended, usually with a comment like, "He's

obsessed with sex."  Well, hell, I know artists who are

obsessed with clowns or barns or seascapes…if that's

the case.  But no one says, "Damn, he's obsessed with barns."  I've actually seen some artists who are

actually obsessed with a single scene, not just a subject matter, but one single scene, painting variations on

Anyway, I wrote a little comment that I posted with my art show.  It was my preemptive sort of comeback to

those "obsession" comments, which did get annoying, I'll admit.  It did help, however, not to mention there

was a great deal of truth to it--it wasn't totally sarcastic.  Eventually, people started asking for copies of it, so

I printed it on what is a pretty good simulated parchment.  I've included a scanned jpeg of it.  The burnt

edge, incidentally, is not an attempt at "antiquing"; it is simply one of the less damaged copies that survived

the fire.

If you've read the opening text, you will recall I mentioned that a great deal of work was lost in a fire. 

Fortunately, what originals I had at the time were, for the most part, in portfolios, which, with great thanks

to the Los Angeles Fire Department, were among the several objects they seemed to know were of value and

managed to save.  The prints, however, were not as lucky.  Although some prints survived, mostly those also

in portfolios, most of them did not.  Therefore, even though most of the originals I've done over the years

have been sold, a good share of what is presented here are digital reproductions of those several originals I

still had in my possession.  Thanks to a highly evolved Nikon digital camera and a Canon iPF5100 17 inch

And so, we came upon an artist of superlative talent who was exhibiting his specialized art covering the

realm of timeless love from ancient times to the present, and some a combination of fantasy created in his

His name is William Monje, a serious but pleasant married man of 38, whose black and white color

drawings, etchings and wood blocks show Man and Maid in all forms of embraces down through the ages

Curiously enough, while Monje's work presents the idealistic and sensual side of love, they are a paradox of

the simple and the complex, the innocent and erotic, but with a delicate realism which takes them out of the

class of the crude and places them almost in the ethereal realm. There is a dreamy elfin touch that makes his

His work eschews the blatant and centers on finesse, delicacy and idealism. The works are whimsical, often

His backgrounds are carefully detailed to effect the time of the art in history. This gives them a classical

sense  . . . the timeless milieu. Yet his scenes are realistic . . . the costumes befitting the periods . . . faces

effecting historical accuracy and the actions elevated above the pragmatism abounding today in movies and

Boy and Girl, Man and Maid, young and old . . . what is man's greater emotion than  . . . of love? From the

ancient Egyptian Temples to the Acropolis of Greece... to the masterpieces of the Renaissance artists . . .

from the Victorian age down to the present time, the subject matter has preoccupied the great artists of all

time. Michelangelo, Da Vinci  . . . Renoir, Manet and so many others lent their talents to the theme.

Shakespeare, Browning, Lord Byron, Shelley and Keats  . . . as well as the great American Edgar Allen Poe

wrote immortal words to the Muse of Eros . . . and in 1975, psychologists, writers and artists still quest for