So I've come across two problems in the PPP, one is the transitory nature of the internet.
Okay so here is the deal. I want to turn the context that pronography is presented in as a text in of itself. I can do that because I just did. So the actual text that appears on a pornographic website, the back of the movie, and those weird random acting scenes that happen between sex scenes in certain pornos I want to take all of these things, seperate them out and turn up the heat on them. It is hard to use direct quotes with internet sources though because internet porn sites tend to be rather fly by night. Also it is going to be nearly impossible to go and verify what the back of extreame gaping three says. I like quotes, they ground your argument and give you something concreate to work from before you go flying off to mars.
No matter, exteame paraphrasing for the win! Also I think we are in a pretty universal state here.
Okay so this is the way it is going to go. Brainstorm!
Start by talking about the metaphysical problems with pornography, specifically discussing how a real sex act becomes a represntation of a sex act as a result of both how the movie is filmed and how the movie is initially presented.
Transission into how not all porn is created equal, how fetish porn differentiates from, gay porn, child porn, crushing, et cetera. This might be the section where I throw Mrs. Dworkin around and make her look right. In fact yes do that.
While Dworkin is wrong about the pron itself she is right about the way it is presented. They are all made to look like disgusting whores. First we will explore the rhetorical effects of the language surrounding the videos. It's effects are multiple, sets up the other, reduces guilt by dehumanizing the actresses, catches the talk dirty to me fetish, catches the domination fetish. It also reduces feelings of sympathy or remorse for the actors/actresses involved setting up a senario in which they are both used, and willing to be used.
Transistion into Lacan. This is where the shit gets real. Page 429 in the Ecrits book has the formula that I need to use. The language surrounding the image is the Signifyer. The image itself becomes the signified. What ends up happening though is that a metaphor ends up being formed where the image becomes a metaphore for "sluts doing dirty things" instead of leaving the image as an empty set. As a result the fact that we are watching a real sex act never enters into the equation. It becomes a simulated sex act that ends up passing for the real.
Okay I think that is right.
My head kind of hurts.
I need to review the metaphor stuff in Lacan to make sure I've gotten it right. I think I did. See the picture itself is also part of the metaphor as the meaning surrouning the picture then becomes transposed onto the picture itself, basicly this is the way captions work. The problem is that these captions are ending up being detrimental to the way these people work and on and on it goes.
Okay so I think I got half of the essay done. This doesn't actually cover the porno plot things that will be more of the simulation simulacra thing. Then when both are present the whole thing gets really crazy fun.
Showing posts with label ppp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ppp. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
I am really hungry
So I reserve the right to cut this short at any moment I feel like and rush off to my home where I will eat a to-go box full of chicken, pasta, and love. I did that last night. Then I tried to type up a blog entry at home. For some reason I typed it up in note pad and the whole thing god lost because I am a moron. So first order of business? Reconstruction!
It is prolly for the best though, last night, for whatever reason I was fucking exhausted so my though process just sort of collapsed in on itself and refused to go fowards. As it turns out I have underestimated the metaphysical complextities that pornography has to offer. Yeah who would of thunk? See on a superficial level it is easy to work with. However, as soon as you start getting more in depth with it all superficiality falls apart into a pile of dust and ashes. Or like a lead rake, as has become one of my new favorite phrases.
So tearing it down and working my way back up again. I want, for the first essay, to look at how pornography and reality jive within the metaphysical constraints of Baudrillard. The short answer is that it isn't very nicely. The thing is though that the long answer is long, not just long but it is this cascading fail spiral that shoots outwards into the sky like some glorious fail beacon. I think I got it though so lets see if I can get it done this time without melting down.
Generic Hardcore straight porn is a spectacular example of the real's ability to slip into the hyperreal. See in ordinary media there is a barrier between the real and the hyperreal. Yes there is. I am putting it there deal with it. Okay I guess it isn't much of a barrier but something is there. When a media crosses from they hyper real to the real it is the viewer that acts as a conduit. A piece of media isn't inherently hyperreal. Nor is viewing the media an inherently hyperreal act. However, viewing the media, taking away inpressions and then forcefully imposing those impressions over the real regardless of what the real is? Now that is how we get people living in a hyper real state. See everything that happens on TV is staged, especially most reality tv shows. So looking to a sitcom for advice as to how to ask a girl out is a bad idea. Better yet go read Being There. It sums up this point with righteous perfection.
