porno porno PORNO

There. Got your attention, didn't I. Extra points if you can tell me what the title is a quote from.

But no joke, I watched a documentary tonight called "The Price of Pleasure", hosted by a bunch of groups (the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies, the Radio-TV-Film Department, and the Senior Fellows honors program of the College of Communication of the University of Texas; the student group Texas Feminists; and the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault.) The intro (abstract?) for the film

Critics of pornography have observed two trends in pornography in recent years: Commercially produced sexually explicit material is more mainstream and normalized than ever, while at the same time it has become more overtly cruel and degrading to women and more racist. Why is that, and what effect does it have on our ideas about gender and power, sexuality and relationships?

To explore this question, the documentary film “The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality and Relationships” investigates three aspects of the pornography industry — production, content and consumption — to help gain a deeper understanding not only of the material but the larger culture in which it’s produced and consumed. The film includes interviews with pornographers, pornography performers, and scholars in psychology, media, economics, and popular culture. Men and women candidly discuss how pornography has affected them and their partners. The film examines pornography’s effects on the performers and audience, moving beyond liberal celebrations and conservative denunciations to engage a nuanced discussion of desire and harm, choice and system constraint, liberty and responsibility.

It was definitely a documentary to make you think about things, and it makes a large difference when taking erotic material to remove it from the private sector and put it under scrutiny for a large group of people to examine. In light of the social commentary that Vox (my church in Austin) puts on everything, this was an especially relevant topic when discussing racist and sexist content that emerges in pornographic material and its impact on popular culture in the past and present. Interesting note - the filmmaker is Chyng Sun, a Taiwanese woman who came to the US at 30, and her observation as an outsider to US culture brings out points I probably wouldn't have noticed otherwise.

Here are links to both the website and the trailer. A word of caution; the trailer is fairly graphic even when censored. If anyone would like to borrow the DVD, I also have it and would love to watch/discuss it with you if you're ever interested.