GQ: I Mourn for Porn

In fact, the ubiquity of porn is reason for the race to the bottom in terms of extreme sex - a tease isn't enough if somebody is willing to go further.

Still, a portion of the audience gets tired of that, I've seen some resurgence of softcore, pinup styles stuff, etc., i.e., competing over style rather than horrified fascination.

But branding is another means of competition, and usually that means "star value", and your more, uh, adventurous porn stars are pretty secure at the top of that list, including Belladonna, Sasha Grey, etc. (although oddly, good old, relatively conventional Nina Hartley still tops the list)

I'm even a Belladonna fan, although I'm partial to who I consider one of the original extreme pornstars, Brandi Lyons, who was doing this stuff before it was popular, she's one freaky bitch.
 
A lot of Seventies movies had plots, however transparent, even Deep Throat had a nominal plot, albeit, mostly an excuse for oral sex - Behind the Green Door had a more plausible premise, and the "Perils of Pauline" type stuff, i.e., Debbie does Dallas, etc., was a fairly common theme - but the Devil in Miss Jones, to my mind, remains one of the most disturbing porn movies ever made.
 
A lot of Seventies movies had plots, however transparent, even Deep Throat had a nominal plot, albeit, mostly an excuse for oral sex - Behind the Green Door had a more plausible premise, and the "Perils of Pauline" type stuff, i.e., Debbie does Dallas, etc., was a fairly common theme - but the Devil in Miss Jones, to my mind, remains one of the most disturbing porn movies ever made.

The Devil in Miss Jones is one of my sister's favorites. (Yeah, we are a pretty open family). She lent it to me. I couldn't get past all the hair, I kept expecting bush fires to break out. Decent premise though. There was another older one with a decent plot. . Pandora's Mirror.
 
Dammit 3113, now I keep looking over at a copper bucket sitting next to my fireplace. It's full of pinecones. They make great kindling. But I wonder if... nah... well, if I was real gentle and my wife held perfectly still... nah... :D

I have no illusions about what most of us do here on Lit. It's rarely high art. Still, there's more mental activity involved than holding your mouse in one hand, your junk in the other, and making monkey noises while watching streaming video.

My bitterness-tinged angst is borne partly of an anticipated loneliness. I have a few friends that I've lured into our little briar patch, but my sense is that the mid-thirtysomethings (in the U.S. anyway) are the tail end of a culture of written erotica.

There's a little honor in being appointed rear guard, but it's also kinda sad. :(

-PF
 
I realize there isn't much of a story line in most of the written porn here, especially in mine. However, I do try to explain how and why the people happen to be doing the things they're doing. There's even less of a story line in porn on the internet or videotapes. :eek:
I don't know if you need to apologize for it necessarily - it's not like I've been writing Pulitzer prize winners myself - you write for yourself, and you usually find your audience, which in this case, probably doesn't include the NYT literature department.

Typically, I think the most basic form of the porn story is self discovery, a somewhat existentialist theme that seems to work most of the time without getting in the way - an expansion/variation on that is getting to know someone else - i.e., in literature, you necessarily get to know the characters in one of two ways; introspection or interaction.

It's been discussed before, but introspection is a common approach, i.e., First Person, which can be dull if it's just a list of things behind said and done, i.e., what you might call reporting.

In order to engage the reader, I think you have to have some self disclosure, i.e., I don't think leveraging something as simple as say, mixed feelings about someone or something is taking too many chances with the plot - all's well that ends well, and it is a plausible form of conflict, one that's relatively easy to resolve while enhancing, rather than distracting from, the erotic appeal that is, after all, the main point.

And, I think it works in romantic fiction as well as wank fodder, it's actually a staple in bodice rippers for example.

I think part of the appeal of incest stories is that a number of literary requirements are met almost incidentally: conflict, intimacy, etc., including the taboo element, which in literary terms, is that which makes your character stand out from the crowd, uniqueness, sort of the thing that makes a story worth telling as opposed to a presumably more mundane coupling.
 
Dammit 3113, now I keep looking over at a copper bucket sitting next to my fireplace. It's full of pinecones. They make great kindling. But I wonder if... nah... well, if I was real gentle and my wife held perfectly still... nah... :D

I have no illusions about what most of us do here on Lit. It's rarely high art. Still, there's more mental activity involved than holding your mouse in one hand, your junk in the other, and making monkey noises while watching streaming video.

My bitterness-tinged angst is borne partly of an anticipated loneliness. I have a few friends that I've lured into our little briar patch, but my sense is that the mid-thirtysomethings (in the U.S. anyway) are the tail end of a culture of written erotica.