Soft core porn also falls into the above example because the elements within softcore porn nessistate that the actual sex act is faked. The thing about hard core porn is that the actual sex act is real. You know that shot. THe extreme closeup shot of the penis going into the vagina over and over again, relentlessly until you are so bored and turned off that you idlely wonder if star trek is on? Yeah that shot doesn't really excist for any direct erotic value. They do excist however to show you the viewer that the sex you are seeing is real. This is actual sex. The image on the screen isn't what is important. Its actually kinda gross. No what is important is the real sex that is happening. Along similar lines, the money shot excists to demonstrate to people that here is a man! And his orgasam happened. Ironically, with the exception of female ejaculation, the precariouse reality of the female orgasam is ignored. Sometimes they are visable, most times they simply pass by without any real concern. Since there is no visible way to prove she had an orgasam or is faking it we just let her make those awful moaning sounds and go with it. The money shot though? You see that, it happens. It is actually called the money shot because that is what people are paying to see. It is the irrefutable proof that what was just seen was sex, the man has just recieved maximal pleasure, and now some jizz covered girl would like a towel and that camera out of her face.
The thing is that while the sex is real, the actual portrayal of the sex act is so wildly staged that there is no way to call it anything other than hyperreality. More so than reality television which shares more aspects of sitcoms and game shows than anything actually real. Pornography takes a real act and turns it into this bizzarely staged hyperreal construct. When porn tries to shakily add a story, it gets even worse. Worse to the point where you are left wondering what the hell did they even bother for.
Oh then there is the "sex video" porn where couples send in thier sex videos to this site and this helps supposedly to short circuit the sterilized hyperreal approche that mainstream porn takes. Because, the people involved in the movie are actually undergoing the physilocial effects of sexual intercourse, and the point of the hardcore porn is to demonstrate this as much as possible it removes the barrier that most media has between the viewer and the real. Everything that happens in porn is possible. Why? Cause it just happened.
Now the results of that? I dunno. That is where I am stuck. HUNGRY. Okay so I am going to lay out some things and then I am going to fucking eat because I really really want to. Well lets start with something easy and go south. I don't beleive that pornography is the cause of rape, rape culture, sexual repression, deviance, or anything like that. Hell I don't even believe in deviance. Wow I just realized that. I make up deviant... later. Okay so lets move onto pornography addiction, unhealthy sex as a result of porn, and hilarious emergency room stories. Now that is a grayer area which I think gets at the heart of the situation a little bit better. I can fame pornographic addiction within the terms of hyperreality in a couple of diffrent ways depending on the severity and type of addiction. This is good. The only way to be unaffected by pornography though is to either be specificly examining it on a metaphysical level and that' iffy. Or to understand the entirerty of what I am saying and to know that while everything depiced in the porn is possible, pulling my dick out of her mouth mid blowjob and jizzing in her face is more likely to get me punched rather than to just have her sit there smiling like she is a series of wet holes that excists for my pleasure.
Ugh this is just the start, The series of wet holes thing is something I am adressing in another essay and it will compare and contrast the way fetish porn and normal porn approch their subject. Essentially they approch their subject in exactly the same way, however the resluts are diffrent due to the fact that fetish porn is just plain diffrent.
Woop.
Okay the hunger pains are subsiding so lets do a little thing with the actual essay proper. I want to finnish reading Simulacra and Simulation. Or at least I want the things I think are going to be relevent read. Then I think we are going to be talking about non fetish hard core porn. I want to focus on two Jenna Jameson videos. One lesbian, one generic porn. I want to focus not on the actual sex act itself, but all the random, bizzare leadup to the actual sex act. So what the hell was all the above about? Yeah that will be in there too, however, the lead up makes the actual sex act seem less real when it is infact anything but. People will end up in these exceedingly bizzare situations which end in sex understanding what is actually going on with the sex in reffrence to hyperreality is nessisary when trying to figgure out what the hell is going on with all that crap that is happening before the actual sex. Cause that whole leadup stuff? Veeeeeerrrrry interesting.
