See, “porn” is a bogus term. Nudes are not “porn”. Nor are odalisques, nor even depictions of people having sex. Strictly speaking, pornography is writing about prostitutes. Prudes added the gloss, “…in order to titillate peurile interests and arouse lusts…” because they are anti-pleasure religious loons. Beyond that, what IS pornography? In the modern sense, I suppose, it’s the commercialization of erotic content. Not sure that’s corrosive or bad, other than the profit motive aspects, which lead to unfettered republicantism. As Craig Spector remarked, “It’s like art, people know it when they see it… but they have to see lots and lots of it to make sure.”
Yes, and the thing is, one man’s stiffie is another’s throw rug.
Behind this joke is the plain truth.
Hitchcock made PSYCHO as “the proverbial quality horror movie”. Everyone thought there had been none, and everyone thought they could make one. He did it, and the exception tested the rule.
Jeannine Smith said, “I’ll let you know if I ever see a porn film that is ‘art.’”
I asked her to explain her terms.
“I can’t say I’ve seen a lot of porn films, but the ones I’ve seen have rather poor production values, poor scripts, bad music, and lousy actors. Need I say more?”
LAST TANGO IN PARIS had great production values, actual sex, etc. What more would one want? Ah, but that is not the kind of movie people mean when they say porn, so the art did not count in this discussion.
Prudes would say, “It’s porn if it stimulates you sexually.” So they are linking their definition to the response, which is subjective and individual.
Further, given paraphilia, there is a wider range of things that stimulate individuals than we can possibly catalogue, so would movies about, say, shoes, which excite a shoe fetishist, be considered porn? For that small group, sure. Should it be castigated by society and banned, scorned by critics, censored? Seems wrong to demonize and punish something on the off-chance a few or even one might find it exciting in some way.
There goes all imagery everywhere, in fact, if we follow such an absurd standard.
Prudes usually argue, then, that community standards should set the bar. What are they, though? The general way is to wait until there is a protest, then take steps to shut things down before too many become riled. What this threshold is, no one can say. One complaint by a single spinster may be enough, or thousands of boilerplate form complaints organized by some religious or political group may suffice. Outrage is expressed in communities in different ways; people rioted when Marcel Duchamps exhibited “Nude Descending a Staircase”, and opera purists rioted when “Rites of Spring” by Igor Stravinsky debuted. In both cases the Academy or other authorities took swift action to ban either Cubism, along with Impressionism, or other categories of art, in Stravinsky’s case opera scores and librettos that challenged the established, staid norms of histrionics and hyperbole set by, say, Wagner.
So what IS the difference between porn and acceptable material?
This is not simply an academic question for me. I write erotica. I do not write pornography. Yet the distinction lies in a grey area, with many prudes sure I’m another Larry Flynt, (as if that’s a bad thing), while others are equally sure my work is simply good writing with honest sexuality in it. Along this spectrum there is room for each of us.
Jeannine Smith pointed out that LAST TANGO IN PARIS had a good story, great acting, and added, “the sex was not gratuitous”.
Eye of the beholder. Or other hand of the beholder…
So gratuitous sex is the key? Most “porn” is ONLY about sex, which makes it anything BUT gratuitous. They even call it “the money shot”when they show ejaculation or other forms of “proof of orgasm”. It is stylized and rather clinical, but in the language of erotic cinema, it’s now established form and function.
Many are repelled by such sequences. Many express their strong lack of interest in such movies, a protest that smacks of Shakespeare’s “too much” to my ears.
Keep in mind this is not a discussion about your subjective prudery levels. It never is when it comes to deciding what to allow and what to suppress, yet it is this variable, subjective standard that gets made into bad law. It is this sort of mewling that becomes appalling social convention.
We’ve all noticed how proud many of the censorious types are of never having seen such a movie or read such a book. If you don’t watch them, how do you know they’d arouse you? Perhaps they wouldn’t tempt you to sin at all. You might take a peek and find out you’re more sexualized by the neighbor’s grey cat, or a passing tail fin on a vintage car.
