Yesterday, I wrote a post about the recent sentencing of adult director Paul Little, aka Max Hardcore. My original post is here. Xeni Jardin has posted more about the case here. Today, I've posted some of the feedback I received on the post.
"I greatly enjoyed reading your take on the Paul Little/Max Hardcore decision, but I can't really agree with the way that you engaged with Glenn Greenwald's argument. Mentioning Matt Hale's other crimes does nothing to lessen the principle of universally-protected freedom of speech outside of those crimes, and your construction could leave a reader with the impression that Greenwald defended Hale for his crimes rather than his speech. That's too bad, but I also think there's a disconnect when you wrote, 'In 1964, US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart opined famously of pornography: "I know it when I see it." In Greenwald's case, one would imagine it would be hard to know what one has seen if one has not, in fact, seen it. If one hasn't seen "it," how can one know what one has seen?'
But Stewart's standard - which was no standard at all, anyways, just whim - is no longer the law of the land. Rather, it's the Miller test -
* Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
* Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law,
* Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
The work is considered obscene only if all three conditions are satisfied.
Greenwald's entire point in discussing the farcical proceedings that convicted Little is that they specifically selected a venue for prosecution best suited to clearing that first hurdle:
'Even though he lived and worked in California, the Bush DOJ dragged him to Tampa, Florida in order to try him under Tampa's "community standards," on the theory that his website used servers physically based in Central Florida and some of the films were sent to Tampa customers who purchased them.'
And that's no legal standard at all - that's the whim of men, and most specifically men with a very particular kind of agenda regarding any and all public expressions or discussions of sex and sexuality - repulsive or otherwise. I think that the way to address this is not by a rigged judicial process but by passing better obscenity laws that have in mind as their first principles not moral scolding but the protection of porn performers, and that clearly lay down what is accepted and what is not rather than leaving those judgments to the whim of a given prosecutor. Those laws may or may not survive challenges on First Amendment grounds - but if they're written with the involvement (doesn't have to be overtly public, of course) of the adult industry, then there wouldn't have to be legal challenges. Judgments like this one make a pretty convincing case that keeping these issues out of the courts would be a far preferable outcome.
cheers,
jkd"
*
"You're right, of course.
But whenever this kind of thing comes up -- that is, whenever people point out the (usually hypocritical) relationship between our expressions of shock and outrage about porn and the fact that the product is popular -- I think about this quote, from late British physicist, David Bohm:
'Good theories, unlike bad ones, are true; but only up to a certain point.'
In context, he was referring to the transition from Newtonian principles to quantum mechanics (Newton's still right...but only up to a certain point. Beyond that, quantum physics carries on).
So when you say that Little's carnival of degradation is Who We Are I'm inclined to say yes, but only up to a certain point. I notice that no-frills videos of people just screwing (no dog bowls, no clown makeup, no magic marker labeled bodies, no insults) are popular too but seldom discussed in such an ominous way (except by the fundies -- described by Zizek as not real fundamentalists since they're apparently so unsure of their beliefs they need to police outside behavior).
Greenwald's first amendment defenses aside, I'm not sorry Little's being punished. He deserves some judicial shock and awe. As a porn viewer, I always hated his stuff, and long wondered why he hadn't been successfully prosecuted. For me, the suspension of disbelief was impossible while watching his videos. They only made me want to hit Little with a baseball bat (a type of arousal, but probably not what he was aiming for). You'll probably agree that porn is primarily an aid for masturbation (the Freudians discuss the psychoanalytic aspects, the Marxists discuss the labor exploitation elements and the Feminists decry objection and male gazes but for most of us, it's just a way to add a bit of wattage to the daily wank). Well, for that to work, it has to mostly be your fantasy.
And while I have no trouble getting wound up at the thought of say, spending some time with 'Penny Flame', for me, the inclusion of all that extreme bullshit shatters the illusion that 'this could be you and your tongue, your dick and hands at this awesome party'.
Not because I'm such a principled guy (though I'd like to think I'm far less megalomanical than Little and fellow travelers) but, more fundamentally, because degradation is not what I call a good way to spend Saturday night -- either in my actual bed or as a spectator watching an LCD screen.
