Monday, September 2, 2019

Pornosophy: Nostaglie de la Boue


Pornography can be an addiction, but if you’re just a consumer of porn you may find your sensibility evolving from the lurid to the nostalgic. The current culture’s fascination with youth, in which Brazilian waxing caters to pedophiliac fantasy runs into a collision course with the pornography produced in the 70’s (when Playboy first broke the taboo on full frontal nudity). The case of Jeffrey Epstein who created an elaborate supply network of underaged girls epitomizes the metrosexual fascination with the Barbie Doll. The 70s and 80s were the era of hirsute women and men, with a large Venus mound having the same allure as the large penis or package of the well-hung male. Today, women in porn films are almost castrated, denuded as they are of the dramatic topiaries and hedgerows that protected the so-called private parts. Narrative is another element that may create a nostalgia for the porn of the past. Sites like Tinder (the name sounds like a tenderizer), have created a literal meat market where the process of seduction and attraction has been boiled down to the lowest common denominator. However, if the genitalia has been streamlined so has the nature of personality. Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which the part is taken for the whole and sometimes the leads in today’s X-rated films seem to be well-shaved body parts. There are no stories anymore, just gang bangs and facials and golden showers. Glory- hole loops with anonymous mouths behind partitions create a longing for the Behind the Green Doors of yesteryear which exhibited comparatively fulsome story lines. It's significant that the title of a famous porn classic became the soubriquet for the person who blew the whistle on one of the great scandals of American politics.

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