File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9803, message 1218


Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 20:41:25 +0000
From: Mark Jones <Jones_M-AT-netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Porn


Yoshie has a point, but it's connected with the eroticism of the normal, or
nature as enchantment. Pornography is surely a *form* of that chance, perhaps
accidental, possibility of arousal, but porn is a knowing, conscious, predatory
form. To be a chance spectator of an event which unwittingly stimulates a
certain response in you is one thing; to be a conscious consumer of it is
another. Is there a difference between an innocent act of lovemaking witnessed
innocently and accidentally, and an act of lovemaking staged for money, which
you choose to pay? To make it more graphic, what kind of response would a
person have to witnessing by chance the mauling of another by a wild animal?
How is that response connected with the erotic possibility of the same,
resulting in the construction of amphitheatres and the well-known fate of
Christians in ancient Rome?

If a novelist is capable of as it were taking the reader by surprise in this
way then that is high art. Malgosia and I were just discussing War & Peace
off-list. There is a famous scene, beloved by many including yours truly, where
Natasha goes to her first ball and first sets eyes on the dashing figure of
Prince Bolkonsky thru the throngs of people (does anyone remember who played
him in King Vidal's film?). The prince too is smitten with her and says to
himself that if this miraculous creature should set eyes on him, they would
surely marry -- then immediately dismisses the idea as outlandish fancy; but
she does smile at him and they do both fall in love.

Later, Bolkonsky comes visiting but by that time Natasha has already given up
hope of him; she is still little more than a child, and, tired of dressing up
for the hero who never arrives, puts on an old dress and is dancing alone and
whimsically, when she suddenly hears the tread of feet and knows it must be
him, a heart-stopping moment.

Tolstoy (who wrote for money) dashed this whole episode off in an evening or so
and casually told Sophia that he'd sent Natasha to a ball; but it was one of
the most acclaimed scenes in the book, and you can't read it without crying and
also being aroused, if you're residually human.

Mark

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

> Malgosia wrote:
> >The way I read it, he means that when you get off on porn, your use of the
> >person whose image it is is not something that is a mutually consensual
> >sex act.
> >The making of the image might have been consensual, but not the individual
> >sex
> >acts that the image is used for.  Me, I think there is much to that.
>
> But the problem is that one can also get off on words, images, etc. that
> are not made + marketed as "pornography." One can even get off on
> non-commodified & non-sexual words, images, etc. Why is it more of a
> problem when one gets off on "pornography" and not other genres of words,
> images, etc? For instance, don't movie stars get into our popular memory in
> part through their ability to let us fantasize about them, sexually and
> otherwise?
>
> Yoshie
>
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