Risquéliscious: The Irresistable Forbidden Fruit

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Risquéliscious1: The Irresistible Forbidden Fruit

Snober Sataravala

Each age is dominated by an overriding ideology, for instance the 16th C was the Age

of Discovery later followed by the Age of Reason, perhaps the 21st C will be the Age of

Sexual Materialism. What better way to illustrate this than the recent scandal that brought

into the lime light fifteen eminent members of the Indian parliament who were absorbed in

watching pornography on their cell phones, whilst the house was in session. The “Porngate

Scandal” is one of the many instances that reveal how wide spread the phenomenon is and

how much of it is swept under the carpet. However, if this be the trend, then the concern at

hand is to examine its ramifications on the world of art.

Irrespectively, the objective is to establish that despite materialism there will

always be a threshold of expectation beyond which the consumer simply will not be

pushed thus in this case preserving the sanctity of art. The point at which the consumers

simply refuse to budge and the awareness of that limit ends the exploitation. Thus the

moment of recognition, that the need or requirement does not match the exchange value or

price, would result in the transaction being interrupted. To put it in a nut shell, only if there is

a demand for a particular commodity, will it be manufactured. Its value is determined by the

labour invested in the product as well as its utility but primarily by the exchange value and

demand it has in the market.

The two objects in this case that are being manufactured are literature and

pornography and yet at times they may overlap into one product. The threshold of production

will be limited by the purchasers and their realisation of a limit which they will not be willing

1 A term coined by combining risqué with delicious

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to exceed. So the existence of porn and literature is because there are enough people who

want it.

To establish parameters within which the argument will operate, one needs to describe

what exactly is meant by pornography and literature. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

defines literature as writings that are valued as works of art, especially fiction, drama and

poetry.

Dictionary.com states that literature is a noun which can mean:

1. the  profession of a writer or author or

2. Literary work or production

Definition number 1 considers the labour of the author and definition number 2 makes

literature the commodity which is produced by that labour.

However this is too reductive as the term “Literature” must be automatically subjected

to the demands of certain criteria—consciously, and more often than not, unconsciously. It

implies conforming to certain expectations and these become the “thresholds”.

A current reality show titled “Love 2 Hate U”, screened on the 1 st of December 2011

at 7 pm on Star World, a television channel, carried an interview between Chetan Bhagat and

a young college girl who justified why she hated his writing. In her opinion she felt that as a

youth icon he had a responsibility to his readers to maintain a standard in his writing whether

it be in his novels or his informal tweets on twitter. Chetan Bhagat justified that as a frail

mortal perhaps he could be stupid sometimes. However, that was a licence several readers

would not give him if he was writing, even if they were mere tweets, primarily because they

occurred in a public space and the act of that kind of writing is artificial and demands

scrutiny and adherence to form. Also, once inscribed in ink on paper or in a more

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contemporary sense on the “net”, the writing obtains a more permanent presence allowing

people to refer to it over time and hence evaluate it over time. The simple observations of

these viewers have been repeatedly theorised by various critics particularly Russian

Formalists like Victor Shlovsky (1893-1984) in his essay “Art as Technique” or Structuralists

like Jonathan Culler (1944) in “Structuralism and Literature”. Literature is artificial writing

which adheres to the rules of a literary grammar and demands literary competence.

At a grass root and purely non academic level the above example indicates that there

are certain expectations of literature and certain thresholds which consumers will not allow to

be challenged.

Literature is a joint venture between an idea and its expression. However the

partnership is not equal, as Said (1935-2003) in his book Orientalism (1978) implies,

domination and inequity of power is perennial. The idea is central and powerful enough to

propel the story forward and make it memorable, meaningful and enjoyable even if the

technique is lacking. However, side by side there is in every being a need to celebrate the

creative and beautiful and express it in a way that appeals to the senses as well as the

intellect. Perhaps this stems from the hope that humans are more than beasts driven by

uncontrolled urges, in a sense making humans “more equal” (Orwell 90) than most animals,

which in turn transforms this desire into a market demand that must be supplied. This demand

seems to be archetypal for even the cave paintings of primitive man, who was closest to his

animal origins, are about hunting and not carnal desire. Laura Mulvey (1968-1993) in her

seminal essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975) states that there has always

been a tension between instinctual drives and self preservation and in the case of the cave

men of the stone age the latter seems to be the primary need. Thus in a primordial sense art is

what made man strive towards the heroic.

