Laugh Loud and Often

posted by Nam LaMore | Wednesday, May 25, 2005 |  9 speak up! | | back to top |

"i am in full support of more porn on the internet. we talk about internet porn like it's the coming of the technological messiah, but we're sorta missing what it can teach us about ourselves. porn sites are like our eyes in that they are the window to the modern soul; they're glimpses into the twisted and tortured minds of an anonymous society. freud tried to deduce deviancy through decades of analysis and it is now completely exposed in the blink of a click.

carl jung's introduction of the concept of the "collective unconscious" was an attempt to explain why humans became unglued at the thought of being left in the dark (real) and being attacked by monsters (imaginary) .. but porn and the web results in the collective conscious. it's where we all see the things people would never admit to wanting.

and what is it that we want? from what i can tell, that answer is twofold: we want imperfection, and we want heightened reality. the porn everyone wants to see on the internet focuses on (1)amateurs and (2) celebrities. we either want a truck stop waitress who's a little unattractive and full of character, or we want voyeuristic images of britney spears on a private beach in brazil. and some would say that's simply human nature, but they're wrong: that's a reflection of how we're still trying to understand how this technological wonder works. ironically, or perhaps predictably, we need porn to do this. it's what keeps us interested in the unreliable, insecure internet.

in less than a decade, millions worldwide went from (a) not knowing what the internet was, to (b) knowing what it was but not using it, to (c) having an email address, to (d) using email pretty much every day, to (e) being unable to exist professionally or socially without it. the internet evolved so fast that we learned how to use it without having to understand it. i suppose this has always been the case with any technology: i watch television, yet have no idea how to explain it, fix it or build one. i am the everyday consumer out there fitting some bell curves, the much sort-after demographics in those silly polls and surveys.

and so, this is perhaps how amateur porn became so integral to the adoption of internet technology: it not only made people excited about using the web, but it also made people comfortable with using the web. imperfect, unpaid nudity softens the otherwise sterile virtual world; it's some sorta proof that this apocalyptic network of electrons is still operated by imperfect people and not soulless robots. amateur porn keeps us within our own imperfect world.

there are certainly differences between the nude body of, say, nicole kidman and the nude body of, say, a TGI Friday waitress in manhattan, new york, but they are not all that dissimilar when the lights are turned down, and virtually no difference even after a half-ass attempt on photoshop. in this instance, internet porn provides a bizarre sense of stability: it reminds us that virtual reality is Reality. what people want to see with nude celebrities is proof that superstars, whether they be nicole kidman or anna nicole smith, are not gods, but simply media creations.

web surfers are unwittingly subversive in their activities: celebrities are robbed of their privacy and, in effect, power is restored to the people. psychologically, the internet is very marxist: everyone with a modem has access to the same information, so we all get jammed into a technological middle class. and just like the middle class of Reality, Congress is still debating the virtues of taxation and scrutinizing ways to tax the bejesus out of us.

oh, the fact that a "bad" notion (re: porn) shouldering a "good" notion (re: technology and information for me) is too uncomfortable for most people to discuss .. so we don't. curiously, 99% of porn sites are directed toward heterosexual men .. does this imply that women are better equipped to differentiate the real and the virtual? or there are more men working on internet-related projects? perhaps, but i would dare say that women can lick their own nipples .. and that makes all the difference."