Lisa J. Murphy doesn’t make ordinary books. They are not ordinary because instead of reading them you touch them. Her book “Tactile Mind,” which she hand-crafted herself, is meant to be felt up, to be precise. It is an erotic book for the blind and visually impaired, though it can be enjoyed by the sighted as well.
A photographer with a certificate in Tactile Graphics from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, Murphy learned to create touchable images of animals for books for visually impaired children. Then she realized that there was a lack of such books for adults only.
“There are no books of tactile pictures of nudes for adults, at least the last time I looked around,” says Murphy. “We’re breaking new ground. Playboy has (an edition with) Braille wording, but there are no pictures.”
She says that while we live in a culture saturated with sexual images, the blind have been “left out.”
There are more than 836,000 Canadians living with significant vision loss, according to the CNIB. As the population ages over the coming decade, this number is expected to rise dramatically. Though porn for the blind sounds like an oxymoron, Murphy assures that it is not.
“Tactile Mind” is half art object, half artisanal concept book. It contains explicit softcore images that are raised from its pages, along with Braille text and photos. The effect of the tactile, plastic “images” is a bit like that of an ancient Greek bas-relief. Or, somewhat less precisely, a smutty pop-up book with a pretty heavy $225 price tag.
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