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However, literature does at times encompass the term “erotic” which has its

etymological origins in the Greek myth of Eros the god of love. Rosemary Tong in chapter

four of her book Feminist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction (1998) elaborates that

according to feminist anitpornographers there are two kinds of sexually explicit descriptions.

As mentioned Erotica comes from eros and refers to love or the creative principle where the

partners are fully consenting and it celebrates an equal and emotional union. Thus erotic

writing is about sensuality and sexuality but this does leave the distinction between the erotic

and pornographic ambivalent. However, the assumption is that the erotic is more than simple

gratification of lust and often even has a spiritual, philosophical or symbolic dimension for

example in “The Song of Solomon” from the Bible (Ebscohost glossary). In fact a simple

search on “the erotic in literature” revealed a host of sites spanning Medieval British

literature to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream and Virginia Woolf’s Orlando

suggesting the “erotic” is not something novel or a recent development. The blurring of art

and pornography could be insinuated to occur in the realm of the erotic, however, the

sexuality is a means to an end and not the end itself, as in the case of “To His Coy Mistress”

by Andrew Marvell.

The other kind is “Thanatica” or pornographic , Thanatic pornography or violent porn

from the Greek thanatos—the death or destructive principle. Thanatica is not concerned with

emotional bonding, rather it treats women as mere objects or things, thus harming the image

of women. Thanatica also depicts sexual harassment, rape and physical battering of women,

in a sense legitimizing and justifying it by implying this is what women desire (not what men

inflict on them). The makers of pornography are not interested in bringing about social

awareness.

Pornography is defined by “Dictionary.com” as a noun which consists of obscene

writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, especially those having little or no artistic merit.

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Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines it as describing or showing naked people or

sexual acts in order to cause sexual excitement and books and films that do this. This

broadens the bracket of what one would call pornography. Ebscohost an academic online

archive goes on to classify pornography further as erotica or heterosexual and exotica which

is deviant or queer. The degree of the frankness of the expression further classifies

pornography as soft core or hard core. Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon define

pornography as:

The graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures or

words that also includes women dehumanised as sexual objects, things, or

commodities; enjoying pain or humiliation or rape; being tied up, cut up,

mutilated, bruised, or physically hurt; in postures of sexual submission or

servility or display; reduced to body parts, penetrated by objects or

animals, or presented in scenarios of degradation, injury, torture, shown as

filthy or inferior; bleeding, bruised or hurt in a context that makes these

conditions sexual.

Considering the above definitions, the two terms literature and pornography appear to

mutually exclude each other, as the latter has little or no artistic merit and a derogatory

connotation whereas literature for some aspires towards the sublime and for others even if it

is naturalistic the technique is fore grounded rather than sexual acts. However both are

manufactured and satisfy a demand. For the purpose of this discussion the phrase “explicit

sex scenes” will sometimes be used as a substitute for pornography as it possesses a

neighbourly meaning without bearing the negative semantic baggage.

In a nut shell formal preoccupations reflect the material obsessions of the society

which produce it. So once again it can be legitimately assumed that literature will be

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produced only if there is a demand for it thus giving it exchange value and the corollary to

this assumption is, literature with “explicit sex scenes” in it will also only be produced if

there is a demand for it.

Both varieties require labour and have a use value.

This was first emphasized by Karl Marx. The argument being pursued in this case is

an adaptation of the chapter “The Process of Production of Capital” from Marx’s seminal text

Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Vol. 1, Book 1. Intentionally ethical, aesthetic,

feminist and queer perspectives have been circumvented however they are interesting

avenues that can be explored.

However the “prefeminist debate on pornography” (Tong 112) consists of the

traditional conservative view which considers “good sex” or “vanilla sex” to be heterosexual,

taking place only after marriage, primarily to serve the purpose of procreation. This seems

not just out dated but perhaps even redundant in the twenty first century. The next objection

some have, according to Tong, is that explicit sex scenes activate the “polymorphous

perverse” which will result in the collapse of civilised behaviour. The final objection is that

pornography is just is not artistic. The earlier argument against pornography was based on the

“harm principle” and the “offense principle”. Another later argument, more radical feminists

like MacKinnon and Dworkin pursued was based on “civil rights” and a demand for

antidiscrimination law.

To progress systematically, in accordance with Karl Marx, the aspect of labour will

be considered initially. In order to explore the aspect of labour invested in the product, one of

the differences which must be examined microscopically is the distinction between an

audiovisual, performance-based art form like cinema and drama, as opposed to a verbal art

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form like literature. The three areas of potential exploitation are—the author, the

character or performer and the reader.

