February 06, 2004

• *inserts joke about forty whacks*

• Well, Lucia's on a big salary, too, because he makes movies, he edits, he directs, he shoots cameras. So he gets, like, 150 grand a year.

  Holy moses! ... What do you mean, "not the point"? On a serious note, how is this exploitation? Lizzy says that the, uh, "actresses" have control over their scenes, and seem to enjoy what they do :

  Is she going to take a beating, a real beating? Yeah. She's really going to get hit. She likes it. It's good. Sometimes, it makes you more horny when you're getting hit. It makes you more, like, more tingly down in your genital area. You should try it. You should hit your wife a little bit.

• Are you still beating your wife?
• I could post about "children of addicts" (which she says she is) and how they have a hard time "setting limits", but the whole thing makes me too sad to even try. She seems to have taken it a step further by pushing the limits of her employees. Too sad!
• It is exploitation the same way Bum Fight is exploitation. I'm more worried about people who would watch that kind of porn. Anyone who gets off on that kind of degredation of women has some serious issues.
• Not for nothing, but an ex of mine used to be the Internship Coordinator for the School of The Art Institute in Chicago. One of her students was asking her help to secure an intership with a porn producer. This student was a lesbian and very interested in making porn. While we were out at an International Mr. Leather event just days after learning of this desire. The same student approached us with a goofy ass smile and chatted away with the ex. As they were talking I realized that the show on the TV above their heads was a self-produced film from said student. She and her girlfriend(s) were very into this and did not in any way feel this was exploitation. It was their art.
• I don't have anything against porn in general. I have been known to enjoy it myself. However, I find this disgusting. Everyone gets degraded. I mean, even if she was a secretary in the office, she's going to get some kind of harassment, whether sexual or verbal -- you know? So this is normal. Women get degraded every day, and so do men. I think it's quite sad and disturbing that this example and what she filmed are so close together in her mind. It turns my stomach that she can be so flippant about the brutalization of a woman. But it's good for her. So I guess that's all that matters.
• "Butchered"? WTF?
• It's, er, what you do with meat. Subtle, innit?
• Extreme Associates is also facing federal obscenity charges for their films.
• I saw this last night and had the same reaction as the frontline crew: "this was a little too much, so we left." The director (and possibly the 'actors') need serious therapy, stat. It's stuff like this that makes me question the greater social benefits cheap available media equipment. or perhaps "Just - damn!"
• I also watched this. Good documentary and pretty well balanced. As for "too much," well, that's in the eye of the beholder. I'm of the "whatever two consenting adults do" rubrick, despite what Rick Santorum would have you say. Personally, I'm not much for this standard of hardcore; the liberal boy in me is too in fear of the general degradation and debasement of the women involved. That said, I know quite a few women, including a few I've been with, who really find degradation intensely erotic. Sometimes we adjust what we like to what our partner digs. So be it. Lastly, if anyone wants to get a sample of what this looks like in practice, you can peek through your fingers at meatholes. Needless to say, this is hardly "recommended" and NSFprettymuchanywhere; but here's the goods if you're curious.
• Isn't there something in the MoFi FAQ about not linking to porn sites? I haven't ventured beyond the front page of www.meatholes.com, but something tells me it's not just about hygiene standards in the abattoir industry. Personally, I'm not much for this standard of hardcore. Then why link to it? We all know it's out there, and anyone who wants to go looking for it can find it pretty easily. MoFi is not the place. I'm not criticising you, forksclovetofu, I'm just asking for clarification of what is, and what isn't, an acceptable link.
• In the absence of a MoTa section, I'd suggest that any link is acceptable with the appropriate disclaimers. Part of the fun of x-Fi type websites is the links someone posts because they've seen it, whether or not one is interested, i.e. "this site has lots of great lentil recipes" or whatever. One could find lentil recipes, but because someone else linked to it it's more communitacious. And therefore builds greater fenoobery.
• Well, it ain't lentil recipes. If you think it might be offensive to you; trust me, it is. Don't click. If you're curious as to what the standards have degraded to in modern porn, that link's a good place to start. I posted it for the same reasons I post any links: just presenting information, reinforcing or illustrating a point or just because I'm very tired. This one fits pretty much all the above. As for what constitutes a bad link-thru (not a bad FPP, I think we understand that), I'm of the opinion that ANYTHING properly labeled and represented (no "fuzzy bunnies" tag linking to goatse.) and posted without trolling intentions is fair game. If there's interest, it'll get clicked; if not, people will find a different community to spout off. Like how we got here. This is an interesting discussion to sprout off the back of such a thorny (horny?) topic. Tracicle? Thoughts?
