Thursday 28 October 2010

F/phantasy

Despite its seemingly inexorable downward spiral into the world of "sleb" culture and dumbed-down "features", I still read The Guardian on the grounds that there isn't a better alternative.


They've invested heavily in their website over the years, but they know a surefire way of generating gazillions of passionate comments is to feature articles on prostitution or pornography.


These split pretty evenly between the hard-core liberals who don't see anything wrong, and the hard-core feminists who argue all pornography is misogynistic and fundamentally anti-women (they studiously ignore all questions about how gay male porn fits into this world-view).


The misogyny comes, they argue, in sequences which show women being raped and tortured and gang-banged.


I dunno: I don't watch murder mysteries because I want to be a murderer, and nor do I think watching them makes me more likely to become one. Porn feels to me the same: it's sometimes a metaphorical expression of a fantasy, of a hyped-up internal yearning which is often unrelated to what is ostensibly on display.


Just as vampires are a substitute for thinking too hard about sex and sexuality, and forbidden desire and ecstasy/guilt, this sort of porn is often about something apparently unrelated (such as the anxiety generated by the fact that good sex often involves a degree of abandonment and loss of "control" to your partner).


The literal-mindedness of some of the critics of porn suggests they may not have the most fertile imaginations. I wonder what they're like in the bedroom? No, scrap that thought.

2 comments:

Niall said...

Eww. You'd never catch me lying down on the floor of a public toilet. For any reason.
As we know there are plenty of women who are very quick to whip, slap, scratch, walk on, demean and belittle men for their sexual pleasure given the chance. Maybe its something that is inherent to some degree or another in all of us, regardless of sex or sexuality?
Just some of us are more frank about it.

Anonymous said...

Your right about the Guardian, as well. But what's the alternative? The Independent is so visually boring-- though without a doubt its getting better and better in content
and editorial line.