In the case of literature the characters cannot be more than words on the page which

were initially born in the mind of the author but live in the imagination of the reader.

Consequently there is labour invested by both parties and the recreation in the mind of the

reader in not of a real living person and can be quite separate from what the author

envisioned. The exchange is equal and hence there is no exploitation of labour.

Erotic art is ancient whether it be the sculptures at Khajuro or Indian Kama Sutra

illustrations or Chinese and Japanese paintings. However, once again the exchange is equal,

as the artist and the viewer both derive pleasure. Exploitation of the subject is avoided as

stone and paint do not live, feel or speak.

In the case of Photography, Cinema or Theatre a third angle features which is—

human involvement. In the performance it is not the private theatre of the mind but a public

space where the pleasure derived is a voyeuristic one. This makes the exchange unequal with

the voyeur deriving pleasure at the expense of the performer. The labour invested by the

viewer is far less, as they are passive recipients who visually consume a performance, which

in this case is of a specific kind— sexual. In the case of “explicit sex scenes” there can be

little pleasure for the performers considering the number of retakes and the nature of the

performance. Once the script on the page is converted to live human action, and in the case of

drama this action remains live, whereas in the case of cinema it becomes a celluloid

translation, there is a manifold increase in the scope for exploitation. The voyeuristic nature

of the experience leads to an objectification and commodification of the actors. In addition

the wages given to actors in pornographic films especially in India are far less than those

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given to regular Hollywood or Bollywood stars whilst their stature is simultaneously

inverted. The work force has no control over the final product or its distribution.

The manufacturers or creators may object on the basis of human right # 19 that

“everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression” and “this right includes the

freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information

and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers”.

The term “expression” itself implies that there is an idea and an intention that is being

expressed. In the poem “To His Coy Mistess” by Andrew Marvell, feminists object to the

parasitic penetration of the worm into a woman’s corpse which proceeds to devour her

“quaint honour”. Indeed it is a gruesome picture, in contrast to which, sex with a man

definitely seems the more appealing alternative. However, as it has been repeatedly argued, to

read the poem as a plea for sexual gratification is to ignore the idea behind it, which is—

humans are frail and mortal and the only way to avoid those “slow chapped jaws” of time is

to explode through life like a “canon” and thus win the war against time by living each

moment intensely and passionately. There is no sublime idea behind pornography in fact it is

solely action and any form of narrative is backgrounded and purely there to foreground the

action, which is people copulating.

The right to expression can be adequately countered by human right # 23 the

Worker’s rights taken from the website “Youth For Human Rights” that states:

1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and

favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring

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for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented,

if necessary, by other means of social protection.

4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his

interests.

The right to free choice of employment is compromised in India, as it is illegal to make

pornographic films in this country. However the hypocrisy is that it is legal to watch them in

the privacy of one’s homes but they cannot be screened publicly or filmed. So, one can

legally watch Indians who go to Canada and become rich porn stars. Ironically, virtuous

India, legally will not allow the actors of X- rated films to labour on her soil. Actors, whose

labour is exploited as they are under paid and not permitted to form unions in order to protect

themselves, ultimately end up getting imprisoned and abused but it is legal to view their

movies in the privacy of the home.

“When pornography is debated, in or out of court, the issue has been whether

government should be in the business of making sure only nice things are said and seen about

sex, not whether government should remedy the exploitation of the powerless for the profit

and enjoyment of the powerful.” states Andrea Dworkin and Catherine A. MacKinnon in

their path breaking book Pornography and Civil Rights. They continue that

Pornography is central in creating and maintaining the civil inequality of the

sexes. Pornography is a systematic practice of exploitation and subordination

based on sex which differentially harms women. .

However although women are the greatest victims, men and unfortunately children

are not excluded either.

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One may argue that what is considered as pornographic and obscene by a particular

age or group of people may be aesthetic and erotic for another as in the case of the

accusations levied against James Joyce’s (1882-1941) Ulysses (1922) that were later revoked

on the premise of freedom of speech and hence the focus at present is primarily on the

exploitation of the labour force.

Another interesting angle is that unless the labour force is aware of the exploitation it

cannot be considered as exploitation. Perhaps the fact that none of the porn actors would like

their family members to shrug on their mantle and become the next generation porn stars

which is so common otherwise with other actors (one just has to think of the Bachchans and

the Kapoors) shows an awareness of the exploitation. For that matter none of us are willing to

admit we watch porn let alone suggest it as a great career option.

