As religious zealots across the globe joyously exchange vitriolic and murder, and others retreat into prayer and related practices, and, enrolment in fundamentalist sects increases dramatically, I consider porn.
Porn, with the help of the internet (recall, it is an evil place) is a multi-billion dollar industry. The general public (if not us, then who?) is ravenously consuming these athletic, fleshy, decidedly proctologic, representations of the sex-act. Sales of sex tools and paraphernalia continue to rise (male metaphor, sorry). Market penetration has new meaning. Access and exposure is just a two clicks away.
For me, at least, desensitization and the consumer mentality have made viewing traditional porn categories a temporary affair. The gaze is hungry but it has nowhere else to go. We have exhausted its possibilities. However, every time I entertain that thought, the bar of depravity is raised yet another notch. I have to look. That’s just me, I suppose.
If you’re unsettled by this direction, please be at ease as I exclude the sexual representations which normally violate the Criminal Code of Canada. Coprophagia, water sports, livestock appreciation, torture porn; these categories multiply and reveal. Cell division is slow compared to this fruitful breeding ground.
Consuming pornography has a ritualistic religious element to it. Like the cave wall, the monitor is an altar of sorts. It is the locus of our gaze where we witness the mysterious. Ambient lighting is dimmed and we are washed in the glow of our screens. It is a baptism of sorts. We are supplicants to the image or representation of the real. Open the conduit and let it all through. I have a primal need. Satisfy me.
So we move into a blending of the real and imagined. Unsettling but maybe that is how we have always been. After all, Plato/Socrates was worried about the blurring of boundaries and categories. He wanted to stop this movement and did so by asking the “What is?” question. In his day truths became falsehoods and falsehoods became truths. Damn Sophists! Plato/Socrates sought definitions and distinctions. However I do not believe this play has ever left. Maybe it just took a backseat. Today, it has moved into prominence.
The West (America) is simultaneously Puritanical and Pornographic. Recall that the Puritans claimed ownership of the land that was already inhabited; a land which eventually gave birth to the porn industry. But it is far more than that. The religious has become pornographic and its dangers are clearly evident as it spreads. The pornographic, as described briefly above has become religious. Consuming porn is a regular activity, like church attendance, perhaps, except it is usually done in the privacy of one’s chambers. As the discussions and debate surrounding pornography and religion rage on, there are new legions of state approved god-intoxicated warriors running rampant and waging war. Preachers, mullahs, clerics and their acolytes rage against abortion, sexual orientation, equal rights and opportunity, foreign policy, economics, art and aesthetics. See? The political, too, is religious. Now, that’s porn.
Back to the cave I go.
Herr Doktor
Porn, with the help of the internet (recall, it is an evil place) is a multi-billion dollar industry. The general public (if not us, then who?) is ravenously consuming these athletic, fleshy, decidedly proctologic, representations of the sex-act. Sales of sex tools and paraphernalia continue to rise (male metaphor, sorry). Market penetration has new meaning. Access and exposure is just a two clicks away.
For me, at least, desensitization and the consumer mentality have made viewing traditional porn categories a temporary affair. The gaze is hungry but it has nowhere else to go. We have exhausted its possibilities. However, every time I entertain that thought, the bar of depravity is raised yet another notch. I have to look. That’s just me, I suppose.
If you’re unsettled by this direction, please be at ease as I exclude the sexual representations which normally violate the Criminal Code of Canada. Coprophagia, water sports, livestock appreciation, torture porn; these categories multiply and reveal. Cell division is slow compared to this fruitful breeding ground.
Consuming pornography has a ritualistic religious element to it. Like the cave wall, the monitor is an altar of sorts. It is the locus of our gaze where we witness the mysterious. Ambient lighting is dimmed and we are washed in the glow of our screens. It is a baptism of sorts. We are supplicants to the image or representation of the real. Open the conduit and let it all through. I have a primal need. Satisfy me.
So we move into a blending of the real and imagined. Unsettling but maybe that is how we have always been. After all, Plato/Socrates was worried about the blurring of boundaries and categories. He wanted to stop this movement and did so by asking the “What is?” question. In his day truths became falsehoods and falsehoods became truths. Damn Sophists! Plato/Socrates sought definitions and distinctions. However I do not believe this play has ever left. Maybe it just took a backseat. Today, it has moved into prominence.
The West (America) is simultaneously Puritanical and Pornographic. Recall that the Puritans claimed ownership of the land that was already inhabited; a land which eventually gave birth to the porn industry. But it is far more than that. The religious has become pornographic and its dangers are clearly evident as it spreads. The pornographic, as described briefly above has become religious. Consuming porn is a regular activity, like church attendance, perhaps, except it is usually done in the privacy of one’s chambers. As the discussions and debate surrounding pornography and religion rage on, there are new legions of state approved god-intoxicated warriors running rampant and waging war. Preachers, mullahs, clerics and their acolytes rage against abortion, sexual orientation, equal rights and opportunity, foreign policy, economics, art and aesthetics. See? The political, too, is religious. Now, that’s porn.
Back to the cave I go.
Herr Doktor