We Need a Way to Cut the Cheese Out of the Porn Debate (and Porn)

figleaf — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 02:08:32 +0000

Photo by Flickr user Slice. Used under a Creative Commons license.

So years ago some friends of mine took high-tech jobs in a little mini-Silicon Valley in, of all places, Provo, Utah. Coming as they did from places like Chicago, Santa Cruz, and Albuquerque there were some cultural adjustments. One evening early on, after a close examination of the Yellow Pages, they made their way to the deli in town (*the* deli in town!) for snacks. One of my friends asked what kind of cheeses they had. Brimming with pride the clerk informed them they had both kinds of cheese, yellow and white… Velveeta.

That story sprang to mind when I read about Audacia Ray of Waking Vixen and director of a very nice alt-porn video called The Bi Apple wrestling with the reality that is the, er, industrial porn industry.

In pornoland, bisexual means that the dudes touch each other too. And that’s what I wanted my movie to be. In pornoland, bisexual films fall under the rubric of “gay,” they aren’t included in the world of AVN, they are the propriety of GAYVN. Pornoland is trying to teach us something here: you’re either straight or you’re gay.

I knew, of course, that bisexual movies are weird things, that porn companies don’t understand who the market for these kinds of movies might be, but I also learned from Adam and Eve that without any promotion whatsoever their series “Fine Bi Me,” which is pretty bad porn but is bisexual, has sold briskly. I knew people wanted to see this stuff, and that it could sell, and when Adam and Eve Pictures gave me the chance, I was on it.

...

This week AVN announced the nominations for the awards that will be given in Vegas in January. Reading through the titles of these movies, with classics like “Slant Eye for the Straight Guy” (a nom for Best Asian-Themed Series) and “We All Scream for Ass Cream 2Ã¢â‚¬Â³ (a nom for Best Internal Release), is truly a trip through crazyland, even for someone jaded like me. This year, the list of noms is 58 pages long. ... The GAYVN nomination process is wrapping up this week, and the list of categories is a long too – there are 39 of them.

...

Wow. I’m trying to figure out what this is about, and I know it is not about demand – The Bi Apple has been a best seller for Adam & Eve on a consistent basis since it became available in February, and other bi titles (even bad ones, which is most of them) sell well. It’s really just got to be about the close-mindedness of the adult industry, and the refusal to find space for different kinds of titles.

Read the un-excerpted version here.

Got that? The porn staple “bisexual woman” is actually straight, and movies like Dacia’s that feature men and women, women and women, men and men, and FMM and FFM three-ways are gay. And while such movies sell steadily and well they’re an invisible 4th dimension to those who market and distribute them.

In other words, industrial pornographers make porn for both kinds of people: straight and gay!

And you can’t say it’s for lack of imagine on their part. (Trust me, I like to pretend I have imagination but I doubt I’d ever dreamed up a title so creatively sexist, racist, stereotypist, and pop-culture-derivative-while-simultaneously-tin-eared as “Slant Eye For The Straight Guy.”) Instead it’s just that for any marginal talk of “liberated” or “sexually revolutionary” (or other words borrowed from the early 1970s) pornography as an industry is as thoroughly culturally conservative as the 700 Club… and as thoroughly invested in it.

In terms of the porn/anti-porn debate as articulated by, say, Renegade Evolution on the pro side and Robert Jensen on the anti side, the reality of industrialists like AVN and GAYVN need to be confronted — not just acknowledged but confronted! — by people who think porn’s either harmless or cool. Conversely, the reality of dissidents like Dacia Ray needs to be acknowledged — acknowledged not confronted — by those who think pornography can only be a threat or a menace.