porn
Noy Thrupkaew (the photos in the article contain nudity): “Although Asian and Asian American porn actresses like Asia Carrera and Annabel Chong have made their mark in the adult-film industry, Hamamoto points out, their male counterparts are nowhere to be seen. His film is a bit of erotic affirmative action for the Asian American man, overrepresented by sexless movie nerds and chopsocky action heroes: the ludicrous Long Duk Dong of Sixteen Candles, the Jet Li or Jackie Chan action hero who never gets the girl, the Internet nerds, Chinese restaurant dishwashers, Triad members who are too busy making an illegal buck to fuck, even the indolent Chinese lover of Marguerite Duras' The Lover. "I'm not trying to present a 'strong' image of Asian American men," says [University of California-Davis professor and porn-director Darrell] Hamamoto. "That's what we are. We know how to fuck. Look how many Asian motherfuckers there are around the world. We outnumber everyone.”
I reject Hamamoto's assertion that Asian women who fuck white guys are essentially white themselves. There's remarkably little said by Hamamato, actually, that I don't reject, but I grant that the idea of the Asian-American male as an equal participant in society (and not just in porn) is a welcome change.
Naked Condo: “I find it odd that having thousands of people doing porn is not considered remarkable, but if it has something to do with TV or "reality TV" then it's news.”
al3x: “Most young men I know look at porn on the Internet. I have for years, particularly when single. I see it as a reality of being young and male (heck, probably just male, young or not): you're going to seek out visual stimulation one way or another; I'm not going to speak for women. But as porn has become an increasing part of the daily buzz in my news aggregator, the more disgusted I've been with the pornography I view. Having a better sense of the lives of the people, particularly the women, behind those movies and photographs has basically ruined the fantasy of pornography for me. I always had some sense of regret for endorsing, even if just via clickthroughs, the aforementioned ugliness of the porn industry. But hearing about the fall of some coke-addled porn starlet on a glib weblog has turned that ignorable regret into mouse-stopping disgust.”
al3x says that there is some porn, however, that he doesn't mind looking at. But then again...
Anthony on feminists and pornography: “Like environmentalists who conveniently dropped the term "global warming" and shifted to "climate change" when the oceans didn't boil feminists are now (without drawing a breath of collective shame) taking a completely different tack on porn.”
On Naomi Wolf (see here and here): “Naomi's theory is that Internet porn is full of plastic fake beauties that "Jane average" can't compete with. This of course leads us to the obvious conclusion: Naomi has never looked at Internet porn. If she did she would be positively rapturous at the ascension of the ordinary girl into the ranks of porn princess. Peruse any amount of Internet porn and you will be astounded at the numbers of average (and well below average) women who are liberating themselves on-line.”
Laura Kipnis: “Where would pornography be without repression? Out of business, that's where. If we all ran around naked, humping each other left and right whenever we felt like it, would porn exist? Doubtful! Who'd be interested in leering at this month's Playmate; who'd be snorting over the latest round of smirky "Party Jokes"? Pornography needs sexual repression to have something to overcome (or claim to overcome); it requires taboos to be able to ruffle them: Pornographers and censors are the world's most interdependent couple.”
Naomi Wolf: “The young men talk about what it is like to grow up learning about sex from porn, and how it is not helpful to them in trying to figure out how to be with a real woman. Mostly, when I ask about loneliness, a deep, sad silence descends on audiences of young men and young women alike. They know they are lonely together, even when conjoined, and that this imagery is a big part of that loneliness. What they don't know is how to get out, how to find each other again erotically, face-to-face.”
Lots of quote-worthy bits in it. Be sure to also check out the Daily Grind critique (link defunct).
James Poniewozik: “Perhaps because the producers want to avoid glamorizing porn with too light a tone, [the FOX drama] Skin is so high-mindedly determined to depict porn as a scourge or a big-money business that it forgets that porn would not exist if it wasn't also, for someone, pleasurable. Skin does an admirable job of showing us the politics, the culture, the angst of sex. Would the sexiness of sex be too much to ask for?”
I also liked this line in the article: “if porn were truly mainstream, it would cease to be dirty and thus cease to be porn.”
David Amsden: “the mass consumption of cyberporn has slyly moved from the pathetic stereotypes (fugitive perverts, frustrated husbands) into the potent mainstream (young professionals, perhaps your boyfriend).”
There's a paragraph in page 2 that I think is funny, because I happen to know what "Jill" is talking about regarding the "campus scandal".