Essay 5: Filth/Censorship/Mores/ Sexuality and Technology

The illusion of anonymity that plurk/blogposts/other online profiles allows is a false one. In reaction to The Ticket That Exploded and The Filth the class expressed its disgust more readily and boldly online than in class. Perhaps this can attest to a kind of discomfort that stems from confronting sexuality in person. The class was built around online interaction. Naturally, people were more comfortable talking about things and expressing their ideas and thoughts about the readings online than in class throughout the course. If you then rope sexuality into the picture, raw, harsh, disturbing homoerotic sexuality at that, you get less rection in any medium because people just don't want to go there.

So the question is then why don't people want to go there? Perhaps it can be explained with a statement Cody made one day in class in reaction to The Ticket That Exploded referring to how people would feel about themselves if they were suddenly aroused by what they were reading in the book. I would imagine that if one found themselves aroused by the sexual encounters depicted in the work that one would not admit it, especially to a classroom or plurk site full of peers they hardly know, illusion of anonymity or not.

This brings me to the study of porn consumption in red states. Conservative political views can and often do go hand in hand with strict religious beliefs. The perfect example of this is the state of Utah. With the largest pornography consumption and being the state with easily the biggest religous affiliation, one has to question what correlation there is between porn, politics and religion. In strict religious communities sexuality in general is shunned. It is introduced as a restricted, sometimes evil act. This resistance to sexuality causes the youth of the community to be unaware of their own bodies. This in turn causes greater curiosity and porn is an easy answer for that curiosity. If you raise children to be ashamed of their bodies and their sexuality they are not going to explore it naturally, they'll do it secretly and they'll be dumb enough to pay for it.

This resistance to sexuality spawns from restrictions placed by society. This is exactly what Burroughs and Mores are calling into question with their works. Burroughs forces us to confront the resistance we have to homosexuality. Had his work been packed with heterosexual sex I don't doubt it have sold more copies out of pornographic attraction. Instead he forces us to ask ourselves why are we disgusted by this? The answer, or a small part of it at least, has to do with our resistance to sexuality, in particular to homosexuality.

Mores includes a fair amount of pornography forcing us to question our societies approach to it and the role it plays in our lives. Pornography works because it is a secret way for one to fulfill their sexual desires without risking being judged. It offers an individualized sexual experience that can be done in secret. It's also easier than having to lure a mate. It is all well and good in our society because we keep it under wraps, like we do with our own bodies. It is only when someone like Mores has the courage to reveal and question our addiction to it that people call it outrageous. Pornography is accepted under the veil of anonymity. It is the answer to the frustration religion and conserative politics forces on its members.