Is Playing Into fantasies Sometimes Harmful? - Page 3

I'm thinking there is a gem of wisdom in Tropic Thunder that Princess Asperger ought to seriously consider.

I'd prefer not to be called that, thanks.

Asperger or retarded? If the former because you have it then by all means say so. It would really explain a lot.

I sent you a PM TZUdohNihm, please read and respect what I had to say. Thanks

Funny, because it sounded like you were saying that Gray's porn is bad because it could encourage people to enact such things without consent. And I made the point that anybody who would do such things wasn't waiting for a porn film to give them permission.

Which part of your thoughts did I misrepresent?

My point was that even if it begins as a consensual thing, a partner could take it too far, perhaps driven by sasha gray style porn.

I know you hate this word, but that's retarded.

Her PM suggested it was indeed Aspergers that was making her skin crawl.

In suitable troll fashion though she didn't come down on one side of the issue. Just sayin'.

WOW. And people say I am the troll. You are totally fucking lying.

To other people: Is there some recourse that I can seek in this case? PM a moderator?

Where did you come down on either side of the issue? Aspergers or retarded? No where that I can see unless your bit about confusion was supposed to mean you don't like the word retarded? You don't think your Mom saying you might have Asperger's is true. Sounds like it hits really close to home to say you do.

But please, continue to derail with all your asinine quips about cookies and tea.

And since I am party to this derail let me try in my best snarky ass fashion to bring it back round to the topic at hand for you.

Your worshipful attitude of Obama could be satiated for only $34.95. Go for it girl.

Holy shit, you're a fucking asshole.

No doubt...
Well I have my first person on "ignore" at least.

At least we know who the trolls and the morons are in this thread.

This.

For the record, I do not have an extensive knowledge of how the porn industry works, and I have never seen a Sasha Grey porn, so forgive me if I am completely off base, but if porn is like any other film, surely Ms. Grey is aware that while she may be the star, her work is being filtered through the lens of directors and editors, and yes, finally through the viewer. I'm not saying that any of these sexual practices are out and out wrong, only that they DO have the potential to objectify women, something that might appeal to some dude who is not in a relationship, is lonely, and is sitting at home beating off. And then what happens after a habit develops and this viewer becomes sexually active? After however long of potentially ingrained objectification, things have a chance of ending messily.

Okay, I'll admit, I don't really care for Princess Kate that much - she derails threads, she sounds like she gets her information from the National Enquirer, etc. Whatever. But that was a really incredibly shitty thing you did to her, Tzu. Beyond shitty. She told you something in a private PM that she asked you to keep in confidence, and you posted the contents of that PM from her when she explicitly asked you not to. You suck beyond reason.

Dickarus, you flew too close to the sun.

Second. Not cool. At all. Bonus points for putting it clean over the top with the sexually explicit suggestion, champ.

On topic - Though I think we get into complicated territory if we start worrying about writers and directors (what if the director was female? Gay? A lesbian? What if Gray directed her own films? What if Gray wrote it but someone else directed it? What if the director gave her a role in the decision-making process?), I think it's valid to wonder/worry about what sort of audience your art (using the term broadly) is going to find. The arguments being made above by Wayward Woman and Mezz could also be applied to violent rock music, gory movies, misogynistic rap lyrics, and first-person-shooter video games. I think there's a distinction to be made between worrying about the implications of this and arguing that, because you cannot trust an audience to make a distinction between fantasy and reality, you shouldn't produce an art object that could be misused in some way.

Heck, forget rock music, gory movies, and the rest. You can technically apply the male gaze stuff to any movie directed by a man - basically, any movie that objectifies women, regardless of whether there's a violent context.

I would strongly suspect that most sexual predators, if they're strongly influenced by art or porn at all, get set off by images that objectify their prey (be they women, men, or children), not necessarily images that show their prey being victimized. So if you're going to object to Grey's work on the grounds that it might plant the seeds of objectification leading to violence, you pretty much have to object to ANY medium that objectifies or allows the viewer to objectify. And that can be pretty much anything.

TzuDohNihm is an asshole because he thinks it's okay to make fun of people born with a mental disability.

To put a finer point on it, we could say, really, that the nature of pornographic material in our culture is, in itself, not problematic, but is symptomatic of a more pervasive tendency toward the objectification and degradation of women, people of color, young people, people with unusual body types... in our art objects.

I've got to step away for a while, but, if anyone would like to keep pulling on this loose thread here, I'm pretty sure we could have our entire cultural structure in a heap on the floor before dinner. Whee!

