On Erotica & “Artistic Porn”
by Jonathan Quince
Tuesday, March 29, 2005 18:12:07
Sex is raw. It is animal. It is a force of Nature, a gift of the same powers that have given us lightening and earthquakes and tsunamis. It cannot be made dainty any more than a tornado; and at its purest, it has all the subtlety of a Plinian eruption, searing prudish sensibilities with an arrogant contempt for human fear of primal nature.
Sex is demanding: On its spiritual side, it scorns those who approach it as mere brutes; but on its carnal side, it commands its practitioners to look deep into their hearts and remember where they came from, worshiping the spirit by sanctifying its temple. Sex arouses us to touch both our past and our future, and avoiding one is as bad as avoiding the other.
Those who practice trades in sexual expression would do well to remember it.
It might surprise some readers that of all genres in mainstream porn, I favor “gonzo” material: Straight-out fucking, no pitiful attempts at plot, no apologies for being what it is. There is plenty to criticize about formulae, methods, and production values; but most importantly, hardcore gonzo porn is honest. It does not hide or play games. It does not appease or pretend. It is about sex — pure and unadulterated sex — and it makes no bones about it.
Certainly, the realm of sexual expression is diverse, and subtlety most surely does have its place. Yet there is a marked difference between tempting the imagination and avoiding the subject matter. The former is a powerful literary technique I employ on Sopef, often as a fulcrum for rhetoric: When I play subtly, I am not selling orgasms, but winding something deeper to make future climaxes more powerful. Often I am dealing sexual analogies in lieu of first principles, abstractions rather far reduced from immediate masturbatory needs (though if my readers can get myself off with my writings, all the better! I applaud!).
But most makers of self-described “erotica”, “women’s porn”, “softcore”, or, worst of all, “artistic porn” are not trying to write the carnal canon as I am: Rather, they are trying to replace mainstream porn. By evading the subject matter, they miss the attempt entirely (and then wonder why the cannot compete against hardcore in the wider marketplace).
They create an abomination, a thing with no rightful place: It is not abstract enough to be valuable philosophically, but not “jerk-worthy” to deal with the present, the now, the immediate needs of life’s great enjoyments. By being neither this nor that, the result is nothing at all; and if nihilism be worthless, so is a creative enterprise that lacks soul and heart and purpose.
Art and porn as concepts have no inherent contradiction between each other. But the praxis of combining them is difficult, the result almost always unmitigated disaster. Nigh all “artistic porn” is neither art nor porn on final adjudgment. It takes a genius to create true art in any event, and geniuses are few and far between. Therefore, if a rare genius makes porn that is truly artistic, I shall adore it; but I shall apply my same artistic judgment that I do to photography, painting, sculpture, music, and other realms of the arts.
On final analysis, value judgments are implicit in attitude. Both “sex-positive” people and society-at-large need to admit: If sex is a positive characteristic, then prurience qua prurience is a redeeming value, independent of other “artistic, scientific, literary, or social” values. Values may be taken together, but any true value can also stand alone; and the prurient interest must oftentimes be expressed for its own sake.
The same principles impel me to refuse patronizing nude sites that do not reveal the vagina. Not only are they failing to deliver something I want: They are showing a judgment of the human body and of sexuality per se, one which I do not endorse. Such bias is worse than arbitrary: Divorcing the female form from the cunt is contemptuous of the female form as a whole. Rather than being “respectful” by avoiding the “vulgar” or “hardcore”, they are insulting the female, calling one of her vital pieces gross and unfit for inclusion with the rest of her.
And this principle extends to the false dichotomy of moral judgment that some apply between “art nudes” and “hardcore porn”.
So with the cunt, so with its functions: Form divorced from function is useless, and if function is vulgar, then so is form. If revealing of the form can be celebratory, so can revealing of the function; if revealing of the function is degrading, then the form must be inherently vile, ugly, unfit to be seen.
Puritans, at least, have the integrity to apply the same judgments to sexual nouns and sexual verbs.
This is not to criticize expression of the nude human form. “Art nudes” are wonderful as a genre unto themselves, and I enjoy them mightily. But anybody who upraises them while decrying porn is a simple hypocrite.
I call myself a “pornographer”, and I say it with pride.
As a matter of literal etymology, I am one at present: I write about whores (in addition to being a whore in spirit). But beyond that, one of my many dreams is to run my very own porn production house.
Of course, I’d make my porn with my own unique sense of style and production values. That should go without saying! But I would never do anything to deprive sex of its power. Though my divers explorations may include nude portrayals, I would find worship in portraying sex in full glory: Lewd, raw, the harder-core, the better.
Gentle readers, keep that in mind when perusing Sopef. It shall provide some context. And someday, perhaps, you shall see the results.