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 > > --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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