There's a little honor in being appointed rear guard, but it's also kinda sad. :(

-PF
I don't agree, there is always a new generation of lit majors in the pipeline, I think it's more a fact of there being so much competition, video games, etc.

I don't know how old you are, but in my generation at least, books and imagination played a central role, there just wasn't that much in terms of alternatives - it was the role of boredom that I think sparked the whole sexual revolution to begin with.

If anything, the literary field is as, if not more crowded than the porn scene - I've given up on fantasy and SF, I can't keep track of it anymore - there is no real major iconic work like LOTR that serves as a handle on the whole genre, it's split into so many subgenre's, each with it's own iconography, that it's sort of a hit or miss proposition trying to serendipitously pick out something I might like - I pretty much stick to cyberpunk, which is recognizable to me, rather than risk getting stuck in a chick book. :eek:

I think it's great that it's there, there is nothing to complain about when it comes to the mere existence of hot, geeky chicks, I'm just more comfortable with mind altering, paradigm challenging themes than with intricate social interactions.

I guess I'm a little Left brained that way.
 
The strange thing is that the actual experience of sex is not that visual, at least not for me. Why is it then that visual pornography is so compelling?

It's compelling because human beings are so built that we drop everything and engage in the genital equivalent of drooling whenever a whiff or sex is in the air, no better than Pavlov's dogs.

But this is an excellent point and, when all the smoke clears, is the proper reply to this issue.

A film is not a book, and watching a movie is not the same as reading. Not even close. Film aspires to voyeurism. Literature aspires to understanding.

The worst porn here is the stuff that has the most in common with adult movies: visually descriptive and superficial. The best takes advantage of the power of the written word to engage the mind as well as the gonads. It plumbs depths of the erotic far beyond what you can achieve with pictures.

Fiction comprises 3 types of writing: dialogue, action, and exposition. Exposition is where you get the descriptions, the explanations, interpretations. Exposition is something film can't do. Exposition can only be done through words.

When movies replace books altogether, then I'll worry. Until then, it's apples and oranges.
 
I agree with 3131, porn stories are mostly about fantasy fulfillment, and that's okay. That's no different from fantasies of becoming rich, or beautiful, or famous and the stories that cater to them. Not all of them are great lit, but so what; they're good, satisfying stories.

The difference with a typical porn story is this, though: the stories I just mentioned are about becoming. They begin with a poor guy (or an ugly duckling, etc) and follow his path to fame and fortune. The path is the story; the fame and fortune are merely the conclusion.

If porn were about money, though, it wouldn't do that. The guy would simply find a winning lottery ticket, and the story would describe, in lush detail, everything he ran off to buy with his millions. It wouldn't be so much a story as a description of "the shopping spree of my dreams."

That explains rather neatly why porn stories tend to hit narrow audience (one person's shopping list is not the same as the other's) and what they tend to lack as stories.

The ones that appeal to me not only have conflict but maintain conflict through sex, and it's not because I want to foist high literary pretensions on them; it's because conflict involves me as a reader. Once the conflict is resolved, it's as boring to read the description of sex as it would be to read how happily they lived after the happily-ever-after.

As for difference between media, I too don't fear for stories. Even the blandest, shopping spree kind, engages in a different and, to many, preferable way than a video of people fucking.
 
Wank material is for teens.

There needs to be a story. I may post my latest to illustrate what I mean.
 
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I agree with 3131, porn stories are mostly about fantasy fulfillment, and that's okay. That's no different from fantasies of becoming rich, or beautiful, or famous and the stories that cater to them. Not all of them are great lit, but so what; they're good, satisfying stories.

The difference with a typical porn story is this, though: the stories I just mentioned are about becoming. They begin with a poor guy (or an ugly duckling, etc) and follow his path to fame and fortune. The path is the story; the fame and fortune are merely the conclusion.

If porn were about money, though, it wouldn't do that. The guy would simply find a winning lottery ticket, and the story would describe, in lush detail, everything he ran off to buy with his millions. It wouldn't be so much a story as a description of "the shopping spree of my dreams."

That explains rather neatly why porn stories tend to hit narrow audience (one person's shopping list is not the same as the other's) and what they tend to lack as stories.

The ones that appeal to me not only have conflict but maintain conflict through sex, and it's not because I want to foist high literary pretensions on them; it's because conflict involves me as a reader. Once the conflict is resolved, it's as boring to read the description of sex as it would be to read how happily they lived after the happily-ever-after.

