Hubris. Hmm.
Last night I was bitching to my brilliant London host bout SG. My membership had been lapsed for about a year, and I brought the site up in the context of discussing his phd thesis about comic book politics. The discussion had turned into a discussion of the Moore/Gebbie collaboration "Lost Girls", which turned into a discussion of pornography.

My ranting and bitching wasn't just about SG, but about "alt porn". My irritation stems from my position as a producer of porn: I find generally that attaching the alt tag to smut leads to unrealistic expectations on the part of performers & models.

I don't really, entirely believe that alt porn is indistinguishable from mainstream porn but for better marketing and less criticality on the part of the consumer, which is close to what I said when the whiskey put me on my high horse last night. I DO get cranky that people who know punk lives at a slightly different place on the same commercial continuum as MOR am radio can't recognize that all porn also lives on an ever-shifting commercial continuum within which yesterday's edge is tomorrow's cliche while the market and the meaning remains very, very similar.

My crankiness arises when a prospective model/performer comes to me blinded by countercultural associations, thinking that because I'm located in a similar set of political circles as they inhabit, the smut we produce together is somehow going to be consumed by different people with a different understanding of what that model's sexualized nekkidness on screen means.

Particularly if you are female-bodied, no matter the venue of your porn performance, some of your school friends will still judge you and snicker behind your back- or to your face. Some of your family members will still see you as failed and sullied. Many, many straight men with their dicks in one hand and their credit cards in the other will still be looking at your images and thinking about you in ways you cannot control, that are NOT about your elevated politics, your fabulous fashion sense, your great taste in music or your fantastic score in online games.

I personally don't think these predictable consequences are as extreme or as universal a set of responses as they were even a decade ago. I don't think these reactions need be catastrophic or even very important in one's life (or I wouldn't be in this racket), and I'm certain they are often outweighed by the very real social/economic gains and personally liberatory experiences one can have by spreading on tha interwebs.

I still blame the insular bubbles of alt-porn communities in part for the wacky romanticization of what it means to be a porn performer, and for sidestepping most critiques of the function of porn as a loneliness industry. (yes, that's my term, and yes, you're welcome to use it.)

So I bitched and scoffed about SG for an hour last night. (In our conversation I didn't even mention what they did to Mr. Warner, and I'll try to put that thought aside for a moment.) This morning somebody renewed my membership and here I am, happily eating crow, looking at old friends and embracing the contradiction.

Glad to be back, and thanks to whomever my anonymous benefactor might be, both for the gift and for the reminder of how easily I am swayed by 'free' and 'boobies'.

If you're in London UK right now, dear benefactor, look me up and I'll buy you a pint. I promise not to rant too much.