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Post by Kensterberg on Oct 4, 2005 19:32:45 GMT -5
FYI, there are entire buildings in Pompei that are filled with pornographic images. These include all kinds of sexual positions and possibilities. And of course, there are carvings throughout India which depict literally hundreds (or thousands) of sexual images on religious structures. And of course, there are "fertility" images going back thousands of years, throughout the world, which depict male and female genitalia.
All indications are that "pornography" in our Western sense is at least two thousand years old (Pompei), and likely far older than that. If you ask me, the archaeological and physiological evidence (the fact that humans are susceptible to visual stimulation, unlike most other mammals) indicates that sexual imagery is part and parcel of being human, and the only way you'll ever get rid of pornography is to make us into something other than human ... arguably, something less than human, since the ability to imagine sex with someone you've seen only in two dimensional representations is a uniquely human trait.
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Post by shin on Oct 4, 2005 19:41:30 GMT -5
I still want to know what Melon thinks of gay prostitutes in the Bush White House. By his own words, it's worthy of "disdain".
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Post by Kensterberg on Oct 4, 2005 19:47:12 GMT -5
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Post by Galactus on Oct 4, 2005 19:52:39 GMT -5
There are people who think sex is beautiful, relaxing and sometimes even fun...freaks.
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Post by kmc on Oct 4, 2005 20:00:55 GMT -5
You are all going to hell.
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Post by Galactus on Oct 4, 2005 20:03:00 GMT -5
I'm not. I'm saving myself for marriage.
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Post by kmc on Oct 4, 2005 20:10:27 GMT -5
No wonder you're so mad...
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Post by kmc on Oct 4, 2005 21:39:18 GMT -5
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Post by Galactus on Oct 4, 2005 22:30:41 GMT -5
Well, I am no fag....hey, listen that Zach P. guy kinda looks like you ken...
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Post by Mary on Oct 4, 2005 22:50:37 GMT -5
Ken (Holzman, that is, not kmc!),
Interesting post about Pompeii. Problem is here we're about to enter that notoriously murky quandary about how precisely to define porn. When I described Aretino as the father of modern pornography, I was trying as best I could (and perfectly aware that this question has stumped generations of supreme court justices) to make some distinction between pornographic depictions of sexuality and artistic depictions of sexuality. Obviously, the line is incredibly difficult to draw in practice, but I do think the interesting thing about Aretino was that he really intended to titillate and to appeal to, well, the loins. Which isn't to say there wasn't an aesthetic or literary component to what he was doing, but only that he was self-aware as someone trying to tickle his readers' "baser" impulses.
I do think the Court was actually onto something when it tried to link porn to some kind of "prurience" - I don't think you could successfully link all erotic images to prurient interests. Of course, try to define prurience, and you're right back to square one. But I wouldn't want to lump Pompeii and Barbara Blonde Agent 69 together (ok ok - many years ago, like 17 or something, I was in a hotel room at a gymnastics meet and we flipped on the Pay TV channel and ended up watching some porn flick called Barbara Blonde Agent 69 - somehow I've never forgotten the name of it! but, unlike melon's experience with Playboy, I can't say my early encounter with pornography particularly scarred me....mostly i think i was just amused, and bewildered at the functioning of male anatomy...)
On a semi-related note, there's a great documentary about the Lusty Lady, San Francisco's notorious "socialist strip club", that is very much worth renting if you can find it. It's called "Live Nude Girls Unite!" and it's about the (ultimately successful) efforts of strippers at the Lusty Lady to unionize. I believe they even ended up buying the strip club itself, thus literally controlling the means of production - but I'm not certain of that. It's a really interesting film, as it asks a lot of great questions about gender, feminism, pornography, the sex industry, workers' rights, sexuality, etc etc, and definitely demonstrates that the left is really split on a lot of these issues and there's no straightforward "left" position on the sex industry.
Cheers,
M
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Post by Rit on Oct 5, 2005 6:34:27 GMT -5
;D
that Iron Hymen site made me larff.
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Post by Kensterberg on Oct 5, 2005 8:51:14 GMT -5
M -- as the Pompeii imagery was in a "house of ill repute" I would assert that its purpose was indeed to invoke a prurient interest in the viewer. And from what I know about Roman culture generally, I'm still gonna stand with my earlier point that they had what we would consider "pornography" in their culture.
