Secrets and lies

At last a woman who puts her tits to good use. Otherwise, they're just sitting there, aren't they?

***

Money, money, money. That's what it's about. This chick strips in the hope that her admirers will stump up for a camera.

Porn blogs are ten-a-penny these days, and amateur sex blogs getting that way. [parental advisory:links to sites with explicit material] It's reader's wives for the digital age. It's quite refreshing to see that women who are, well, ordinary are prepared to let it all hang out.

I'm interested in porn as art (or art as porn, whatever), purely from a philosophical pov you understand. If you don't think pudenda can be art, you'll put this down as porn dressed up. Some of the shots are quite interesting in a "what the fuck is that?" way and some are genuinely appealing but too much of it tips over the line that separates "this is something beautiful to look at" and "this is something that you must want to fuck". [/parental advisory]

One of the main criticisms of porn is that it is exploitative. But these women are, arguably, exploiting themselves. Besides, aren't many of our relationships, much of the structure of our lives, exploitative?

For me, porn is disturbing because viewing it risks opening the floodgates of desire. We cannot wholly control what we respond to but "in real life" we do not often come across things that we don't wish to be part of our life of desire unless we intend them to. That doesn't mean we are never surprised IRL; only that surprises tend to arise from possibilities we might have expected or understood to be available.

In any case, porn acts as a surrogate for what you desire. Look at it enough and it is just bodies, cocks, cunts and fluids. It is not very arousing and you have to view a lot to be stimulated enough to use it.

For me, it is the impersonality of porn that makes it so unsexy. Once you are over the thrill of it (and it is thrilling -- don't believe what your partners tell you; we men are programmed for excitement by the vision of women), you realise that the stagedness has created a barrier. It is not real enough to arouse desire.

This same stagedness was what, I think, made lapdancing something I could not enjoy.

For me, personal is arousing. Something seen that is fleeting, words that are just for me, secrets. (When I have secrets, I do not fear that they will be revealed because I am hiding anything but because the bond that they create will be destroyed. And I do have secrets -- I'd hope we all do -- some that are shared with only one other, and some that are entirely within me. Sometimes I tell someone something that is entirely secret, although they do not know that, and there is a thrill in doing so, but I fear always that there is a line between secrets about me and secrets about me and others, and sharing the latter is something like the betrayal that I myself wish to avoid. It goes without saying that a great fear of mine is that the person or people I share with will shrug, simply not care -- not so much that they will think less of me but that they will think that what I had to share was trivial.)

However, like all the pleasures of the flaneur, you cannot seek these things out. They occur in the day to day, small treasures that you cannot quite hold and cannot quite keep.

posted by Dr Zen @ 2:39 pm