Camille Paglia on pornography

[PennLady]

Found this interview at Salon.com.

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/21/cam...t_hillary_clinton_is_our_party’s_best_chance/

Not saying anyone should agree with or like her, but the interview did range and talked about porn, BDSM and some other things. I thought this excerpt, about the current state of pornography, was interesting, although I think she's talking more about video/movies than writing.

I continue to support and defend pornography, which I believe exposes the deepest, darkest truths about sexuality. As an industry, pornography also helps to rebalance the modern psyche: middle-class workers are trapped with their tyrannical machines at home and office. Pornography, with its surging animal energies and guiltless display of the body, brings the flame of organic nature into that mineral wasteland.

Having said that, I must confess that I find very little of interest in too-formulaic contemporary pornography — except for the always hot gay-male scenarios that one stumbles on in surfing the Web.

The problem is that explicit sex has become so diffused through the general culture that it’s lost its charge, which once came from the sizzle of transgression. I’m nostalgic for that primal shock quality, which was still there in spades when a juicily plump Madonna was doing her pioneering videos in the ‘80s like “Burnin’ Up,” “Open Your Heart” and “Like a Virgin.” No one could writhe better than Madonna on the prow of a gondola!

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Sex and porn, especially LIT porn, is choreographed to the point of banality.

 

[49greg]

I can relate. I remember reading my first 'smutty book' and how it affected me. Now ... it has to be much better quality, better written, have a decent plot, and it always helps to have something extra, more than just some mechanical pneumatic pumping. A nice twist or kink or difference.

Maybe that's why I started trying to write my own. I just wish I what I write wold come out like it sounds in my head.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Porn was better 50 years ago, because it wasn't sanitized by LIT Up Lifters.

 

[TxRad]

When some companies started to do porn movies with more of a script and some actual acting I had hopes for improvement. It didn't happen. It is still too over the top and money shot related to be any good.

Not to say there aren't some good movies but not a lot of them.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Paglia's harpoon at Sir Hillary is better than her thoughts about porn.

Paglia is one of my favorites tho we're in different camps on a few things, but I admire her guts and honesty and the club she beats Hillary with.