• Damn it! I like pr0n! But this... ugh. I am beyond igry. This is to pr0n as roadkill is to food. I sort of miss the cheesy 70s mustaches, huge piles of curly hair, and *wokka-chikka-wokka-chikka-wok-wok-wokka-chikka* soundtracks. Can I say that it had innocence? In retroperspective, that's how it feels. And looking at this makes me very nostalgic for a time when pr0n at least pretended to be about people having a good time.
• This is to pr0n as roadkill is to food. Well said.
• I'm of the "whatever two consenting adults do" rubrick, despite what Rick Santorum would have you say. Unfortunately, the documentary presented the issue on a simplistic libertarian vs. religious-right axis. Either A) you're a first-amendment absolutist and anything consenting adults want to do is fine so long as no one gets hurt without their consent; or B) you're Rick Santorum or the LAPD and you want to ban anything that doesn't meet "community standards". Yeah, well, there are some of us who take a third tack: Charlton Heston has the legal right to show up in Columbine the day after the gun slaughter there and wave his rifle around -- but it's still wrong. Exploiting women on film is legal -- and I suppose it should be -- but it's still wrong. The website features 10 interviews, and only three are with women. Not one feminist critic or scholar was consulted for the hour-long show. This is a very complex discussion that too often becomes reduced to generalities and orthodoxies; I'd like to see us level-up the intelligence as it becomes more public.
• I believe the FAQ says something along the lines of, "remember there might be kids lurking, so think about what you link to." Personally, I think if it's a plain old ten-trillion-popup-install-spyware-on-your-computer porn site, don't link it. If there's more to it, don't let me stop you. *shrugs*
• call off your old tired ethics porn for women masturbation, pornography and guilt The Anatomy of Global Sex Industry: The Political Economy of Human Rights Violations The Porn Library The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Annie Sprinkle Martin Amis on Rough Trade Pornblography I agree that this is a difficult and easily polarizable issue, but when the law is involved absolutes become necessities unless you want to slip into "I-know-it-when-I-see-it" erotic fascism. Discussions like this are helpful.
• And as a class A) libertarian, I would say that our concern is really about what the law enforces. There exist many distasteful or even repulsive things, the discrimination of which nevertheless should not be devolved to government and governmental force. I'm a little sensitive about this. We experienced a full-metal-jacket (well, no SWAT, fortunately) drug bust yesterday right next door to our place in Seattle, targeting a good neighbor for pursuing an IMO harmless activity. Our neighborhood seethed with firemen with charged hoses, police, Federal agents, detectives, and decontamination types in bunny suits. If the charges stick, my neighbor is looking at a minimum of ten years in the Federal pokey. The more I think about it, the more upset I get.
• Quick question" Decon suits? Did they say why those were neccesary? I'm under the impression those are only worn when busting a meth lab/other biohazardous materials. Unless the guy was growing a whole lotta something.
• I'd guess a whole lotta something. Hydro lamps and the fertilizer required to make that stuff grow is EXCESSIVELY dangerous. Useta hear a flaming hippie story maybe once every two years back in the Ozarks of my youth...
• /derail He is accused of attempting to manufacture LSD. Some of the possible precursors (e.g. ergotamine tartrate) are bioactive in various ways. There are also some volatile solvents involved, though not in meth-cooking proportions. Finally, they didn't know exactly what they'd find in there. Playing it safe, I s'pose.
• It seems that like life, porn must evolve, or die. What started as the big-hair and cheesey mustaches of the 70's has become this. I agree with scartol in that while it is what it is, maybe it shouldn't be. But who am I to judge this? Should I be able to say, "You can't do this, it's wrong!"? For the sake of this arguement, let's say that I can. So we band together and make porn like this illegal. Then someone else decides that gay porn is morally devoid of merit. Yet someone else calls for the out-and-out banning of all porn. Then it moves to literature, and the arts, and everything else that's important. Okay, so I simplified a very complex issue to make my point. (Sue me, poindexter.) What I'm worried about is the slippery slope that we gingerly take our steps on. We need to be careful to protect those we disagree with as well as ourselves.
• (The gaps at the end of your posts are growing, jim_t...) On the one hand, I don't have a problem with porn, good, liberal, middle class, unshockable guardian reader that I am. On the other hand, it is quite often - and always has been, to a certain extent - based on the exploitation (and seemingly, more and more, the degradation) of the weakest and most vulnerable, and there is something deeply concerning about that.
• Should I be able to say, "You can't do this, it's wrong!"? Not always. But we can always say -- and frequently we have a duty to say -- "You shouldn't do this, it's wrong!" Condemnation without legal sanction can still be quite powerful. (TPCQ: "Your scientists were so caught up with exploring whether or not they could, they never stopped to ask if they should.") *TPCQ = Tangential Pop Culture Quote