Chances are, though, the monkey see, monkey do rule will kick in. Our highly visual primate brains seem wired to get aroused when we see sexual activity, (or an uncovered chair leg… *blush*) This last refers to the many ways we attenuate, stretch out, extend our arousal triggers to inanimate objects. We do this to substitute, as a kind of concrete euphemism, and that way lies Fetish Junction.
Prudes clamp down on all this. They create the Victorian elaboration of sexuality into hair-trigger sensitivity and euphemistic substitutes for body parts or even ideas. Look up the term ‘tipping the velvet‘ if you’re not familiar with such a delight. I do not think you’re a prude, necessarily, dear reader. I refer to our in-born prudery gauge. Each of us has a line beyond which prudery kicks in. For some it’s simple nudity; remember Ashcroft covering up those statues that so aroused him? For others — Larry Flynt comes to mind — the most garish of horrific satire, the crudest of images of people’s bodies, leaves him unmoved. His line got crossed by Edwin Meese and other bluenoses. (hooray for him, by the way), whom he considered far more offensive than anything merely human.
Why is porn so popular? It has been mainstreamed; how’d that happen? Can it be that we all check out what society so sneeringly calls ‘porn’?
Yes, everyone sees some. It is unavoidable; ask the Amish. My wife and I used to watch soft core Emanuelle movies on cable out of plain curiosity. They were fine, no big deal, certainly not all that exciting, but also not offensive. Since the advent of the internet our sons have introduced us to a much wider, deeper, and stranger world. Do you know tentacle hentai, for a tame example? Bukkake? Shibari and Kinbaku?
Sorry, Japan, but many of the extremes seem to come from your mizo shobai.
Sexual imagery is used in advertising, in academia, in the feminism of Camille Paglia, even in the phallic shapes of our skyscrapers and airplanes, the vaginal shapes of our cathedral entrances and subway tunnels.
Now consider A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Kubrick’s cinema version of Burgess’s novel is brilliantly calculated to push certain buttons. In it he slyly switches the content of pornography from sex to violence as Alex is reprogrammed in the Ludovico technique’s cruelty. Grand men with good intentions want to make violence literally sicken Alex, so he can be reformed from criminal to law-abiding citizen. What they do not foresee is how this disarms him entirely when dealing with modern society, which is, itself, rooted in an economy of violence. Trying so hard to humanize, they dehumanize.
Sound familiar? If not, consider such terms as reformatory, penitentiary, and correctional facility. All are prisons, jails, concrete and steel boxes where we torture those law and society have chosen for punishment.
Interestingly, American censors insisted Kubrick alter his images, and in response he did a rather clever thing. There were two major scenes objected to, one in which Alex and two women have sex together in his room, another where a gang of males rape a female on a stage. In both instances, Kubrick simply changed the depth of field, so that both scenes in the American version look distant. It’s like looking through the wrong end of a telescope. In this way, he was allowed past our ridiculous censors, who entirely missed the whole point of those and other scenes. Then, years later, along came EYES WIDE SHUT, and suddenly Kubrick was censored again, a defacement of his art that stands to this day. We are not legally permitted to obtain an unaltered copy of EYES WIDE SHUT stateside. Why? In a rather passive, static orgy scene, demonstrating the decadence and lack of passion of the ruling elite, Tom Cruise looks on and, OH MY GOD, gets an erection. The censors went wild, and demanded that be eliminated, along with any other glimpses of male appendage or actual sex.
All this, in a country where Quentin Tarrantino’s desensitizing stylized violence is celebrated, and no movie I can think of has been censored due to violence.
Were it the other way around, I’d think we’d not be facing down all the mass shootings.
Fetuses masturbate. They have it on film. Is that porn? To some, I’m sure it would be. To most, it is an interesting, odd little fact. It does demonstrate, however, that our urge to pleasure is innate, not learned, and to suppress it is to deny a huge part of our humanity. Suppressing what is natural causes problems, some of them viciously violent in nature.
Make love, not war. That’s what the Hippies said. They were right, on more levels than we knew.
Let’s stop the violence-is-golden economy of war and death, fear and hate. Let’s set up an economy of kindness, compassion, and love.
Yes, more Hippie-dippy stuff. Guess what? It works, when allowed. Let’s insist we give it a solid try.
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