It is prolly for the best though, last night, for whatever reason I was fucking exhausted so my though process just sort of collapsed in on itself and refused to go fowards. As it turns out I have underestimated the metaphysical complextities that pornography has to offer. Yeah who would of thunk? See on a superficial level it is easy to work with. However, as soon as you start getting more in depth with it all superficiality falls apart into a pile of dust and ashes. Or like a lead rake, as has become one of my new favorite phrases.
So tearing it down and working my way back up again. I want, for the first essay, to look at how pornography and reality jive within the metaphysical constraints of Baudrillard. The short answer is that it isn't very nicely. The thing is though that the long answer is long, not just long but it is this cascading fail spiral that shoots outwards into the sky like some glorious fail beacon. I think I got it though so lets see if I can get it done this time without melting down.
Generic Hardcore straight porn is a spectacular example of the real's ability to slip into the hyperreal. See in ordinary media there is a barrier between the real and the hyperreal. Yes there is. I am putting it there deal with it. Okay I guess it isn't much of a barrier but something is there. When a media crosses from they hyper real to the real it is the viewer that acts as a conduit. A piece of media isn't inherently hyperreal. Nor is viewing the media an inherently hyperreal act. However, viewing the media, taking away inpressions and then forcefully imposing those impressions over the real regardless of what the real is? Now that is how we get people living in a hyper real state. See everything that happens on TV is staged, especially most reality tv shows. So looking to a sitcom for advice as to how to ask a girl out is a bad idea. Better yet go read Being There. It sums up this point with righteous perfection.
Soft core porn also falls into the above example because the elements within softcore porn nessistate that the actual sex act is faked. The thing about hard core porn is that the actual sex act is real. You know that shot. THe extreme closeup shot of the penis going into the vagina over and over again, relentlessly until you are so bored and turned off that you idlely wonder if star trek is on? Yeah that shot doesn't really excist for any direct erotic value. They do excist however to show you the viewer that the sex you are seeing is real. This is actual sex. The image on the screen isn't what is important. Its actually kinda gross. No what is important is the real sex that is happening. Along similar lines, the money shot excists to demonstrate to people that here is a man! And his orgasam happened. Ironically, with the exception of female ejaculation, the precariouse reality of the female orgasam is ignored. Sometimes they are visable, most times they simply pass by without any real concern. Since there is no visible way to prove she had an orgasam or is faking it we just let her make those awful moaning sounds and go with it. The money shot though? You see that, it happens. It is actually called the money shot because that is what people are paying to see. It is the irrefutable proof that what was just seen was sex, the man has just recieved maximal pleasure, and now some jizz covered girl would like a towel and that camera out of her face.
The thing is that while the sex is real, the actual portrayal of the sex act is so wildly staged that there is no way to call it anything other than hyperreality. More so than reality television which shares more aspects of sitcoms and game shows than anything actually real. Pornography takes a real act and turns it into this bizzarely staged hyperreal construct. When porn tries to shakily add a story, it gets even worse. Worse to the point where you are left wondering what the hell did they even bother for.
Oh then there is the "sex video" porn where couples send in thier sex videos to this site and this helps supposedly to short circuit the sterilized hyperreal approche that mainstream porn takes. Because, the people involved in the movie are actually undergoing the physilocial effects of sexual intercourse, and the point of the hardcore porn is to demonstrate this as much as possible it removes the barrier that most media has between the viewer and the real. Everything that happens in porn is possible. Why? Cause it just happened.
Now the results of that? I dunno. That is where I am stuck. HUNGRY. Okay so I am going to lay out some things and then I am going to fucking eat because I really really want to. Well lets start with something easy and go south. I don't beleive that pornography is the cause of rape, rape culture, sexual repression, deviance, or anything like that. Hell I don't even believe in deviance. Wow I just realized that. I make up deviant... later. Okay so lets move onto pornography addiction, unhealthy sex as a result of porn, and hilarious emergency room stories. Now that is a grayer area which I think gets at the heart of the situation a little bit better. I can fame pornographic addiction within the terms of hyperreality in a couple of diffrent ways depending on the severity and type of addiction. This is good. The only way to be unaffected by pornography though is to either be specificly examining it on a metaphysical level and that' iffy. Or to understand the entirerty of what I am saying and to know that while everything depiced in the porn is possible, pulling my dick out of her mouth mid blowjob and jizzing in her face is more likely to get me punched rather than to just have her sit there smiling like she is a series of wet holes that excists for my pleasure.
