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The Internet is for . . .

2009 February 15
by Problem Sleuth

“So, how’s the smut business, Jackie?”

“I wouldn’t know, Dude. I deal in publishing. Entertainment. Political advocacy.”

“Oh. Which one’s ‘Logjammin’?'”

“Yes, regrettably, standards in adult entertainment have fallen. It’s video, Dude. Now that we’re competing with those amateurs, we can’t afford to invest in little extras like story . . . production value . . . FEELINGS . . . You know, people forget that the brain is the biggest erogenous zone.”

“On you, maybe.”

“Of course, you have to take the good with the bad. New technology permits us to do very exciting things in the field of interactive, erotic software. Wave of the future, Dude – one hundred percent electronic!”

“Yeah, well, I still jerk off manually.”

“Ah ha ha . . . ‘course you do.”

[-The Big Lebowski]

I sense there’s a paper to be written on this subject, whether or not it’s a paper for this class. I’m interested in what the pornography industry has done for (or against) gender relations.

I’m going to go ahead and start by saying that I believe that you can have works of fiction produced for the primary purpose of being sexually arousing without it objectifying or demeaning anyone. I think, however, that most people will agree that this just doesn’t happen very often.

Erotic writing and depictions have been around forever. I would have thought that things really took off for porn in the ’60’s, but the Almighty Wikipedia suggests that pornography has been widely produced for as long as there has been the technology for it. But that’s a pretty common thing, really; as soon as the means exist to make something sexy, someone makes it sexy. This is somewhat related to the Internet meme refered to as Rule 34: “If it exists, there is porn of it.” (Do not test Rule 34; it will only bring you unhappiness.)

And now we’ve come to the Internet. oh god, the Internet. If you’ve ever tried to look for anything on the Internet you know that it’s mostly porn. The traversable Internet is a web of long, plastic corridors at the bottom of an ocean of porn, and the slightest crack in the thin walls will release a torrent of distressing images and debilitating viruses.

But what does it MEAN? The porn of the Internet is not the porn of the pimply teenagers or grimy service-sector employees of yesteryear. It’s over-the-top. It’s people uploading grainy webcam videos of themselves. It’s content blatantly stolen from other websites to be re-sold. It’s riddled with hazardous software. It’s anthropomorphic foxes doing unspeakable things to one another. There’s no sexual special-interest group without representation somewhere within our series of tubes.

I’ve definitely heard complaints about porn being demeaning/objectifying. These I think are both true in a lot of cases. To me, though, more of the problem is what a lot of porn does to sex itself. I remember that last year my customs group as a whole watched a porn DVD my friend got for her 18th birthday. We would watch a scene for a few minutes, then someone would say ” . . . Does everyone basically get the gist of this scene?” and we’d fast-forward to the next scene (and let me say now that there are few things funnier than bad porn on fast-forward). Essentially, it made sex pretty boring. It was people with ridiculous outfits in ridiculous positions doing ridiculous things and it just wasn’t sexy. It reminds me of a rap video I watched with a bunch of women dancing around in bikinis. I thought as I watched it “Wow, they’re all exactly the same shape and doing exactly the same things. Could they BE any less interesting?”

I know erotica is interesting to a lot of people. Haverford has started up an erotica ‘zine that’s released one issue, and hopefully more to follow. My question is, how can you have something that’s arousing to read, watch, or look at but not completely base and offensive? There are people of both genders who want access to erotic media, but who can’t find anything that’s not appealing to the lowest common denominator, that insults their intelligence, desires, and morals at every turn. It’s depressing, but it seems that people don’t see the money in making truely engaging sexually exciting materials.

As the man says, people forget that the brain is the biggest erogenous zone.

4 Responses
  1. Melanie permalink
    February 15, 2009

    The point you brought up about the mindless aspect of porn is really interesting to me. In a sort of roundabout way, the fact that most porn is just a series of meaningless sexual encounters without intelligence or morality makes me think of a time when morality in film was at the top of everyone’s mind. When the Hays Production Code was written in the 1930s (by a Jesuit priest, for the record), it essentially blacklisted any topic that was considered “unsavory” for the public. The forbidden topics included everything from the depiction of illegal drugs and the disrespectful treatment of the American flag to “suggested sexual perversion” (which included homosexuality and STDs) and interracial relationships. When ‘Morocco’ was released in 1930, the first year the Code became effective, the only way to keep Marlene Dietrich’s lesbian kiss in the film was to tie it in with a key plot point which would be shattered by the removal of that scene. Near the end of the era of the Code, 1965’s ‘The Collector’ was also up for censorship for the illegality of Terence Stamp’s character getting away with murder at the end of the film. Rumor has it that the censor fell asleep during the screening and missed the ending, thus allowing it to pass uninhibited.

    Throughout the course of the Code, films were still being released without Code approval and were becoming box office smashes. There was still so much limitation for the sake of “public morality” and at the expense of intelligent dialogue. I think it’s an interesting thing to keep in mind when looking at the porn industry, which certainly doesn’t keep public morality in mind but still lacks intelligent dialogue. We are so much more socially liberated now; why can’t we manage to combine the two? There’s a website out there in the vastness of the Internet which deals exclusively in literary erotica (I won’t mention the name, for fear of a slightly scandalous pingback…), and at first glance one might think that this would be the source of something intelligent. But if you browse through the readings, while there are a few that choose to make social commentary, for the most part they are a reflection of the video porn that’s out there: lacking in mental stimulation and containing some truly atrocious grammar and spelling. Is there intelligent porn out there? Will there ever be something that can be labeled as intelligent porn?

    (Sorry, that wasn’t really on topic with most of your post. I sort of ran with it.)

  2. Solomon Lutze permalink
    February 15, 2009

    No, no, that was good. I think that it’s important to think about how much censorship forces this stuff underground (in one way or another) and thus maybe prevents it from being anything interesting or insightful.

    And I know the site you had in mind, and I will agree that the quality of the submissions is generally disappointing. Such is life.

  3. Cat Durante permalink
    February 27, 2009

    Hey Solomon,
    I totally agree with your later post about pornography and the tidbit you mentioned how men are hardly ever mentioned in pornography. As soon as I read that I thought of Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and how the only nudity in the film was his full-frontal shots. I thought that was pretty awesome of him since I think there are strict rules from the mpaa about make mudity on screen. He didn’t include the shots to look sexy or seductive but I think it was just for shock value which does raise some interesting comparisons to female nudity in film.I know Forgetting Sarah Marshall isn’t pornography but I think it’s interesting how male nudity is rarely seen but mostly to the extent that it provides a laugh and even in pornography, “the plumber” comes over to “fix the pipes” and you’re meant to laugh at his pants down. But women are seductive and sexy and we hardly laugh when they’re naked on screen. I think that’s just an interesting note.
    Also, your paper topic seems really interesting and I’ll definitely read it when you post it. I think what might help you too, if you have time before the paper is due, to see The Wrestler with Mickey Rourke. Marisa Tomei is a stripper and I think the film would make a great point in your paper about pornography. You raised the question of whether or not you can watch something arousing but not be insulted by it’s lack of plot or respect for the audience’s intelligence. Marisa Tomei basically showed that being a stripper doesn’t mean you have to take off your dignity or self-respect along with your clothes. I think you’ll find a good evaluation in there. Just a suggestion…good luck!

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