The Pune Times dated Monday, November 21, 2011 carried an article on Sunny

Leone a Canadian born ‘porn star’ originally known as Karen Malhotra a new entrant in the

Indian reality show “Bigg Boss”. She confessed that she never planned on becoming a “porn

star” but “the money was just too good”. Her parents respected her and her decision but never

watched her movies. She worked 60-70 hours a week which is almost double of regular

working hours. So although it was no piece of cake she does not feel exploited by the nature

of the job or the income received in exchange for the labour provided and the ideology of

capitalism has yet again worked its magic and clouded her vision.

What is interesting is the fine line between vamp and heroine is gradually blurring. In

the above example, one has the vamp becoming the heroine and in the movie “The Dirty

Picture”, Vidya Balan the heroine plays the South Indian vamp, Silk Smita; subverting and

problematizing the above situation. The movie claims to be a biography of a South Indian

actress Smita who lived life by her own term. She is depicted as a woman who revelled in her

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oomph and actually derived her identity from it. What began as a means to an end actually

became the end causing her to take her own life when she felt she could no longer titillate the

male audience. Never once is she depicted as feeling shame or exploitation. However it is an

ironical inversion of Karl Marx’s statement: “They cannot represent themselves; they must be

represented”. (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. VII Karl Marx 1852). Silk

Smita is neither here nor available to tell her story nor would she be able to even if she was.

Before a commodity is to be invested with labour or go into production there is an

assumption that it has exchange value and there is a market for the product. However, at a

more subtle level, rather than a real market requirement, this assumption that “sex sells” is

based on the producers’ perception of the viewer. The audience is determined as wanting to

consume “explicit sex scenes” and hence these scenes are manufactured either as hard porn or

explicit sex scenes in mainstream cinema and implicit ones in advertising. How they came up

with this assumption is to be researched. So in order to collect data to explore this question a

poll was conducted where the following question was posed:

“Solitary viewing of explicit sex scenes is: O.K or not O.K.”

(http://www.facebook.com/snober.sataravala)

On the 2nd of February 2012, out of the 61 people who answered the poll only 10 felt it was

not O.K. The group of people varied from students to professional of various ages, a real

motley crew with one thing in common. They all were educated English speaking graduates

and post graduates.

Some of the lacunae in the assumptions of this poll are that it does not take into

account the viewing company. For example a son in the company of his mother might not be

comfortable watching a risqué scene which might otherwise give him ribald pleasure with his

friends. On the other hand a woman might be embarrassed by provocative scenes in a cinema

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hall and fear the groping hand of an over stimulated neighbouring viewer which she would

otherwise perhaps enjoy at home and so on.

However the purpose of the poll at a superficial level was to merely determine

whether the viewing market really desired the risquéliscious in the first place or was it

actually a figment of the producers’ imagination and also to determine if there was a

threshold of unacceptability being transgressed. The above data reflects: there is no

exploitation of the audience, as the majority did not mind viewing explicit sex scenes.

Use value or utility is concerned with the quality or substance or physical properties

of the commodity. In the case of literature this would consist of form, technique and content.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) in Poetics begins with the premise that art is mimetic or

representation of life. One can argue that a major part of human life, which is both natural

and important, is sex. However he qualifies mimesis by bringing in the distinction that the

representation is not as it is by as it ought to be implying that it is creative and superior to

base reality thus eliminating pornography from the realm of art.

To add to this Cleanth Brooks (1906-1994) in both his famous essays “Irony as a

Principle of Structure” as well as “The Language of Paradox” emphasizes the importance of

the metaphor. Art must speak through indirection even if it risks being misunderstood.

However pornography is the breakdown of the metaphor as it is biologically explicit and

frank leaving little or no scope for imagination let alone the symbolic, spiritual or

philosophical.

To continue with the Aristotlean criteria of evaluation of form and technique the plot

must consist of a series of actions following the laws of necessity and probability or what

Barthes (1915-1980) would later interpret as the solidarity of markers. Thus everything

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incorporated within the plot must connect to something or surface elsewhere having a

particular purpose or role in driving the action forward. Unfortunately, due to the decline in

the reading population which is steadily having its place usurped by the “peanut crunching

crowd” it is necessary to also examine the audio visual performances like cinema. Very often

a sex scene or “item number” in a Hindi movie is neither necessary and definitely not

probable. It is interpolated mainly to cater to satisfying the appetite of a mass and

predominantly male and perhaps to an insignificant extent a lesbian gaze. In the movie

Chokherbali (2003) for example the emphasis on the sexual urge is far greater than in the

original novel Binodini (1902) by Tagore (1861-1941) which actually centres round the

unjust treatment of widows who are denied the right to love and life for no fault of their own.