Ugh this is just the start, The series of wet holes thing is something I am adressing in another essay and it will compare and contrast the way fetish porn and normal porn approch their subject. Essentially they approch their subject in exactly the same way, however the resluts are diffrent due to the fact that fetish porn is just plain diffrent.
Woop.
Okay the hunger pains are subsiding so lets do a little thing with the actual essay proper. I want to finnish reading Simulacra and Simulation. Or at least I want the things I think are going to be relevent read. Then I think we are going to be talking about non fetish hard core porn. I want to focus on two Jenna Jameson videos. One lesbian, one generic porn. I want to focus not on the actual sex act itself, but all the random, bizzare leadup to the actual sex act. So what the hell was all the above about? Yeah that will be in there too, however, the lead up makes the actual sex act seem less real when it is infact anything but. People will end up in these exceedingly bizzare situations which end in sex understanding what is actually going on with the sex in reffrence to hyperreality is nessisary when trying to figgure out what the hell is going on with all that crap that is happening before the actual sex. Cause that whole leadup stuff? Veeeeeerrrrry interesting.
Friday, December 25, 2009
PPP: Genra
You know the funny thing is that if nothing else comes out of the PPP breaking the monolithic porno superstructure into manageable parts is kind of an amazing step fowards. I am almost sad that I am going to be the one to do it because it really does make sense. When you say pornography is harmful, you are including that picture of some naked chick sitting in a chair making a kissy face. When you say pornography isn't harmful you are including child porn, crushing, and rape videos. So yeah breaking this up a little bit is going to be a good idea. It is also pretty much the place to start so 'ere we go!
Starting broad and working our way down:
Soft Core- Naked chick making the kissy face, skinamax, and all those other things are softcore porn. A good way to measure it, is to ask, is the sex act being depicted real? Hint if there is no sex act and you are just looking at some naked dude then you are kicking it softcore. No actual penatration, pretty much means soft core territory. Oral sex, and other things like that? It doesn't matter what I say because people will argue either way. I'm going to say that actual cock in mouth, to ejaculation is wandering into hardcore territory. Where as hands on upper body private parts, kissing, that sort of thing keeps it closer to soft core territory.
Hard Core- Hard core is the sex act being depicted is actually real. So there is actual penetration, or multiple penetrations, there is lots of real baby batter being slung around. All that fits into hard core. Hard core is massive.
Note that neither of these definitions rely on numbers or genders. So if you have 57 Transexuals all standing around naked...soft core. Where as two women using a double sided dildo is hardcore. There is also no allusion to quality. Hardcore and soft core can all be equally trashy, or refined.
Fetish- Fetish pornography is something that adds an additional element into the mix that sexualizes something that is non sexual. Spanking, insertion, bondage, fully clothed sex, water sports, the use of religiouse iconography, clowns, these all fit into the fetish category. Note that fetish doesn't stand totally on its own. So it is possible to have softcore fetish porn & Hardcore fetish porn. It is important to seperate fetish porn out because it definatly plays by a diffrent series of rules. Note there is a diffrence between Fetish porn and things that just make us squimish. So fisting for example, makes me squimish, however, it is not a fetish thing, it is a hand going into a vagina. Whereas a foot, 4 Zucchin, 1 Squid, a stump left by an amputated limb, or a barbie doll would all be consindered fetish porn because it is taking something non sexual and turning it into something sexual.
Art- This one is going to be controversial. However, there is porn out there, that is still very much porn, but it tries to do something else other than just be straight up porn. This is a result of either production values, them doing something exparamental, or just trying to make a statement with the porn itself. This category will make more sense when I do the art/porn venn diagram in a lil bit. This is prolly also a very small genra at the moment. Lots of softcore porn fits into the this area. People who like to tastefully photograph nudes? Art porn look at that. Whereas the destricted project, is an example of hardcore art porn. This is also here to purposly confuddle the art/porn divide. Cause why not?
Finally there is:
Bad Porn- Bad porn is porn that just about everyone can agree is bad. Bad bad bad. This includes things like childporn, rape porn, crushing, and snuff. Yeah yeah the fbi claims that they have never found a real snuff film. Right, cause they did such a bang up job uncovering the 9/11 plot, as well as the amazing work they do curbing the drug trade. Really? The fbi hasn't found something? Holy shit you don't say.
