Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 22:44:56 +0100 From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se> Subject: M-TH: "Pornography", etc Carrol C writes: >I suppose the broadest possible definition (which would also be true to >the word's history) is "Any representation which elicits an erection in >one or more human males." But such a definition would come up against >many of Malgosia's objections, for (putting it as minimally as possible) at >least some women are aroused by at least some verbal, pictorial, or filmic >representations. No? I'd like to hear some more about this "history". As far as the language bits are concerned it comes from Greek "porne" meaning harlot or prostitute and "graphein" meaning to write or depict. And harlots are not so much a means of causing an erection as a way of getting rid of one that's already there, so to speak. Now according to Collins's fantastic dictionary, the word was first used in the 19th century, and its main meaning is something written etc designed to stimulate sexual arousal, which ties in with Carrol's view of the meaning and places it historically as a completely bourgeois notion. But a quick check with the Shorter Oxford gives a first use of "pornographer" in 1850, with a meaning of someone writing about the doings of harlots and their patrons, hence depiction of obscene etc subjects in literature etc, which corroborates the bourgeois aspect, but is much more general about the meaning. Neither of the definitions specifies men as the targets, or erections as the arousal in question. If the erection aspect is all that matters, then would soft porno be stuff that produces a soft erection? Anyhow, the important aspect is the commercial side of harlotry, and the fact that pornography involves commercial exploitation of wage-slaves in the sex industry. And this whole business becomes one more example (one of the nastiest) of the alienation and fetishization of good, universal human activities and their reduction to comparmentalized, monopolized, behind-bars goodies that can only be accessed by money (Richard Nixon's brother Donald had a private jumbo-jet fitted out as a flying brothel) or power (Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton, to name but a few). You ought to hear the silence in discussions at school and related hotbeds of one-dimensional moralism when the talk is about pornography and whether to ban it, and I suggest criminalizing all commercial exploitation of sex where integrity is violated for money, and promoting all voluntary, non-commercial display of bodies and eroticism. I usually exemplify by saying we could replace all the advertising hoardings in town with democratically selected pictures of people and things that are interesting and fascinating and in a large number of cases probably beautiful and arousing. But the poison of commercial violation of intellectual, artistic and bodily integrity runs very deep in the veins of this society. It's a reflection of society, and will only change when the socio-economic roots of society change. So let's get on with trying to change these roots and discussing that?? Cheers, Hugh --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005