mwotw

Rivalries can be fun.

When the normal course of things provides neither spoils nor perils of sufficient magnitude to inspire our best efforts, competitors can decide to become combatants. When such is the case, there can be no small disagreements. Every “victory” inflates, and every “defeat” is a bitter pill.

The artificially enlarged significance of trivial matters can transform the mundane into grandiose symbols and it can fuel true progress — but it can also wear you out.

Though there are others, AVN and XBIZ are regarded as the industry’s two primary editorial voices. During the last two years, I have watched the rivalry between them swell, and I have watched friends and colleagues take sides. Though at times certain definitive adjectives have suggested themselves in my mind in connection with one magazine or the other, I cannot embrace them.

Tough call — I admire both rags for different reasons — I guess the question comes down to what it is you’re looking for as a reader when you turn the pages…

Journalism is a truly fascinating field. on the one hand, it is elevated by an extraordinary ethical standard — comparable to the weighty oaths undertaken by physicians and attorneys — the journalistic ideal, reportage, telling it like it was — and only how it was, unembellished, untainted, undistorted, etc, etc..

Our Modern Eyes are Jaded:
Pornography and the Line of Obscenity

The visual cortex is the largest and busiest part of the brain. There’s no doubt Homo Sapiens is an animal that relies heavily on sight. We take it for granted, living as we do surrounded by the rich visuals of the reality we have constructed, that to see is EVERYTHING. But, while the "food of the eye" has arguably never been saltier or contained so many empty calories, its ravenous appetite is as old as the species. Needless to say, the importance of our Sense of Sight could not have evolved overnight.

Long before there was even a dream of photography, from the time we lived in caves, to the building of the pyramids, to the castles of Versailles, there’s been a lot for humans to see in the world — more than enough to justify the evolution of our magnificent Human Eye. I only make this point so heavy-handedly because I know many people tend to think nothing was ever better in all of history than 5 minutes ago. I also don’t wish to be contradicted later in this essay, when I am making my larger point, when I say: The Eye is an old dog. He knows many wonderful tricks. He can tell a friend from a foe at a glance. He can climb a tree in duress. The eye IS everything and ALL that is true — but it knows nothing new. (more…)

After a long spell of fretting over the mounting legal assaults on porn, I wrote this “Mega Rant” in the hopes it would inspire a new way of thinking among colleagues and friends.

Perhaps the message will resonate outside the pornography industry.

THE GIST: The combination of pornography and the Internet could save our Civilization.

Sermon on the Mount

I am beginning to understand how the Digital Technologies of the last half-century have been transforming Us.