Rant on the fbi's failures aside this pretty much covers everything. It feels weird breaking things into genras it isn't something I am good at, nor is it something I paticularly agree with. See people get way to fixated on genras and they start coming up with all these strange micro genras that really aren't nessisary. I mean look at meatal, you have black metal, speed metal, doom metal, drone metal, goth metal, as well as a whole bunch of others when in reality each of these genras only covers a small handful of bands. I've kept each genra loosely definied and it is OKAY to have something fit into more than one genra. Some people like the ultra specificity of micro genras. I would talk about these people dismissivly but sasha is one of them and she can beat me up. It is one of those things we disagree on but don't argue about because really? At the end of the day I have people for that sort of thing. New genras will be developed and that's all well and good. Getting the ball rolling is the most important part.
It also helps make the whole subject become so much less monolithic. I mean jesus christ, do people know how silly they sound when they say pornography is/does/says X? Hell the first part of the project was going to be on the pornography pattern, but I've changed it up to be the pornography checklist because people keep doing it in diffrent order. Good. Well looks like this is just about wrapped up. Barns and Noble totally lost my order so I am not able to go do things like read Simulacrum and Simulation. Though I realize that at some point I am going to have to address Foucault. I. Don't. Fucking. Want. To. I'm going to do it anyway. It is such a miserable chore though and he doesn't really adress anything I am writting about. He uses endless historical examples that go on FOREVER to make relativly minor points. Also the whole knowlage/power thing? I dunno it doesn't really seem to fit in. Not when I am doing real people like Bauldillard and Lacan. Since I am returning the discussion of porn back to its actual basics, by looking at actual porn then writting about that the way I would a novel, Foucault doesn't seem all to paticularly applicable.
Oh well. I might be able to do something with the panopticon and voyerism or something like that. That has some promise, but it isn't really postmodern, it is panotpicomics which is something I consider to be diffrent. If I do anything with Foucault it will be power relations in BDSM. Though ultimatly I would rather do somehting about how the bdsm porn enforces power relations, whereas most bdsm relationships have a symbiotic relationship to them. My source texts would be some generic bdsm pornos, Venus in Furs, and Secretary. I'd flip that mother fucker on his ear I would. See though, it doesn't really fit into my project though so I guess not. Eh whatever fuck Foucault, sure he makes some valid points but only in very limited situations.
Whatever that chick that tackled the pope, she should of grabbed Foucault while she had the chance.
See Bauldillard is directly useful. He talks about the dangers of putting our ideas of what the real is before the real itself. He also talks about how things are so fake that they make the rest of the world seem super real. These two ideas, right there? Yeah 15 page essays easy. See take the idea of putting ideas of the real before the real. Women have cosmo, men have porn. You put the two of them together and it is no wonder why people's ideas of what actually happens during sex is so fucked up.
Oh well back to work I'll get back to this some more later.
Starting broad and working our way down:
Soft Core- Naked chick making the kissy face, skinamax, and all those other things are softcore porn. A good way to measure it, is to ask, is the sex act being depicted real? Hint if there is no sex act and you are just looking at some naked dude then you are kicking it softcore. No actual penatration, pretty much means soft core territory. Oral sex, and other things like that? It doesn't matter what I say because people will argue either way. I'm going to say that actual cock in mouth, to ejaculation is wandering into hardcore territory. Where as hands on upper body private parts, kissing, that sort of thing keeps it closer to soft core territory.
Hard Core- Hard core is the sex act being depicted is actually real. So there is actual penetration, or multiple penetrations, there is lots of real baby batter being slung around. All that fits into hard core. Hard core is massive.
Note that neither of these definitions rely on numbers or genders. So if you have 57 Transexuals all standing around naked...soft core. Where as two women using a double sided dildo is hardcore. There is also no allusion to quality. Hardcore and soft core can all be equally trashy, or refined.
Fetish- Fetish pornography is something that adds an additional element into the mix that sexualizes something that is non sexual. Spanking, insertion, bondage, fully clothed sex, water sports, the use of religiouse iconography, clowns, these all fit into the fetish category. Note that fetish doesn't stand totally on its own. So it is possible to have softcore fetish porn & Hardcore fetish porn. It is important to seperate fetish porn out because it definatly plays by a diffrent series of rules. Note there is a diffrence between Fetish porn and things that just make us squimish. So fisting for example, makes me squimish, however, it is not a fetish thing, it is a hand going into a vagina. Whereas a foot, 4 Zucchin, 1 Squid, a stump left by an amputated limb, or a barbie doll would all be consindered fetish porn because it is taking something non sexual and turning it into something sexual.
