Replies To Danielle's Journal and Video Logs

[RonTheLogician]

Hello Dani,

I'm sorry to hear that after all the sexual liberation we've enjoyed this century that your mom continues to cling to attitudes quite common when she was growing up concerning things like adult films, to the point that you report she is ashamed to reveal the nature of your work to her colleagues.

Even as I hope to make suggestions you can undertake to try modernizing her attitude, I also counsel that you try to show some understanding of where she's coming from. You probably cannot BEGIN to imagine how sex, much less sexual art, was denigrated as "dirty" and "shameful" during her childhood in America, whatever her social background. To start, consider these milestones:

Until 1952, film had NO First Amendment protection. States could, and did, prohibit the display not only of sexual matters, but also things like "blasphemy" - things that particular religions found insulting! So much for freedom of religion, as well as speech!

Until 1958, states could pass laws making photographic portrayal of ANY type of nudity criminal. That year, the courts ruled that "nude is not automatcally lewd," finally protecting folks who published magazines and films concerning America's naturist (non-sexual social nudity) movement. The KEY word was automatically: circa 1971, the courts landed up holding that individual communities could impose their own local obscenity standards concerning the type of films that could be shown in theaters. Such a constraint only became substantially moot when adult video moved to electronic tapes, and later, to the Internet, beyond the practical reach of local pressure groups and prosecutors.

And it wasn't only "porn" which was stigmatized. To a large degree, sex itself, including MARITAL sex, was crippled by all sorts of laws. In the 1870s, Comstock made sending virtually ALL sex-related materials through the US mail illegal, including stuff like information on birth control. When Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in 1917, New York State shuttered it. Not until the 1930's did the courts finally protect sending birth control information through the US mail.

Until 1965, states could, and did, pass laws preventing MARRIED couples from buying birth control products. The same protection of freedom did not reach unmarried (straight) couples until 1973.

And of course, until the early years of THIS century, states could, and did, pass laws making "sodomy" illegal. This not only made gay sex illegal, but ALSO oral and anal sex between straight couples, EVEN married couples!

So during most of your mom's life, especially her impressionable childhood, repression of sex and sexual art was very severe and uncompromising, and she had to at least appear to acquiesce to same. More, being human, she almost certainly found it less humiliating to rationalize these restrictions as just and sensible, if Stockholm Syndrome wasn't enough to do the job.

I'd like to commend to your attention a wonderful new HBO series, The Deuce, of which I've seen only three epsiodes. It concerns the sexual culture and evolving sex industry in early 1970s New York City, in particular the area on 42nd Street near the de facto red light district around Times Square. As a teen resident in that city back then, I can assure you it does a very faithful job of capturing both the sexual and non-sexual cultural details of those times!

Things like prostitution and porn were half-tolerated for the sake of keeping them out of other places. As they were illegal, there was no protection by law - meaning that "protection" came from pimps who'd beat up clients who hurt or short-changed their girls - at least when they weren't hurting their girls themselves for not working hard enough for them. The same deal applied to drug abuse and the illegal drug trade, and there were perhaps half a dozen serious violent crimes EVERY day in that area!

This sort of reality reinforced the idea in people like your Mom that sex trades are "inherently" unhealthy, dangerous, etc - and a SURE route to poverty! Of course, the only thing MAKING that so was the absence of protection which every legal activity enjoys! Today, you don't hear about all the violence and death surrounding the sale of liquor - because there is very little. But when it was illegal in the 1920's, there was more than enough of that to go around!

To start your Mom on the route to reform, I'd like to have you read a book: Sex in the Museum: My Unlikely Career at New York's Most Provocative Museum, Amazon page here. It is a wonderful book on three levels: the story of how any museum gets started up, the story of the romantic life of a young woman of today, and a serious look at the nature, history and culture of sexuality. Sarah Forbes, the book's anthropologist author is quoted here, so:

When I first started working at the Museum of Sex in 2004, the institution wasn’t allowed to advertise in the subways due to the taboo of the topic. Now the Museum can be found on billboards across the city and spotted on your morning commute.

While, in some ways, this is due to people’s understanding that the Museum of Sex is actually a museum, it is also a part of a larger cultural shift in which the mainstream is more aware of and open to the diversity of sexuality. The Internet has exposed many to the depths of definitions of sex that were once considered fringe... While we still have a long way to go, over the last decade working in this field, I have seen a tremendous cultural normalization when it comes to sex.

When you finish this book, I want you to urge your mom to read it as well, so that it can form the basis of a discussion on sex between you. Mom's formal sex education was likely quite limited, and I'd be surprised if most of what she knows about the subject was wasn't gleaned from whispered discussions and the school of hard knocks.

When I have more time, I'd like to suggest additional material you may find useful in enlightening Mom to an alternative point of view concerning sex and sexual art.

Best always,
Ron The Logician

[RonTheLogician]

Hey Dani,

After all the serious stuff I wrote above, I thought I'd treat you to a little music which celebrates the liberation of porn we have been lucky enough to enjoy in recent times.

Above, Sarah Forbes asserted that

...the mainstream is [now] more aware of and open to the diversity of sexuality. The Internet has exposed many to the depths of definitions of sex that were once considered fringe...

To prove her points, the singing group DaVinci's Notebook offers up the tune Internet Porn, here.

And as to your assertion that porn itself is now mainstream, the smash hit Broadway musical from the previous decade, Avenue Q, examines this hypothesis in the tune The Internet is for Porn, here.

Keep smiling!
Ron the Logician

[RonTheLogician]

Hey Dani,

I heard you when you complained in a recent video log about repressive sex laws which undermine your social and economic freedom. And by now you know how much worse it was in previous generations. So it is all the more amazing that almost a half-century ago the musical Let My People Come came along to stand up and say, "Enough is Enough!" (Indeed, following up on feebler similar protests over the previous decade.)

First, I'd ask you to hear what inspired such a project - supposedly the highest grossing Off-Broadway production in history - by downloading and viewing the 4-minute video clip here.

Then, listen to the wonderful song from the show which tells off the jerks behind so many repressive sex laws, I Believe My Body, here. And do enjoy the religious fervor with which it expresses its message, given that sexual repression has so often been religiously inspired.

You might even share this post with your mom and see what she thinks about it!

Ron the Logician

[Robert]

In video log 713 you talk about people not paying for porn, and ask about how other people would feel about working for free. I am a musician so I do a lot of work for free and post a lot of free content. I think there is a place for it. I'm not advocating stealing, but I think that the models of everyone gets something for free but those who pay get something extra, or content is provided for free but donations are expected, though not required (which is the way most of my concerts work) , or advertisers rather than consumers pay for the content, are all viable alternative methods where people can get some free content which is supported by others paying for it.