Sense or Ship

Why I chose this rather unimpressive orthographic pun is because essentially censorship will always put us in one of two positions, to either govern and retain our own standards peer to peer or to have cast away what is deemed damaging to our psyches by unions of "thought police". Recently a law has been passed in the UK where possession of "extreme" pornographic images are illegal. So, what constitutes "extreme"? Let alone what constitutes pornographic (Forget about that one - I tried addressing it and got my film banned - oh the irony, oh the "Eye on me").

As a Commonwealth British subject I feel I must address this issue, not just because MonMouth kindly pointed it out to me but also because here in Oz, similar controversies are being underplayed and secretly implemented without so much as a public standing or decent revolt. The apathy of the masses, the trodden few, it may seem like a hopeless world but only because the world's dilemmas, the collective dilemmas are relative to each individual. The individual unfortunately is only as influential as the sum of her or his parts by way of intellect, position, authority or money.

Extreme. The first offer of definition being "of a character or kind farthest removed from the ordinary or average", so what is the most ordinary or average pornographic image then? I would like this addressed because if "extreme" is the adjective chosen to represent the evidence of this law's execution then surely having at home "ordinary or average" pornography must therefore be entirely legal. I had a bit of a search for what the heck "ordinary" pornography might be and came across a few suggestions - mainly to do with "virtual" child porn (i.e. suggestive and implied but not essentially pornographic) and the opposite of what is defined as "obscene" - now Miller writes a fair bit about "the obscene" as does D.H Lawrence and this I may, depending on how rigorous I gnaw at this subject, go into later on down this post.

Ordinary. I'm perturbed once again by this word. What is an ordinary car, an ordinary couch, an ordinary sandwich, an ordinary cup of tea, an ordinary pornographic image? Is a nude statue an ordinary pornographic image. Is the image of an animal whether it be goat or donkey an ordinary pornographic image? If the desire of the viewer was to want to fuck it, then perhaps at its most "unreadable context" it very much is, but also then, is it not an "extreme" pornographic image since we have defined bestiality as being illegal.

Then let's examine "average pornography". Andrew Blake (Pornographic filmmaker) in an article on BlackBook Magazine suggested that "average pornography is anti-erotic", but I'd like to take that statement (because Andrew was implying that average pornography is not subtle, or sensual) and use it in context to the "anti-erotic" that I am interested in which relates to meanings from smut and bawdiness. Anti-Erotica in my books is a binary opposite, rather then a reversal of the erotic, it is a deconstruction of it.

But I digress, "average pornography" there is none except to say that quite literally if we were to make that statement, it would mean that average pornography is what we most likely to expect pornography to be. Ask an eighty year old what they are most likely to expect pornography to be, ask an eighteen year old, ask a Priest, ask a pornographer, ask a Muslim, ask a prostitute, ask a jail-bird, ask a soldier, ask a dentist, ask a florist, ask anybody and you will find that what each individual expects is most likely to only highlight the bleeding obvious: nudity and sex. Then add to that whether it is an image, a drawing, a sentence or phallic object.

Not many people are most likely to say that average pornography is facials, light golden-showers, and threesomes. The common collective would probably say that average pornography is tits 'n' arse, or centerfold spreads which only relates to images solely of one person, gender being female. Anyway, using definitions is a useful starting point to breaking down this matter, but it isn't conclusive and whether we actually know exactly what "extreme pornography" is does not address other issues relating to life and what it means to live it under the oppression of laws induced to keep order or simply powerful people putting in place their own quantifying values onto the helpless individual for their own good.

There are so many factors that can be examined in this scenario. A basic one would be an example of someone being unduly punished for having this unidentifiable "extreme pornography", the character I imagine is called Sally - who has found a passion in watching "hardcore" amateur pornography and has therefore downloaded over the years many clips that she likes.

All clips are legal in the sense of consent and age, the only law she seemingly might have broken was having evaded the UK's IWF (Internet Filter). So Sally works as a pharmacist, she's possibly got children, a partner, and nothing else in her life is remarkably radical in the sense of being "questionable". Now Sally's job as a pharmacist is demanding, her life at home is pleasurable but also demanding in its way, she sometimes feels low on occasion and sometimes feels stressed - having these clips on her computer Sally suddenly becomes a "criminal".

Immediately she has contraband in her home, she's at risk of facing the law with having committed an offense, her harmless interest and stimulation from sex is now the act of a heinous and disruptive perpetrator. She must confront the idea that her actions are those of someone who cannot make judgments about life for herself, that if it came down to it, if she decided to take a piss out in the backyard with all due privacy, that that too might be frowned upon with shame and deserved of punishment.

So she's taken to court, she's made to feel like she's done something damaging to society, she could possibly lose her job, she might fall into depression, and the government along with the moral crusaders could not care less if her life is treated in this way as long as they've felt "justice" has been served. It's a cruel senseless world, and despite the intelligent arguments one can put to her case, she's going to be dragged through these processes even if the outcome is not severe - all the while, the same governments and same moral crusaders encourage acts of violence, torture and death without even blinking - while she's being prosecuted by the law someone else is being murdered, bullied or tormented without retribution. We understand the world operates in this way, no amount of sugar coating can delude forever what happens beyond our front doors - big business has always done things proportionately more horrific without any answerable trial, and shall continue to do so.

In Australia the government is implementing a White Box technology that filters out certain Internet sites. The details are complicated and the government is attempting to measure the outcomes so that two tiers will be implemented, the first tier as a general filter that blocks "illegal" and "inappropriate" sites, the second tier which apparently is to be optional, filters out pornography.

Whether or not certain pornography will be blocked with the first tier because it is deemed "inappropriate" has not been mentioned. Adultery may be considered "inappropriate" but if you enjoy cuckolding and look at sites where this is simulated whether "amateur" or "fictional", you just lost your freedom to communicate that aspect of your personality.

Fortunately this Internet censoring here in Australia has not been popular with the public, thankfully many who might think it a good idea may not be involved enough with the Internet to pass it through by numbers.

Unfortunately most of the world divides life into "good" and "bad", which is a very narrow gage for summarizing existence. We fail time and time again to employ any kind of empathy, indeed, it is the one thing we on the whole seem to really suck at.

It's funny because religious positions to issues like these often use the phrase "The thought is father to the deed", as if thoughts are only possible with the influence of direct external stimulus. They are essentially promoting brain-washing and mind control because their feeble communications fail to tame the free will of the individual. It's God by proxy behavior, not to do His will but to enforce their own under the pretense of a higher order. "My King requires you are executed", "Can I speak to your King about it?", "No, because I speak for him" therefore as his agent the person can do anything they damn well please. So to do the "agents" of morals speak for an abstract higher order and unless the people actually take to the streets, or bide their time for decades or even centuries, nothing will be changed or even processed properly.

Ultimately even though I feel it such an important part of my personal make-up to try and understand existence in its most holistic sense, I can't help but feel like James Joyce and sometimes want to hide under the bed-sheets of exile to escape all this nonsense. I am exhausted by the mechanics of society, the ruling mediocrity, the idiotic decisions made by the mob.

At times I just wish I could become a recluse like D.H Lawrence had when he exiled himself to The Black Forest, and shoot my arrows of outrageous misfortune from afar rather then face the doltish cognitive day to day. I understand the folly of the human race as I am as much a part of it as everybody else but I also take my philosophical treatment quite seriously and so must make my position as personal as possible while keeping in mind how the whole picture will paint itself.

The final result that I am seeing, is very much like the Hieronymus Bosch I pasted at the top of this post "The Ship of Fools".