Art- This one is going to be controversial. However, there is porn out there, that is still very much porn, but it tries to do something else other than just be straight up porn. This is a result of either production values, them doing something exparamental, or just trying to make a statement with the porn itself. This category will make more sense when I do the art/porn venn diagram in a lil bit. This is prolly also a very small genra at the moment. Lots of softcore porn fits into the this area. People who like to tastefully photograph nudes? Art porn look at that. Whereas the destricted project, is an example of hardcore art porn. This is also here to purposly confuddle the art/porn divide. Cause why not?
Finally there is:
Bad Porn- Bad porn is porn that just about everyone can agree is bad. Bad bad bad. This includes things like childporn, rape porn, crushing, and snuff. Yeah yeah the fbi claims that they have never found a real snuff film. Right, cause they did such a bang up job uncovering the 9/11 plot, as well as the amazing work they do curbing the drug trade. Really? The fbi hasn't found something? Holy shit you don't say.
Rant on the fbi's failures aside this pretty much covers everything. It feels weird breaking things into genras it isn't something I am good at, nor is it something I paticularly agree with. See people get way to fixated on genras and they start coming up with all these strange micro genras that really aren't nessisary. I mean look at meatal, you have black metal, speed metal, doom metal, drone metal, goth metal, as well as a whole bunch of others when in reality each of these genras only covers a small handful of bands. I've kept each genra loosely definied and it is OKAY to have something fit into more than one genra. Some people like the ultra specificity of micro genras. I would talk about these people dismissivly but sasha is one of them and she can beat me up. It is one of those things we disagree on but don't argue about because really? At the end of the day I have people for that sort of thing. New genras will be developed and that's all well and good. Getting the ball rolling is the most important part.
It also helps make the whole subject become so much less monolithic. I mean jesus christ, do people know how silly they sound when they say pornography is/does/says X? Hell the first part of the project was going to be on the pornography pattern, but I've changed it up to be the pornography checklist because people keep doing it in diffrent order. Good. Well looks like this is just about wrapped up. Barns and Noble totally lost my order so I am not able to go do things like read Simulacrum and Simulation. Though I realize that at some point I am going to have to address Foucault. I. Don't. Fucking. Want. To. I'm going to do it anyway. It is such a miserable chore though and he doesn't really adress anything I am writting about. He uses endless historical examples that go on FOREVER to make relativly minor points. Also the whole knowlage/power thing? I dunno it doesn't really seem to fit in. Not when I am doing real people like Bauldillard and Lacan. Since I am returning the discussion of porn back to its actual basics, by looking at actual porn then writting about that the way I would a novel, Foucault doesn't seem all to paticularly applicable.
Oh well. I might be able to do something with the panopticon and voyerism or something like that. That has some promise, but it isn't really postmodern, it is panotpicomics which is something I consider to be diffrent. If I do anything with Foucault it will be power relations in BDSM. Though ultimatly I would rather do somehting about how the bdsm porn enforces power relations, whereas most bdsm relationships have a symbiotic relationship to them. My source texts would be some generic bdsm pornos, Venus in Furs, and Secretary. I'd flip that mother fucker on his ear I would. See though, it doesn't really fit into my project though so I guess not. Eh whatever fuck Foucault, sure he makes some valid points but only in very limited situations.
Whatever that chick that tackled the pope, she should of grabbed Foucault while she had the chance.
See Bauldillard is directly useful. He talks about the dangers of putting our ideas of what the real is before the real itself. He also talks about how things are so fake that they make the rest of the world seem super real. These two ideas, right there? Yeah 15 page essays easy. See take the idea of putting ideas of the real before the real. Women have cosmo, men have porn. You put the two of them together and it is no wonder why people's ideas of what actually happens during sex is so fucked up.