Some random thoughts on the Montréal Fetish Weekend 2009.

Didn't smell of middle age and desperation. More like leather, latex and imagination. There was a woman there with no nipples. As in surgically removed. She's the wonderful lookin' lady below...

http://img42.imageshack.us/i/clipimage002e.jpg/

When we got there, there was probably about 80 folks there by 10PM and then by 11:30, the place was so full I was convinced the Fire Marshall was going to make a call. Anyway, lots of performances on stage, and just about everybody was dressed for the occasion. There were about 6 or so folks who were in suits and shit, and I was kinda pissed because I had shelled out some pretty decent bank on my clothery.

At the end of the bar, there was a dude/dudette my wife and I affectionately referred to as the Rubbermaid. The pic below was take on day 2 of the festivities, but you get the gist of what was worn. Needless to say, it was a bit jarring. He/She was chock full of labored breathing, and whenever He/She looked in our direction at any moment, you couldn't help but catch it in the corner of your eye and then you were somehow entranced, in a fearful way. The labored breathing was the kicker thought. Every 15 seconds, heave in slowly, heave out slowly. Kinda funny.

Here's a pic of He/She in the geisha outfit...

http://img43.imageshack.us/i/newpicturek.png/

My wife stepped out for a smoke with me and we met a fuckload of really REALLY cool (not to mention ridiculously HOT) people. we mingled with the crowd, made some friends and even got some "offers" but the late night was taking its toll on us and we spilt around 12:30am.

I know I'm not the best or most prolific poster on the forums, but thank you for your comments.

Studying more about the subject-I feel I have to clarify that I don't believe that this objectification is about leading to violence. I seriously doubt that could ever be the case. I'm more trying to express the caution that I would approach these sorts of extreme films.

Kate, while you may claim that Manet and Renoir's work may not seem clearly pornographic and the example you cite it, I feel you're missing the point of the particular work cited-I believe that's Delacroix? Not looking it up atm, but that work heavily features Orientalism and harem scenes, which are in fact more explicit in nature, but still relate to the overall idea-the dominance and titillation at the thought that these women are *owned*. It's not so much about the pretty, pretty nudity as it is that the fact that her teeth are being inspected. She's a piece of property.

I'm a sub, so I understand the desire to be dominated, and to be controlled. Rape fantasies, roleplaying. (This one time, with my ex in SWAT gear...). Sometimes to be treated like the dirty whore I am, so I feel I may be able to weigh in from both sides of the argument-the question is that the harm these videos can cause, especially to someone who cannot see the difference, or you could argue does not not have the ability to recognize these as the fantasies they are-there is an acceptance that it is customary, nay, it is completely socially acceptable to view women in the context the piece of hard pornography presents.

Nana in Manet is a prostitute. There is a male figure who does not see her, but her body in the piece. We are invited into a *very* risque scene where she's clothed only in her undergarments. Renoir (A noted misogynist, by the way), has the woman in "At the Opera" open to being viewed. She's presented, through her attire, to highlight her cleavage and accept it with a somewhat bland, passive way. (Contrast to Mary Cassatt's "At the Opera", which is thought of a response to this piece, where the subject, alone, is actively watching the opera, engaged in the surroundings, and not there to be seen-dressed in darker, more modest clothing certainly not sitting for you to look at her).

It's one of the reasons why the female nude is such an dominate subject in paintings. Their body (and you'll note that often times, their head is obscured) is presented to us devoid of personality. Flesh for our viewing pleasure. This is one of the reasons Manet's Olympia was considered very shocking-it wasn't the nudity of the woman, it's the frankness and control she takes in revealing herself to us. This is somewhat akin to what Miss Grey wants to do, which is reveal herself at her own pleasure, stating frankly "This is what I like, this is who I am, and this is how I make my money."

But while I applaud her for her conviction and honesty, I again question the tropes of the particular pornography, especially if she is playing into the fantasy rather than taking an active role in the actions. Could any actual viewers of her work attest to the same frankness being utilized in her videos, or is there more of the same tawdry presentation with her as a much more passive participant?

Oh, and what Miss Zooey said. Ma'am, I defer to you in awe of your brevity and wit.

Sorry to burst your bubble Bob but I was trying to discern if she actually was mentally deficient or indeed playing the part of troll.

All of Kate's posts read like she frantically Wiki's the references in other people's posts in order to fabricate her responses. If you follow her posts she has done and seen everything that any given poster may be talking about yet she always has something in her post that is slightly incorrect.

