Is Porn In the Eye Of The Beholder?

by Coleen Singer at Sssh.com Porn For Women

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously wrote that when it came to hardcore pornography, “I know it when I see it.” What about softcore porn, however; do we know that when we see it?

Facebook has had some trouble with distinguishing porn from “erotic art” or “tasteful nudes” or whatever people like to call pictures of naked people that they don’t consider porn. When the women’s rowing team from the University of Warwick advertised their fundraising calendar on Facebook, which features undeniably tame images of partial nudity, Facebook gave their page the boot for being “pornographic.”

I like to think most people wouldn’t view the images in question to be pornographic, but it got me thinking about how subjective the entire question of pornography is, and how difficult it would be to apply Justice Stewart’s axiom when applied to imagery that doesn’t depict actual sex. 

Is the definition of “porn” dependent on the eye of the beholder, so to speak? Can we reliably differentiate between nude images and pornography?

As I pondered this, my mind drifted back to the mid-80s, and a conversation I had with my grandfather about the movie version of Frank Herbert’s Dune. As a sci-fi-obsessed teenager, I was greatly disappointed with the movie, and felt that it did a terrible disservice to the book. My grandfather’s reaction was more visceral: “That damn thing was pornography, and you shouldn’t have been allowed in the theater!”

Now, if you’ve ever seen Dune (and I’m sorry if you have; please don’t judge what’s really a terrific book by that piece of crap movie), then you know it doesn’t even come close to what most of us consider “porn” – even by the standards of 1984, when it came out. But to my grandfather, it might as well have been Interracial Hole Stretchers 12; the film had nudity, it had simulated sexual activity, ergo it was “porn.” End of story!

Granted, if he were alive today, my grandfather’s head would spin right off his neck if he got a gander at Pornhub, and I think even he would allow that Dune isn’t particularly pornographic when compared to that, but I suspect he’d still object to it.

That sort of “porn-subjectivity” isn’t unique to older generations or more socially-conservative folks, however. Some years back, I asked John, a male friend of mine (and well-documented womanizer) what his favorite kind of porn was, and his answer was “the Victoria’s Secret catalog.”

When I laughed and asked him how that catalog qualifies as porn, John’s response was pretty persuasive: “The have hardly any clothes on, and it’s not hard for me to imagine myself fucking the shit out of them…. actually, it’s hard NOT to imagine myself fucking the shit out of them.”

Now, when I look at a Victoria’s Secret catalog, my primary reaction is admiring the photoshop skills required to seamlessly airbrush away butt zits, but I can see how it became my John’s favorite source of porn-thrills. 

The poses often seem crafted less to effectively display the lingerie than to make women like me resent the proportions and contours of the models wearing that lingerie, or to make men like John want to fuck the living shit out of them. I’m less certain of whether that desire actually makes men more likely to buy their wives or girlfriends that same lingerie; somehow, I feel like my husband probably knows it won’t look quite the same clinging to my body as it does on Candace Swanepoel or Adriana Lima. (He’s a bit slow, sure, but he’s not blind as a fucking bat.)

So, are the images in the Warwick rowing team’s calendar “pornography”? I certainly don’t think so, but that’s the beauty of the subjectivity of porn: you can look and decide, for yourself.

At the risk of bumming out the ladies of the Warwick rowing team, who seem like very earnest and decent young people who honestly want to help a worthy cause (namely, Macmillan Cancer Support), I will tell you one thing that is absolutely certain: Out there, somewhere, right now, there is at least one man stroking it to those pictures. You can bank on that. But it really just proves the point: when it comes to softcore porn, Potter Stewart would be just as stymied as the rest of us when it comes to defining the term.

With all of that in mind, I'm happy to see a new search engine for porn, Boodigo.com, where we can all find what we want, without corporate censorship. It's an idea whose time has come.

About Coleen Singer:
Coleen Singer is a writer, photographer, film editor and all-around geeky gal at Sssh.com (@ssshforwomen), where she often waxes eloquent about Female Friendly Porn, sex, pleasure products, censorship, the literary and pandering evils of Fifty Shades of Grey and other topics not likely to be found on the Pulitzer Prize shortlist. She is also the editor and curator of EroticScribes.com. When she is not doing all of the above, Singer is an amateur stock-car racer and enjoys modifying vintage 1970s cars for the racetrack. Oh, she also likes porn.

Visit Coleen at Sssh.com for more sex news, commentary and hot porn for women and couples!