Forum / Zizek on Pornography

• 
  Chris Okum

  Jul 09, 08:16pm

  "Contrary to the commonplace, according to which, in pornography, the other (the person on the screen) is degraded to an object of our voyeuristic pleasure, we must stress that it is the spectator himself who effectively occupies the position of the object. The real subjects are the actors on the screen trying to rouse us sexually, while we, the spectators, are reduced to a paralyzed object-gaze."

  From PSYCHO-SEXUAL: MALE DESIRE IN HITHCOCK, DE PALMA, SCORSESE AND FRIEDKIN, by David Greven, 2014, University of Texas Press

• 
  whatwouldbukowskido

  Jul 09, 08:35pm

  Yeah, interesting perspective on what was not possible years ago but which is now taken to its nth degree.

  Used to have to steal/slide Playboys down the back of your pants at the corner gas station while pretending invisibility.

  Oneself and physical risk were always involved in the physical/risky world when things ONLY existed in the physical world.

  Used to be a superhuman event, acquiring picachers of naked ladies.

  Now it's all just THERE.

  FREE/IMMEDIATE/IN YOUR FACE

  And the self is lost in the having of it.

• 
  whatwouldbukowskido

  Jul 09, 08:43pm

  (Oops...just realized ((after googling your link)) you are talking about a specific reality in film history and not the state of modern porn...not that I'd know anything about that...)

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  Chris Okum

  Jul 09, 08:46pm

  No, he's talking about the state of modern porn. The book is about the films of those directors, but the pull-quote reflects Zizek's ideas about Pornography in general.

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  Amanda Harris

  Jul 09, 09:49pm

  Nice little subversion of the dynamic I'd normally associate with pornography; I'd be curious if the gender breakdown of the performers (or viewers) impacts the relationship between objectifier and objectified...

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