This kind of pattern lends itself to two possible scenarios, either she truly has Aspergers and therefore a mental capacity for a ton of random shit or she is a troll plying her trade. I merely forced the question out into the open in order to ascertain if I should back down on her. And had she said, yes I do have this disorder I indeed would have sat back and let her ramble on. I don't find it ok as you assert, I actually went out of my way to stop ripping on her if that were her case.

She was suitably, in good troll fashion, vague on answering my question and when she publicly called me a liar I brought the factual material into the open.

I could have plainly and boringly said, "Kate, go fuck yourself." but felt that in a thread devoted to fetishes I could return the derail to topic by being snarky. I even said, "Here, watch the snark." That snark played upon her arguably fetishistic adoration of our Commander in Chief.

Wayward woman,

I am through with the whole Sasha discussion (I've made whatever points I had to make), and do not want to get into a whole discussion on art, but wanted to comment on your reply about the painting I linked to. I am no art history student, but regarding the slave market painting I posted, yes, it seems to have some pretty adult themes being depicted. It hangs on the wall of my home town museum which we had to visit for school countless times. I was not saying that it was pornographic because of the nudity. There are plenty of paintings of nudes that are more about the study of the human form. This particular one caught my attention not because of the lack of clothing, but because like you say, implication left by the way the whole scene is layed out. The way she just stands there as they open her mouth and inspect her teeth definitely seems about titilation. Nudity in general may not always be pornographic , but the way she has to stand there while everyone else is fully clothed says alot about the power dynamics going on. That painting seems like it was designed to raise very specific emotions in the viewer, unlike say a Monet where it's just about "look at the pretty water lillies

Which is why I wasn't talking about Monet, but Manet and Renoir. You couldn't see the pornographic, misogynistic implications of either painting because they were 'fully dressed'. And even then, to say that Monet's water lilies are only about 'looking at the pretty water lilies', you're discounting not only the whole Impressionist period, but the legacy of decorative arts.

Matter of fact, the Manet and Renoir I cited are exactly about 'look at the pretty woman' which is the same sentiment expressed in the "The Slave Market." However, the only reason the artist in the latter was able to get away with such nudity was that it was a non-western setting, featuring no 'white' women, but exotic foreigners. It's as much fantasy as anything by Boris Vallejo or Luis Royo. The fact is, this artwork was conceived of as being viewed by the heterosexual white male, the target audience, if you will. Again, as much as it may be about titillation, it is also about reinforcing tropes and stereotypes of women and foreigners at that time. Something one may argue certain genres of porn and other media do today.

I'm sure the fact that the Slave Market depicts a white woman being sold into slavery after being captured by privateers off the Barbary Coast, being a real fear for Europeans and Americans in the beginning of the 19th century and largely a reason they paid tribute to those nations, has noooooothing whatsoever to do with any interpretation of that piece or its context. Nope, it's just about her tits.

I must have missed that part of the painting where they told her whole backstory..

Did that come from anywhere or are you just assuming that?

Also, I do agree with you in that I think she is supposed to be white. Waywardwoman implied she was not a member of the caucasian persuasion and thats why it was ok to paint a painting like that back then

This thread is weird.

And Kate is in it.

*gets on her soapbox*

It was not appropriate to show 'white women', and by white women, I mean women of western societies, nude. The reason why there are so many goddess figures, or harem images especially in this period, is that while they appeal to the standard heterosexual male viewer, the trappings of mythology or orientalism is that these women were not French, or English, or whatever, no matter how white they appear. See Delacroix's "Women of Algiers in Their Harem" or his "Death of Saradanapalus". Women who were a part of society in this time period who were portrayed nude were almost always, always presented as prostitutes or 'odalisques' if they were not Venuses or Harem scenes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:De...1828_950px.jpg

Or other works of Gerome, the painter of "The Slave Market"

http://www.jeanleongerome.org/Moorish-Bath-large.html
http://www.jeanleongerome.org/Achat-...%29-large.html

These images are more related to Boris Vallejo and Luis Royo, more for the reasons stated above than showing racially motivated hate crimes. In my opinion, anyways. GRanted, I've been steeped in various art history texts, lectures, articles, etc, so I'm a little singleminded at the moment. Just wanted to clarify.

I have this fantasy involving Carol Cane's Ghost of Christmas Present from Scrooged I'd like to play into.

I laughed.

It's not funny. That ghost was one tough bitch. It could be harmful.