Re censorship etc.

[Abe-Nornes]

Aaron wrote:

>but if we accept even the statement that texts have ideological effects, 
>that reality is always also a discursive reality, that discourse has a 
>powerful role in shaping culture, then we do need to pay attention to how 
>representations are articulating categories like sexuality and violence.  
>That does not mean those representations are directly "causing" or 
>"reflecting" behavior; rather that they, like my examples from manga, 
>embody certain articulations of the discourse of sexuality that need to 
>be taken into account when doing cultural analysis.  

The latter problematic is far more interesting (especially considering the
mind-numbing moralizing going on in my own cultural context these days).
The thing that has interested me about these sexually explicit uses of
media is precisely the way that technology helps refine these
articulations. In the last couple decades, the development of cheap
technologies for mechanical reproduction---the PC, xerox machines, video
tape, etc.---are making it possible for increasingly cheap production of
erotic texts. In the shift from film to video, you see a pinpoint, sorting
out of desire. Every articulation gets its genre, and reduplicated
endlessly as desire wants. While you can see various "styles" of sexuality
in the roman porno, its nothing like the strong articulation of erotic
"aesthetics" in video (if that contrast makes any sense). Two extremes, for
example, might be the faux documentary rape fantasies (narrativized, hard
focus, hand held, fake, probing interviews [textual foreplay?], etc) vs.
the highly aestheticized imagery of chikan video (no narrative, soft focus,
video effects, extreme closeups, hypnotic, etc). For anyone interested in
questions of visual pleasure, there's a project sitting there waiting to be
done....although I'm not sure if it would be _pleasurable_.

Markus