Deprived no longer: $225 erotic book finally allows the blind access to “culture saturated with sexual images”

Toronto photographer Lisa J. Murphy wanted to give blind people something they have never had access to—tactile pictures of nudes for adults—because, as she told the Star, the blind have been “left out” in a culture saturated with sexual images. So she created Tactile Mind, a handmade soft-core book containing 17 3-D images (each takes about 50 hours to create), along with explicit text about the image. One of the accompanying descriptions reads:

A tactile picture of a naked man dressed as a bunny rabbit. He wears a paper bag mask, maxi pads across his chest, and a toilet paper roll with cotton balls around his penis. Paper hearts decorate the background.

Since each copy is labour intensive to make, they cost $225 (find them at This Ain’t the Rosedale Library and Northbound Leather), but sales haven’t been too brisk. Maybe it’s because a man wearing feminine hygiene products isn’t that sexy, or maybe it’s because Torontonians can find other paths to arousal—we’re looking at you, “busty hookers.”

• For those who cannot see, erotica in 3-D [Toronto Star]
• Erotica for the Blind [Salon]
• Pornographic magazine for the blind launched [The Telegraph]