PORNO FOR CULTURE

Nobody does sex worse than the UK.

When you combine the complexes derived from the legendarily endemic British prudery, vacuous sexual ignorance, deprived opportunity, and covert sublimated desires, you end up with manifestations like the ugly Sun and News Of The World tabloids, the phoney 'sex' shops and clubs in London's Soho, TV watersheds, and arts censorship. The UK's so-called porn industry is, likewise, a complete sham - and when the awful Channel 4 decided to do a documentary series entitled The Dark Side Of Porn, you fear the worst. (Comments on each episode continue below.)

So, yes, they'll titillate you with enough erotic promise to want to watch it - then either deliver nothing, or worse, a fucking lecture on why sex in its various manifestations is so wrong. And like the ugly sweating repressed hypocrites they are, you know they've got semi-hard-ons under the table whilst addressing you in this patronising yet eminently uninformed tone. Whilst watching that shocking scene just one more time to see if it's really as offensive as they first thought. Whilst betraying that enduring paternalist attitude that women could not possibly have extreme sexual impulses of their own.

Thanks to greater integration with the far more enlightened European continent, and the internet's obliteration of the UK gatekeepers' powers, encouragingly it seems that current generations have been largely freed from these hang-ups. Nowadays, young people might be far more focused on their weekly ethanol binges than getting laid, but at least they're not prigs.

And it does seem to have become a generational issue. I know that from my own bittersweet experiences making music over the years, and also something addressed in other posts (KILLING FOR CULTURE - BLACK METAL PENCIL - NOSTALGIE DE LA BOUE).

Me And My Slaves
this study concerns a pint-sized peroxided punk who laughably calls himself a BDSM 'master' - if we'd got more of the fucked-up childhood sexual anecdotes, along with deeper questioning into his weird belief in Jesus, then this would have been far better

Searching For Animal Farm
the poignant story of Bodil Joensen, and her extraodinary relationship with animals, is the focus of this edition - unfortunately anglo-prudery contaminates the entire documentary in its most judgmental and ignorant form; Headpress's David Kerekes gets completely outed as a grade A prig, something to which his writing often alluded

Hunting For Emmanuelle
Sylvia Kristel is an amazing woman: remarkably beautiful and intelligent, with a singularly attractive energy - in this documentary about the groundbreaking original Emmanuelle, she reflects on its making and subsequent events in her life; the excruciatingly beautiful Emmanuelle theme by Pierre Bachelet forms the backdrop to this respectful study into the movie's cultural impact, tainted only by the inclusion of the reactionary opinions of that soulless old biddy, columnist Polly Toynbee

Debbie Does Dallas Uncovered
the presuppositions of the inherent 'dangers' of porn are all over this look at what was just another oh-so-boring porn flick: it's amazing how easily and lazily accepted the docu's producers' notions are that participating in making porn, watching porn, buying/selling porn, all have negative consequences (other than sheer tedium) - what tenuous faith they have in human life that the viewing of DDD, or the participation in the making of, could have such devastatingly far-reaching consequences

Porn Shutdown
a black male porn star goes to Brazil, contracts HIV, and you have the perfect exercise for Channel 4 to darkly propagate the evils of the mainstream porn industry (ironically, one as moralistic and reactionary as any other, especially in the US) - it's like the sensationalist 80s reporting of AIDS all over again, so conveniently does it serve the prudes' agenda; somehow, extraordinarily, the fucktard narrator seamlessly conflates this with the deleterious effects of our being exposed to 'gonzo' porn

Diary Of A Porn Virgin
Amateur Porn
I call bullshit on both these two fake documentaries which seem to be by the same UK production company - the subjects are all just trashy floundering wannabes that are desperate to be on TV, one way or another; also features plenty of the usual myths about the evils of porn

Death Of A Pornstar
a character study into the curious case of Lolo Ferrari, she of the monstrously large lips/boobs - it's a sad tale, and her long-term partner Eric Vigne might be a bit sleazy (and so what if he is?), however I don't accept the programme's sinister insinuations that he had anything directly to do with her death

Does Snuff Exist?
predictably here, all the myths and prejudices come out in full force; the programme makers, the arch-prudes, the institutions of censorship, authorities such as the FBI, all unite as one, all desperate clinging to the hope that such a thing as 'snuff' exists - they rationalise it hard because they need it so bad, just like the illusory Communists under the bed, just like the Al Qaida mirage, it's the existence of the evil without which gives little reason to live