Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 23:32:30 +0200
From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: M-TH: Re:  Listen, phallus! (was: Art and Pornography)


I wrote:
>
>>(as on the ten o'clock news this evening when a female artist showed her
>>range of cunts for the sideboard or tabletop -- her sexual orientation
>>wasn't mentioned by her or the presenter, and there was no discussion
>>whatever of arousal or of which sex should or shouldn't be looking at
>>them).

Yoshie replied:

>Well, I don't think she intended them for the purpose of prulient
>consumption by either gender of whatever sexuality, judging by the way you
>describe her project.

No, she didn't. Even though there were ropes and things involved in some
pieces.

>Did it turn you on, Hugh, BTW?

Well, it was sort of cuddly and collective at once -- there were a couple
of dozen pieces on a workbench being shown to the TV team at the same time.
There were some perkily tumescent clits peeking out here and there.


>>Women also participate in consumption of porn, hence my remarks about
>>"female reactions to exposed cunts". They also watch the news...
>
>Sure. But most male-oriented porn films only make me feel desolate--the
>opposite of feeling aroused. Can't really speak for all women, but I
>suspect my sentiments are widely shared; otherwise, more women pay more
>for the stuff.

I wasn't thinking about arousal in the observer, but the fact that women
are expected to take exposure to representations of female arousal in their
stride -- so why shouldn't men be as strong (or polymorphous or whatever)?


>>Which gives us a goal -- male/female/other-perspective, multi-faceted
>>non-exploitative sexual expression based on mutual understanding and
>>consent -- including ironic or critical depictions of lack of this within
>>this general framework of values.
>
>I like it polymorphous perverse.

I like it tactile.

In one way I suppose I'm a lucky bloke, cos a stroll down memory lane gives
me far more material for erotic fantasies than any porn I've ever seen.
Erotic literature can be fun, mind...

The cock-and-cunt-grabbing Oval Office literal-mindedness of most porn is
interesting in an Andy Warhol sort of way, I suppose. Or like going to the
zoo. The only stuff I zap automatically is Playboy crap -- not even my
masochistic scholarly curiosity will make me sit through that kind of lying
prick-teasing syrup.

Actually, with all the porn being churned out, there's not much that
matches the inventiveness of the French aristocracy of the Old Regime or
the Rome of Tiberius and his successors, not to mention the things got up
to by Asian ruling classes. But I suppose that's the price we have to pay
for bourgeois mass fake democracy.

ciao4now,

mimi









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