I am finally returned to some semblance of health and with mixed feelings about the matter, back at work. Yet, as I don’t tend to write unless I’m at work these days, I suppose it can’t be all that bad. It’s better than feeling less mobile than an animated corpse.
Today’s topic comes to you from Facebook. I’m generally not a “trite” Facebooker. You’ll never hear about my breakfast, lunch, dinner, or bowel movements. No, no, it’s okay, it doesn’t make me anything special, you can pick your jaws up from the ground now. –winks and grins-
My relatively popular Facebook status from this morning reads:
I'll be honest, I wish that "porn" hadn't become a term that describes anything titillating for any particular interest.
In the last month there’s been a sudden explosion of innocuous “porn” pages on Facebook. You’ve probably seen them. Word Porn, Earth Porn, Space Porn GamerPorn, CabinPorn, et cetera ad nauseum. My problem with this? They. Aren’t. Porn.
Pornography, by definition, is “printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings.” I’d argue that erotic isn’t good word choice, as erotic has come to have a more positive sexual connotation. Regardless of that point, it’s an extremely inappropriate description of the kind of images and sayings the aforementioned pages or sites provide. Their content is generally extremely aesthetic, playing on emotional and artistic sensibilities in order to take the senses to new heights. That’s the opposite of porn.
Now, I’m not trying to demonize porn. Not yet, at least. I don’t really mind porn, but I don’t see it as a positive contribution to society. At very best, I’m neutral about it. I find it useful. It’s a tool. It’s like that scene in Dakota Skye, the 2008 movie, when Jonah and Dakota are talking and he surprises her with the truth.
D: So, do you watch a lot of porn? J: A sizable amount, I guess. Why? D: 'Cause I was over at Bobby and Noel's, and they were watching this porn about these Asian girls and a dildo that can only be described as epic, and it was really gross. They said that they knew that, though, that they thought that it was gross, that they watched it because it was funny. J: They're lying. D: No shit. Really? J: Porn is purely functional. It's not entertainment. D: It's functional? J: Yeah, porn has a singular purpose in its existence. It's a tool, an aid, a catalyst in the act of pleasuring yourself.
Still, that’s porn at its best. Functional. On the other hand it generally lacks imagination. It’s dirty, disrespectful, and degrading. It has a subtext and a subliminal message. There’s a formulaic nature to porn that erodes the quality of sex, women as mutual partners, and regard for safe sex.
So I’m really not a fan of the use of the word porn to describe things that are exciting, breath taking, inspiring, beautiful, thought provoking, etc. It’s an insipid word that devalues the actual content being produced. I don’t have a suggestion for a replacement, nor any desire to take up a useless torch of a cause and go tilting at windmills with it, but let it be said, I don’t approve.
I don’t.
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