As for difference between media, I too don't fear for stories. Even the blandest, shopping spree kind, engages in a different and, to many, preferable way than a video of people fucking.
That is a fantastic analogy, thank you!
 
Literacy is hard to come by

My bitterness-tinged angst is borne partly of an anticipated loneliness. I have a few friends that I've lured into our little briar patch, but my sense is that the mid-thirtysomethings (in the U.S. anyway) are the tail end of a culture of written erotica.
You must understand that as a reader you always have been in the minority and always will be. Reading is a hard thing for the human brain to do. Really! We have to be taught how to read and it's not an easy thing to learn or teach (we don't have to be taught how to see! Which is why film is so much more popular). And if a person is not taught how to read before a certain age, reading will never be all that easy or natural.

Even those who are taught how to read at the right age sometimes have trouble with it. Or just don't like it. Avid readers are a very small percentage of the population--by avid I mean people who love reading. If you read the back of shampoo bottles in the shower or cereal boxes at the breakfast table just to have something to read, then you're in that very small percentage. Reading, itself, gives you pleasure.

So: (1) Reading has to be taught. And unfortunately, schools aren't getting the support and such that they need. Meaning that illiteracy levels are up. You can't complain that porn on the page is vanishing if people can't read it. In that instance, it has nothing to do with a choice. (2) Even if you teach people reading, most won't be avid readers. So you will lose out there. In days of yore when porn films were scarce and even naughty pictures hard to come by, the written word was all there was. So even people who didn't like to read had to take what they could get and that was porn on the page. Now, those who don't like to read don't have to.

So, in one sense, porn on the page isn't vanishing so much leveling out to realistic levels. Most people don't enjoy reading, and so will go for film. But there is something we can do to make sure new generations discover and enjoy written porn. We can make sure literacy levels go up! We can't turn a blind eye to illiteracy then bemoan the fact that more people are watching porn on the internet than reading it on sites like this one. New generations can't enjoy what they don't know how to enjoy. :cool:
 
There's no sure-fire recipe for writing the kind of erotic material that guarantees sexual arousal, but I do think that what makes my water bubble to the top is one thing, and what makes Joe Sixpack's water boil up is a whole 'nother thing.

For example, I really find Nin's writing erotic and it always arouses me. Same goes for Georges Bataille. But I don't expect either of them to "get me off." What I do expect is for them to intrigue and arouse me and make the experience and feeling I have about eroticism more pronounced. I learn things about the erotic experience from them. I don't just want "to come."

Granted some people do want to wank and get off and that's the sole reason for reading sexually graphic material. That's fine if that's what they're looking for. No problem.

But, that's not my bag and it never has been.

I don't think it has to do with a writer being "modern" or "Victorian" or "ancient" or "post-modern." It's a matter of: Does this writer move me? I don't give a fig when he or she lived or wrote. What is erotic is erotic. Full stop.
 
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I don't expect either of them to "get me off." What I do expect is for them to intrigue and arouse me and make the experience and feeling I have about eroticism more pronounced. I learn things about the erotic experience from them. I don't just want "to come."
:rose::rose:
 
I sort of see the question originally put as standing the reality I see on its head. I think it's porn video that is losing out by not having enough story value in it--which I think it could get by paying more attention to what works with tension building and release in a well-written story.
 
I would think that the economic future for porn video could not be too bright. There is so much available for free -- and an unlimited supply from amateurs. For all we know we may soon be watching Tiger Woods and John Edwards -- no -- actually, I would pay not to have to see that that last one.
 
I would think that the economic future for porn video could not be too bright. There is so much available for free -- and an unlimited supply from amateurs. For all we know we may soon be watching Tiger Woods and John Edwards -- no -- actually, I would pay not to have to see that that last one.
What it means is, that the future of porn is bright: demand is high - as you note the chances of making money at it decrease with the volume of product available.

This is one reason why the porn industry is an interesting one to observe: economic pressures are particularly merciless, and many of the innovations on the web, for good or bad: affiliates, pop-ups, advertising banners, etc., were pioneered by online porn providers.

As always, it's a question of supply and demand - will consumers be willing to pay a little more for some engaging externalities, and how much?

As I say, stories are usually the cheaper way to go - the branding of porn stars is already in a sense, selling the "character", and there is an opportunity here for writers - stories are generally cheaper than special effects, or elaborate sets, I definitely think this is the way it's going to go, it's the path of least economic resistance.

I think it's mainly going to end up boiling down to the gulf between the writers imagination and the actors acting ability.
 
