Pornography

[tinyjo]

Once again, they're talking about Richard Desmonds donation to the Labour Party and I notice that there seems to be an assumption that pornography is a bad thing. Now I am not at all sure about this. I recognize that it can be exploitative but it isn't necessarily. Nor is it necessarily unhealthy - I tend to think of it as an aid to fantisizing for the unimaginative. Its not illegal so why should we not accept this donation as just another one from a business man?

Comments

[jinty]

Comics pornography (which I know is not what this guy deals in, but to take the topic a bit wider and indeed closer to home) is surely about as unexploitative as you can get.

Obviously there is still the argument that it may objectify the person focussed on sexually (whether female or male, I guess) but almost by definition, there is not a(ny need for) a real, solid subject who is exploited in real life. You may argue that R. Crumb's sexual comics work (much of which isn't porn -- ie erotic -- so much as sexually explicit) is degrading, and portrays a negative image of women and therefore puts back the cause of seeing women as people; but I don't think you can argue that women were harmed or exploited in the making of it. Unless we hear otherwise from Aline Kominski-Crumb, and one would think she would have told us by now (or did she, and I missed it?).

And stuff like Omaha, or Xxxenophile, which pretty much have to be the fruit of the author's fevered imagination and little else (and which is very sex-positive, to boot) is about as immune to counter-argument as anything I can think of. Not that it stops some people being up in arms about such stuff, of course...

I'm slightly cross because yesterday I bought Vol 3 of Dirty Stories, published by Fantagraphics' Eros line. By dirty stories, they really just seem to mean gross stories and pictures, not decent quality porn. I seem to recall that this was Dylan Horrocks' disappointment with vol 1 (which I also bought -- his story is the best one in it). At any rate, in his Comics Journal article, he aspires to writing & drawing good, lusty porn that actually turns you on. Bravo, I say.

[andypop.livejournal.com]

They're just looking for another reason to slag off the New Labour...

I don't care what he publishes, I care that he & others are allowed to donate at all. It's time political parties stopped being funded this way...

[sparkymark.livejournal.com]

I'd rather take money off someone dodgy (gaining money and depriving someone dodgy of money) than just gaining money. Now if Labour was *subsidising* pornographers that would be different.

Some of the outrage over Desmonds seemed to be about the "specialist" nature of his titles (ethnic and age groups) rather than anything rational. (lik. one critics negative review of the "Crash" film for portraying "sex with cripples").