Now I agree that the Hindi erotic imagery and earlier fertility idols were probably not designed to arouse the viewer (though that may have happened, particularly with some of the Indian statutary), and that our modern ideas of pornography stem from exactly the sources you mentioned earlier. But those had antecedents as well, and I think we overlook the Romans far too easily. Given the many simularities between America and Imperial Rome, this is an analogue that merits attention.
All that said, I was just trying to make the point that humans make erotic images. Always have, always will. In ancient India they put 'em on temples, in America we put 'em on the internet to view in private.
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Post by chrisfan on Oct 5, 2005 9:35:46 GMT -5
Ken (Holzman, that is, not kmc!), Interesting post about Pompeii. Problem is here we're about to enter that notoriously murky quandary about how precisely to define porn. When I described Aretino as the father of modern pornography, I was trying as best I could (and perfectly aware that this question has stumped generations of supreme court justices) to make some distinction between pornographic depictions of sexuality and artistic depictions of sexuality. Obviously, the line is incredibly difficult to draw in practice, but I do think the interesting thing about Aretino was that he really intended to titillate and to appeal to, well, the loins. Which isn't to say there wasn't an aesthetic or literary component to what he was doing, but only that he was self-aware as someone trying to tickle his readers' "baser" impulses. I do think the Court was actually onto something when it tried to link porn to some kind of "prurience" - I don't think you could successfully link all erotic images to prurient interests. Of course, try to define prurience, and you're right back to square one. But I wouldn't want to lump Pompeii and Barbara Blonde Agent 69 together (ok ok - many years ago, like 17 or something, I was in a hotel room at a gymnastics meet and we flipped on the Pay TV channel and ended up watching some porn flick called Barbara Blonde Agent 69 - somehow I've never forgotten the name of it! but, unlike melon's experience with Playboy, I can't say my early encounter with pornography particularly scarred me....mostly i think i was just amused, and bewildered at the functioning of male anatomy...) On a semi-related note, there's a great documentary about the Lusty Lady, San Francisco's notorious "socialist strip club", that is very much worth renting if you can find it. It's called "Live Nude Girls Unite!" and it's about the (ultimately successful) efforts of strippers at the Lusty Lady to unionize. I believe they even ended up buying the strip club itself, thus literally controlling the means of production - but I'm not certain of that. It's a really interesting film, as it asks a lot of great questions about gender, feminism, pornography, the sex industry, workers' rights, sexuality, etc etc, and definitely demonstrates that the left is really split on a lot of these issues and there's no straightforward "left" position on the sex industry. Cheers, M My good God ... you really are the most intellectual person I know. You can even do the history of porn from an intellectual standpoint!!!!! ;D |
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Post by Rit on Oct 5, 2005 9:44:58 GMT -5
Ken and Mary are right.
Pornography has existed probably as long as recorded history exists. only myopic Protestant/ Puritan types are genuinely shocked to realize this.. which is a telling observation on how royally fucked up the Anglo/American cultural inheritance became since about the Renaissance period. Much social fantasies, much wilful blindness, much illusury prudance.
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Post by phil on Oct 5, 2005 11:14:57 GMT -5
Description and public representation of explicit sexual acts can be considered either as erotic (feeding and stimulating our fantasms or imaginary) or obscene(dirty, degrading and shameful), it all depends on the point of view each and everyone of us embrace...
There is indeed a certain paradoxe to consider acts that the vast majority of people engage in as degrading and shameful. It is for the most part the communication, the transmition of those acts from private to public and their staging, that make them « pornographics ».
(I’m not talking here about illicit sexual acts like pedophilia, bestiality and other acts that can be considered against nature...)
Eroticism throught out history relates to everything we humans have invented to transform what was at the beginning a reproductive function to an activity much more “fertile” and varied, not unlike gastronomy gradually replaced the simple limited food of our ancestors or speech and music have become more and more complex. Where animals have only their instinct, humans have created eroticism…
Pornography could be the crude representation of sexual relations that are presented without any of the situation’s symbolism aiming only to provide the most basic sexual stimulation. Eroticism will respect the modesty or decency of the viewer while pornography will hurt the same viewer senses. Of course, since the sense of decency can vary widely from one to another, it can’t be used as a criteria to make the difference between eroticism and obscenity…
The depictions of sexual activities, erotic or pornographic have always existed, in all societies, in every ages. Today, they have the exact same essential role to feed the imaginary and allow some kind of escape from our limited reality. Pornography does have a long history which allows us to retrace social attitudes toward sexuality. It allows us to discern the state of mentalities and social norms which regulate the peoples’ sexual activities...
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