Oh well back to work I'll get back to this some more later.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Post Modernism Pornography Project opening shots
This is where it is all going to begin. Right here. I still have a lot of reading to do, luckily I actually ordered a copy of Simulacrum and Simulation along with Ecrits, so they should be coming in the mail any day now. I hope to be elbow deep in them soon. 1000 Plateaus, while it is something I love dearly, is not something I can use as a foundational step in my writting. So it has gone back to the shelf temporarly because it was really forcing me to get off track. Rizomatics will work best for extreame fetish pornography not, your baseline Jenna Jameson stuff which is where I am starting from.
Still getting some foundational thought work done will go a long way twords making thins whole thing go smoothly.
And so, what is pornography?
Oh fuck. Project over.
Just kidding. Seriously though pornography is something that needs a definition to it. And it needs to be better than "You'll know it when you see it" though I do bless the supreme court for that decision. No worries though I am not 12 people 7 of whom must agree with me, I am an army of one. I am army strong as well.
The inhenent problem with coming up with a deifination of pornography is the art porn divide. See art and porn share a one way binary relationship. Something is either art or it is porn. Porn can never be considered art, and art can never be considered porn. Even attempts to confuddle the barrier like the Destrictided project which is a series of short art films which all feature real sex acts, is hailed as an art film and doesn't make the pornographic rounds the same way as...well porn does. Once we understand this binary opposition it becomes very easy to break down. Why is there such a clear opposition? Simple! Pornography has sevearly negative conotations to it, whereas art has a protected status in our, ie american, mindset.
So when coming up with a definition of pornography they only real descision is what bullet do we choose to bite?
I've come up with 2 analogies to help make this work, the horror movie analogy and the action movie analogy. We are going to start off with the horror movie one because it is the bad one.
Saw. Getting a good solid definition of porn can be easily done through Saw. When most people are dismissing the saw movies, they will dismiss them as torture porn. That is to saw that the plot is nothing more than a thin veneer for getting people trapped in ludicris situations and watching them try to escape as they inflict horrible amounts of pain on themselves and others. Hostel is another great example, as is House of 1000 Corpses. These movies excist in only the flimsyest sense of the word. They have the bearest trappings of plot and setting just so that the gore effects have a vehicle for which you can ride in. There is actually a genra of extreme German gore film which is nothing but an endless repitition of gore effects. They are really boring to watch. Never the less we continue onwards.
This definition fits porn extreamly well, however, it has sevearly negative conotations to it. Also despite several attempts by many directors horror movies have yet to really breach that art/entertainment gap. They still fit neatly into a sort of dull turgid genra of exploitation, even with offerings such as Inside, Eyes Without a Face, and The Devils Rejects, the genra itself is poorly regarded. Which is all porn will ever be. Poorly regarded, and that's not the point of this project. I want porn to be more than its set peices. It isn't most of the time but I see nothing wrong in demanding higher quality porn. I'll go into it more later but I am running out of time so lets get to its flip side.
The flip side is the action movie. Action movies are a diverse genera. It has its share of trash. Okay let's face it most of the genra is trash. However, it does have some highly entertaining entries, 5th Element, Con Air, The Rock, and Die Hard 3: Die Hard with a Vengence. Man that movie has a long title. Oh I forgot Leathal Weap... never mind. Then there are some entrants into the genra that are actually quite clever, Fight Club is an amazingly intelegent movie that breaks the third wall, has a non linear narrative, all without the movie goers really noticing. You'll even have people arguing that Fight Club is more of a Drama than an action movie because they don't want that action movie association. It is though deal. There is also Crank, Crank is one of the most visually clever movies in years, it gives all sorts of nods to the audience regarding the fact that the main charecter is kinda dumb but that's okay cause we like him anyway. Crank also beats up on the third wall showing off the fact that it is a movie and we can all relax.
This is where pornography needs to be. Instead of dismissing it as we do the horror genra, sorry horror genra, we can maintain a more healthy relationship to it. I am not shooting for the stars here, but to put it on the same ideological level as the action movie. They have the potential for greatness, they have the potential to be meaningless acts of entertainment, and the genra is mostly crap.
Right now, we see pornography as something that is directly wrong. We have laws about viewing it, and I can't get a couple of paintings I needed to illustrate some other points I was going to make because my work has banned sites with nudity, including...art nudity. So when I get back to this again on... Wendsday? Maybe? I'll start breaking down the art/porn barrier I'll also make those analogies make more sense as I go along. You'll get it. The idea is to make porn not so strange and alien.
