Quentin Tarentino Wants To Put It In Your Mouth

Radar reports on everyone's favorite ball of pretense/b-movie geek/movie nerd/postmodern director Quentin Tarentino. Following the box office failure that was Grindhouse (full disclosure: I want to see this movie and didn't because I was lazy, so I'm partially to blame for its failure), Tarentino has decided to dive into that other field of cinema in Los Angeles County: Pornography.

Tarentino's grand idea is to make 3D porn. Tarentino believes that it could be the next direction for pornography to take. Yes, I need to see semen flying at my face or a woman's thrusting fist challenging the structural integrity of my nose. This is clearly a brilliant idea on the part of Tarentino.

My faux enthusiasm aside, this shit's already been done. As the article points out, Bobby Rinaldi has already made a version of his Screw My Wife Please series in DVD. For those who can't understand the literalness of porn titles, a dude bangs some real guy's real wife. Yes, it is that crass. And, yes, the women are completely into the idea. Some participants talked about wanting to be in it (for the husband, that meant watching their wife get boned by a porn guy) during HBO's enlightening documentary on pornography in the San Fernando Valley (this is the peril of watching too much television). As I understand it, the whole movie is made of couples who wrote the company to be in the movies.

As innovative as this might be, 3D porn might not be the best direction for porn to take. For anyone who has watched any amount of porn, would you want that porn busting out of the spectrum towards you? Would that really increase its erotic appeal? If that's you, that's cool. But, that's not me. I don't need to feel like I'm covered in a sticky wad.

I Guess She Stuck It To Her

A Houston woman named Syvette Wimberly is involved in a quite interesting suit. From the Houston Chronicle:

She may not be a star, but Laura Madden has made a name for herself in pornographic movies. The problem is it's not her own.

When she embarked on her career in 2004, Madden, 25, selected the stage name Syvette Wimberly. She has appeared in a dozen or so hard-core videos under that name, including Irresistibly Delicious, Innocence and Dominance and others inappropriate for mention in a family newspaper.

But Madden's nom-de-sex did not spring from her imagination. It belongs to an old classmate at Kingwood High School, and the real Syvette Wimberly is none too happy about the attention that has come her way from people wondering why she was appearing in 18 and Hitchhiking.

So unhappy, in fact, that she recently filed suit against Madden and Vivid Entertainment Group, a major producer of adult films, asking that they no longer use or publicize the name and demanding damages for inflicting "humiliation, embarrassment, loss of enjoyment of life, emotional distress, mental anguish and anxiety."

They tell you not to use your real name. But, I don't think this is what they meant. Also, if the people who are getting in touch with you aren't smart enough to realize that a) you look nothing like the person in the photos that you can find on Google and b) the screen name of a porn star is never their real name (whose parents are dumb enough to name their child Jon Dough? Jewel DeNyle? Monique DeMoan?), the real Ms. Wimberly might want to contemplate keeping new acquaintances or changing her phone number.

For Post 300

I was going to post about basketball, but then I got inspired from reading another post. A guest blogger at Feministe was questioning his own stance on pornography after reading a story coming from CNN about a new anti-porn bill passed in Iran. The bill stems from the controversy caused by a sex tape involving a popular Iranian celebrity engaging in intercourse with a man. The celebrity says that it was not her, but the damage had already been done.

The bill will, essentially, outlaw all forms of pornography and all people who are involved in pornography. From CNN:

With a 148-5 vote in favor and four abstentions, lawmakers present at the Wednesday session of the 290-seat parliament approved that "producers of pornographic works and main elements in their production are considered corrupter of the world and could be sentenced to punishment as corrupter of the world."

The term, "corrupter of the world" is taken from the Quran, the Muslims' holy book, and ranks among the highest on the scale of an individual's criminal offenses. Under Iran's Islamic Penal Code, it carries a death penalty.

The "main elements" referred to in the draft include producers, directors, cameramen and actors involved in making a pornographic video.

The bill also envisages convictions ranging from one year imprisonment to a death sentence for the main distributors of the movies and also producers of Web sites in which the pornographic works appear.

Besides videos, the bill covers all electronic visual material, such as DVDs and CDs. Other material, such as porn magazines and books, are already banned under Iranian law.

In liberal America, this wouldn't stand. Pornography has been defended successfully on First Amendment grounds in the Supreme Court. Regardless of that, this law is completely unreasonable. But, for me to explain this, I have to explain my own relationship with pornography.

I do not think that there is a delineation between erotica and pornography. Both involve sex and the human form. The question becomes how is this presented to the viewer. Erotica tends to be of higher quality with better camera work and very possibly a plot. A lot of pornography is done very quickly (like a day) with a handheld camera which is either shaky or overly involved in the scene, fracturing the gentle nature and eliminating the innate intimacy of human sexuality.

Even with this distinction, I think that both forms are beneficial to men and women. I think that a lot of the arguments about the objectification of women in porn are specious. I won't suggest that it doesn't exist because it does. A lot of pornography does have women who are in situations where they are only there to serve the male interest, but, as I think most people believe, I find this sort of pornography to be very unappealing. It is more appealing to have both the women and men aroused and fully invested in the sex, and this is not an idea that is left to the high-brow erotica makers; low-brow pornographers can focus on the passion of the woman as well.

With all of this said, pornography is a useful tool to explore our own sexuality and to explore our relationships with others. I believe that it serves as an important role in the relationships between consenting adults as well as a sexual release for single persons. I think that such explorations serve a very great purpose in society. Additionally, erotica/porn is meant to express a sexual fantasy with regards to the relationships between humans and their sexuality. People who decide to explore the nature of human sexuality as a profession should not be punished for making such a decision, as they would in Iran. There will always be men who feel that is their right to degrade women, and those men should be rightfully decried and shunned. But, to write off an entire genre of work positive to the understanding of one's self for the representation given by a few misogynists is ridiculous. There is a violence to sexuality, but that violence should not be one that puts either the man or the woman in a situation that makes them uncomfortable or submissive to the needs of other.*

*submissiveness is, for some people, a turn on. I am fully behind that. But, there is a modicum of consent that is involved in passing into a S&M situation, which is completely acceptable. The problem arises when male actors force women into situations that they do not enjoy or agree with. A substantial amount of porn does this. I do not support this ideal. I'm aware that this will draw a lot of fire, but that's ok. I'll back it up.