Not surprisingly, the "reality show" format is the current standard, i.e., sort of a "pressure cooker" approach, and I suspect that dynamic will play first - in fact, it may be enduring, it axiomatically has voyeuristic appeal, the whole "fly on the wall" aspect of storytelling, with the added twist that you are cozened into believing you know these people.

So, I think eventually, it will split into roughly three channels other than the stripped down sex act, including specific fetishes: "reality show" format, interactive reality format, almost more like performance art, and traditional storytelling.

Fetish is currently the really the safest approach, i.e., certain sites have small, but very devoted followings to an often highly specific fetish, and ultimately, the boutique approach may be the model, the mass appeal model is doomed by the nature of the highly selective distribution model.

I'm not sure there is a mass appeal model anymore, unless it's more like a traditional full production; even the networks are struggling, Playboy's mass appeal has eroded significantly, Penthouse always leaned in this direction anyway.

All the economic stressors point to lean production: adapt or die.
 
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Hmm...you don't want to get his hopes up :p

We're counting on you, FB. Hurry up and get something extra clever and well-written posted before Maddox shows up. I don't think I have it in me. God knows I've tried.;)
 
We have to be taught how to read and it's not an easy thing to learn or teach (we don't have to be taught how to see!

If you read the back of shampoo bottles in the shower or cereal boxes at the breakfast table just to have something to read, then you're in that very small percentage. Reading, itself, gives you pleasure.

:

I think we do. How can we identify anything without being shown what it is or its colour ? (I won't even consider the appreciation of 'modern art').

And yes, I'm one of those who prefers to read, even at the Breakfast table. Reading gives me great pleasure and no small additions to my education. And yet I started late. I remember one year in my childhood when my Dad was really peeved at my lack of reading. I could read, I just didn't want to.
The following year was one of bright sunlight and good general weather. My Dad complained that he couldn't get me out of the arn chair where I sat reading.
 
I think we do. How can we identify anything without being shown what it is or its colour ? (I won't even consider the appreciation of 'modern art').
Um...I'm not talking about art, and if you're taking about art then we're not talking about much video porn out there. No. We don't have to be taught how to see. A man can look at a woman and get an erection just by seeing her. He doesn't have to be taught how to do that, does he? In fact, he can be taught "Don't get aroused by looking at a woman--" and he STILL will get aroused by looking at a woman.

And if he sees a female on a viewing screen, he'll get the same erection. No one has to teach this to him. It just happens and it has happened from the time we were ape like creatures in the forest, unable to communicate except by looking at each other and reacting to each other. If animals know by sight (as some do) which is a male or female and react accordingly without being taught, why do you imagine that humans have to be taught?

Even if you're argument has some merit, teaching kids to recognize things visually is not on par with teaching them the alphabet, then words, how to associate words with real things, then how to read sentences to envision something--which allows readers to translate what's on the page into an imaginary woman who then gives them (male readers) an erection.

Sorry, but it's not even close.
 
Um...I'm not talking about art, and if you're taking about art then we're not talking about much video porn out there. No. We don't have to be taught how to see. A man can look at a woman and get an erection just by seeing her. He doesn't have to be taught how to do that, does he? In fact, he can be taught "Don't get aroused by looking at a woman--" and he STILL will get aroused by looking at a woman.

And if he sees a female on a viewing screen, he'll get the same erection. No one has to teach this to him. It just happens and it has happened from the time we were ape like creatures in the forest, unable to communicate except by looking at each other and reacting to each other. If animals know by sight (as some do) which is a male or female and react accordingly without being taught, why do you imagine that humans have to be taught?

Even if you're argument has some merit, teaching kids to recognize things visually is not on par with teaching them the alphabet, then words, how to associate words with real things, then how to read sentences to envision something--which allows readers to translate what's on the page into an imaginary woman who then gives them (male readers) an erection.

Sorry, but it's not even close.[/QUOTE

I don't agree. I think porn is an acquired taste, just like beer and a lot of other male amusements.

I remember when I was maybe twelve or thirteen, I had this good friend who had a wonderful collection of science fiction books -- a lot of AE Van Vogt who was hard to find in those days -- and I used to go down to his house to read. Anyway, he found his father's porn stash -- well, in these days it probably would be cover art for a woman's magazine. They were tiny little pipes you could look into and see pictures of naked women -- women with extremely large breasts. I remember thinking that they looked deformed, that I had no interest at all in them, and I went back to something more interesting.

As for getting an erection just by looking at a woman -- once a male has been sexualized, yes. But that again is a learned process, an acquired taste.
 
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