Oh I also want to break porn down into gereas because right now when I say porn I am emcompassing everything from softcore to crushing and that's just a little to broad. Yar I want my books damnit I am excited!
Still getting some foundational thought work done will go a long way twords making thins whole thing go smoothly.
And so, what is pornography?
Oh fuck. Project over.
Just kidding. Seriously though pornography is something that needs a definition to it. And it needs to be better than "You'll know it when you see it" though I do bless the supreme court for that decision. No worries though I am not 12 people 7 of whom must agree with me, I am an army of one. I am army strong as well.
The inhenent problem with coming up with a deifination of pornography is the art porn divide. See art and porn share a one way binary relationship. Something is either art or it is porn. Porn can never be considered art, and art can never be considered porn. Even attempts to confuddle the barrier like the Destrictided project which is a series of short art films which all feature real sex acts, is hailed as an art film and doesn't make the pornographic rounds the same way as...well porn does. Once we understand this binary opposition it becomes very easy to break down. Why is there such a clear opposition? Simple! Pornography has sevearly negative conotations to it, whereas art has a protected status in our, ie american, mindset.
So when coming up with a definition of pornography they only real descision is what bullet do we choose to bite?
I've come up with 2 analogies to help make this work, the horror movie analogy and the action movie analogy. We are going to start off with the horror movie one because it is the bad one.
Saw. Getting a good solid definition of porn can be easily done through Saw. When most people are dismissing the saw movies, they will dismiss them as torture porn. That is to saw that the plot is nothing more than a thin veneer for getting people trapped in ludicris situations and watching them try to escape as they inflict horrible amounts of pain on themselves and others. Hostel is another great example, as is House of 1000 Corpses. These movies excist in only the flimsyest sense of the word. They have the bearest trappings of plot and setting just so that the gore effects have a vehicle for which you can ride in. There is actually a genra of extreme German gore film which is nothing but an endless repitition of gore effects. They are really boring to watch. Never the less we continue onwards.
This definition fits porn extreamly well, however, it has sevearly negative conotations to it. Also despite several attempts by many directors horror movies have yet to really breach that art/entertainment gap. They still fit neatly into a sort of dull turgid genra of exploitation, even with offerings such as Inside, Eyes Without a Face, and The Devils Rejects, the genra itself is poorly regarded. Which is all porn will ever be. Poorly regarded, and that's not the point of this project. I want porn to be more than its set peices. It isn't most of the time but I see nothing wrong in demanding higher quality porn. I'll go into it more later but I am running out of time so lets get to its flip side.
The flip side is the action movie. Action movies are a diverse genera. It has its share of trash. Okay let's face it most of the genra is trash. However, it does have some highly entertaining entries, 5th Element, Con Air, The Rock, and Die Hard 3: Die Hard with a Vengence. Man that movie has a long title. Oh I forgot Leathal Weap... never mind. Then there are some entrants into the genra that are actually quite clever, Fight Club is an amazingly intelegent movie that breaks the third wall, has a non linear narrative, all without the movie goers really noticing. You'll even have people arguing that Fight Club is more of a Drama than an action movie because they don't want that action movie association. It is though deal. There is also Crank, Crank is one of the most visually clever movies in years, it gives all sorts of nods to the audience regarding the fact that the main charecter is kinda dumb but that's okay cause we like him anyway. Crank also beats up on the third wall showing off the fact that it is a movie and we can all relax.
This is where pornography needs to be. Instead of dismissing it as we do the horror genra, sorry horror genra, we can maintain a more healthy relationship to it. I am not shooting for the stars here, but to put it on the same ideological level as the action movie. They have the potential for greatness, they have the potential to be meaningless acts of entertainment, and the genra is mostly crap.
Right now, we see pornography as something that is directly wrong. We have laws about viewing it, and I can't get a couple of paintings I needed to illustrate some other points I was going to make because my work has banned sites with nudity, including...art nudity. So when I get back to this again on... Wendsday? Maybe? I'll start breaking down the art/porn barrier I'll also make those analogies make more sense as I go along. You'll get it. The idea is to make porn not so strange and alien.
Oh I also want to break porn down into gereas because right now when I say porn I am emcompassing everything from softcore to crushing and that's just a little to broad. Yar I want my books damnit I am excited!
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