The point being of course, that Little, in his max Hardcore persona, is certainly a part of the collective id.
But only a part.
Dwayne M.
*
"... Not that I know that much more about porn, but I did grow up in Porn Valley and am definitely fascinated by the business of porn, its legal issues, the lives of the performers, and all the questions of exploitation and agency (of women AND men). I can never make up my mind about it, but I always feel like my physical proximity to it gives me some claim over it. I went to Chatsworth High School and grew up in Canoga Park so I think in a lot of respects I am kind of inured to porn culture, or at least its aesthetics... big fake boobs and plastic lips and orange tans were de rigueur, though I guess now they are kind of an American standard.
Also: When I first started at [redacted], [redacted] did a shoot on a porn set in Canoga Park that was 2 blocks from the apartment I lived in during high school (a period of my life in which I went to church probably about 3-4 times a week and so didn't have much time to ponder all the unmarked warehouses in the 'hood) and so of course I talked my way into going along with them. I still haven't fully processed my day there. But ironically, I did have a keen sense of being regarded as a bit of a novelty, or being watched for my reaction - 'Isn't she cute, her first time on a porn set... how do you feel?' - and at one point, I was on the set, the only woman in the room besides the performer (mid-coitus) in a room with half a dozen male PAs, who kept looking over at me. I felt icky - not about the porn that was being filmed in front of me, but because I was being watched - and then I felt like a wimp and a hypocrite for feeling icky. It was very confusing.
I actually thought of Susannah's writing then and wondered how she is able to do it without becoming part of the narrative. Maybe it comes with time, like she was an 'embedded journalist,' or she went so many times that she managed to become like a part of the set so no one noticed her and then she was not self-conscious, either. I always really liked that she didn't feel the need to make the porn story about her and her own feelings, but the presentation of facts was still really nuanced and good and made me feel something, and made me feel that she felt something there.
[Redacted]"
*
"'To the Max' was... one of those most brilliant and heart-wrenching essays I've read about 21st century porn in recent memory.
I am in awe of you.
Eric [Spitznagel, co-author of Ron Jeremy: The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz]
*
"... I first read about his sentencing in Andrew Sullivan's blog, while I was I trolling for new ways to hate Sarah Palin. The link went to Salon, where I read what you read, about consenting adults and all that. By those lights, it's sort of like they're busting Andrew Blake for having his starlets wear Ray-Bans. Yours is the only piece of writing on the subject that begins to explicate the complexities of the question: should we mourn the prosecution of Paul Little? Should we be outraged? If so, why? Because, as you know, if the allure of porn is that, Hey, they're not fakin' -- they're really doin' it!, then the allure of Max Hardcore is that he's not fakin' it either. These are not fictional portrayals of sexual torture and humiliation. They're really doin' it! And we're watchin'. Wow! So the interesting thing about Max Hardcore -- and porn itself, I guess -- is not that it represents an idea, of some sorts, objectionable to some, unobjectionable to others. It represents something that actually happened, or is happening, somewhere in space and time. There is nothing meta about it. So the idea is less obscene than the actuality. But then, how can you bust the guy on obscenity charges, which are all about the portrayal? Which are all about the idea at the root of the portrayal? I mean, once you call it 'obscenity,' then you can turn around and call its suppression 'censorship.' You don't censor a guy like Paul Little. You stop him. But how do you stop a guy who's got the camera running and who traffics in images? That's the question. If he was
standing on the street corner, offering to pay youngish girls for sex, and then getting them to play out a full-blown Max Hardcore scene, you could probably bust the guy on charges of assault, cruelty, etc. But the fact that he's filming it....and that people are watching it...and paying for it....well, it makes the whole situation as complicated as you describe. You know, I was reading 'A Good Man is Hard to Find' the other day, when the Misfit blames the whole thing on Christ, saying that he threw everything out of balance. Well, Max is the Misfit. But the thing that threw the whole thing out of balance is the Camera. Its bland eye permits all. Until yesterday. Until today. And so is the sentencing of Paul Little to four years in stir a strike at the eye which offends thee, or is it a strike at what the eye saw?"
