I’ve spent a lot of time looking at Porn this week --trying to get my head around what it means. But something I see keeps bothering me, and not fitting with what the literature says.
The Canon says that Porn is about Objectification. But this is not what I’m seeing. I’m seeing the pornographers making every effort to create an empathy with the actresses; I mean, the pornographers are asking us to be aware of what the actress is feeling.
I’m seeing this:
-the actress is looking right into the camera.
When I look into how a visual artist is supposed to make us feel what the subject of the painting is feeling, when the artist wants us to empathize with the model, the gaze is right up at the top of the list.
-the suffering or degradation of the actress is emphasized.
I read lines like this about visual art, “The use of images of suffering to shock and create feelings of empathy in the viewer is common.” (re. Punk Art) But the suffering and humiliation of the actress in Porn is often almost the very focus of some Porn.
(I’m apt to think that the Subjectification of the actress has some important role in Porn.)
On another forum, this same topic comes up, in a similar way:
forum.darwinawards.com/lofiversi … t6057.html
But I think the respondants to @Roeguard miss the point.
I (and I think @Roeguard) mean, going too far along the path of subjectification, with “It’s what’s inside that counts” we get to the problem of people become obese unkempt pigs, but it’s not right to say anything about this with out being called a Hitler Youth. If I treat people as Ends in themselves, and not as Means to an End (a la Kant), I have around me useless and superfluous people; the Nazis were all about “the movement,” ‘life is a journey.’ This is I think Paul Morel’s problem with Miriam in Son’s and Lovers, Miriam cares only about his Spirit. Also, I think these are Nietzsche’s “despisers of the body.”
My issue of the week is Subjectification (opposite to Objectification). How do we Subjectify people? What are the dangers of Subjectifying people?