Cheap Shock, Part 2: On Porn, by Adam Lehrer
In the second part of a two-part series, Adam looks at the mainstream's insistence on eroticism deprived porn
Sexual transgression in contemporary media has become ever more bleak as the line blurring between pornography and fine art that so many of history’s artists have flirted with has become the absolute norm. Utter garbage films like this year’s Love Lies Bleeding manage to completely remove any whiff of eroticism, despite the fact that it shows multiple scenes of explicit sex. But it’s not hot, nor does it feel in any sense real. No one wants to watch a fugged up, dyked out stud version of Kristen Stewart finger blasting a female bodybuilder against a completely bereft narrative that quite literally makes you feel like you’ve been scammed for having even dared to watch it. Media products like this aren’t full of erotic intrigue, they are full of dead-end, skull numbing porno.
Eroticism is, according to Camille Paglia, “mystique”:
“The aura of emotion and imagination around sex,” says Paglia. “It cannot be 'fixed' by codes of social or moral convenience.”
By this definition, pornography is inherently anti-erotic. There’s no mystery in “money shots” nor “creampie surprises”. Pornography doesn’t unveil itself to you, it fulfills a formal function. Pornography doesn’t really open the mind, it, by design, closes it. This doesn’t make me “anti-Porn” (believe me, I watch it plenty,) I simply recognize that pornography isn’t in any way artful.