No, I wasn't talking about anyone here specifically, though I dunno, Leigh might not be mind being grouped with the MacDworkinites, apaologies if s/he would.
Most porn is dreck. That doesn't make porn special. Most of everything is dreck. Although I am not an especially knowleageable analyst of porn, I doubt that, apart from being more industrialized and lest artistically crafted, the current lot more misogynistic or anti-humane than some of the classic stuff I still find to be a real turn on, such as Story of O. Anyone who knows that story will knwo what I mean. But others will know more about what's available than I.
However, I still think that porn is a phenomenon that requires analysis and thought first before we get around to reflexive condemnation. E.g., Story of O, though artistic, is as morally appalling in its way as Birth of a Nation (another morally bankrupt masterpiece). Why it is still the stuff of fantasy for people who'd be appalled by even being offered the opportunity to act in the way suggested is something that calls for saying more than jsut that men are scum, or there are scummy corners in even nice guys, etc. Kipnis is a good place to start thinking about this.
However, whatever the current crop of stuff, you'll have to pry my Bettie Page pix out of my cold dead fingers.
jks
--- Dennis Perrin <dperrin at comcast.net> wrote:
> > Now this is a brave and original analysis!
> >
> > Here's a more interesting suggestion: read Laura
> > Kipnis' Bound & Gagged -- I know that Doug doesn't
> > like LK personally, but I think she's brilliant --
> > which is a genuinely creative examination of what
> > counts as porn (which is not obvious) and what
> > function it serves in society. Her class analysis
> of
> > Hustler (yes!) as a liberatory (!) enterprise is
> > especially interesting, real ice cold water in the
> > faces of the PC crowd and the MacDworkinites.
>
> > jks
>
> Are you seriously lumping me in with the
> "MacDworkinites"? Dude, I was in
> the heat of the porn wars back in the day. I fought
> against those types in
> print and in person. I've also lauded Hustler's
> satirical side in such PC
> journals as USA Today. I was commenting on the
> CURRENT crop of porn, which
> has become incredibly misogynist, coarse, and at
> times simply anti-humane.
> There's plenty of erotic/explicit expression that I
> still enjoy and will
> defend. But the stuff today is, in many case, god
> awful.
>
> DP
>
>
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