The nature of her own feelings towards Mahendra was not clear to her.

She had not forgotten that he had spurned her hand in marriage and deprived

her of her right to love and happiness. He had rejected her priceless gift and

fallen for a silly, empty-headed girl like Asha. Did she hate him for it and

sought to avenge her wrong, or did she love him and want to offer herself in

self surrender? (Tagore 84)

In the novel, Binodini remains chaste and in her struggle rises to a heroic stature, where as in

the movie she surrenders and ends up little different from a harlot who flings herself

alternately at Mahendra and then Bihari, his friend.

Laura Mulvey refers to Scopophilia, discussed by Freud in his ‘ Three Essays on

Sexuality’, as “taking other people as objects, subjecting them to a controlling and curious

gaze” where “the woman is the image and the man is the bearer of the look”. Binodini is

interesting, as in the novel the heroine’s pleasure comes only as a voyeur, thus inverting the

roles of the observer and the observed. This aspect is entirely lost in the translation to

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celluloid which caters purely to the male gaze. The reason for this shift in emphasis could be

the producer’s concept of ‘audience demand’ or in reality there really is a clamour for adult

cinema. Either way the situation was misjudged considering the movie flopped. In a sense the

ultimate power lies with the ordinary viewer who decides “hit ya flop” and thus a threshold

has been inadvertently established.

Despite all logical arguments, the history of literature which is predominantly

patriarchal till the twentieth century, reflects a tendency to steer clear from explicit sex

scenes. Perhaps this is due to the narcissistic tendency to encourage pleasure to arise from the

artist’s skill of representation rather than sexual stimulation but then again that is the purpose

of art—appreciation of the idea and its expression, neither of which are relevant to

pornography. Controversies like fatwas, autobiographical sensational exposure of intrigues,

dangerous liaisons may help a book to sell initially, apart from technique and artistic skill, but

will they ensure a sustained readership? What is interesting is that one has never come across

a book hitting the best seller list because of “a particular sensational sex scene” as opposed to

cinema. Thus the artist’s desire is to ensure his work of art is memorable and acclaimed

because of itself, the artist’s skill, and not a sex gimmick. In the case of pornography the only

selling point is sex and consequently it satisfies a very restricted need, perhaps, this is why

there does not exist a not canon of pornographic films.

With the advent of Modernism and the influence of Freud, sexuality enters literature

in a more overt fashion, however even then the expression is still through displacement and

symbols. Strangely, it is some of the feminists who view the indirection not as an artistic

criteria but another form of subjugation. Sonya Blades discusses Helene Cixous’ ecriture

feminine and its relating of sexuality and language and goes on to apply it to the writing of

Anais Nin but her argument can be expanded to include erotic writing by women. Blades

feels that through the

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...poetic portrayal of intimacy and sexual experience, through diction,

imagery, characterization and sentence structure and plot sequence, Nin

subverts, rather than copies the male depiction of the erotic experience that

has reinforced the objectification, domination, oppressions of women’s

sexuality...

...women have been denied their bodies, taught to ignore them through false

sexual modesty

Thus legitimizing a woman’s recourse to the erotic in her writing and in fact celebrating it as

a mode of subversion. However it is still the “poetic portrayal” that she is referring to.

On the contrary pulp fiction with its unabashed rejection of elitist status, be it the

novels of James Hadley Chase or the Nick Carter series enjoys a healthy cult following who

never think to question or interpret the sexual interruptions of the racy, action packed,

episodic plots. These writers tend to having a following of readers in general rather than a

particular book that is memorable. So out of the many Nick Carter books there isn’t a

particular one that has achieved iconic status.

However according to Tong, the feminist anitpornographers feel there is a continuum

from pulp romances like Mills and Boons which indirectly celebrate male dominance and

female submission to soft-core magazines like playboy that depict “bunnies” being devoured

by male hunters to hard core porn magazines which show women being tortured. In a sense

this makes it difficult to disregard or scoff at the role pulp fiction plays and its consequence

regarding the status and treatment of women.

To return to the original question of exploitation and exploring its scope in three

different avenues: the author, the artist and the reader or viewer, in the case of literature, the

exploitation is restricted to the author and the reader. The facebook survey implied that

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perhaps the reader cannot be considered as exploited as they desire the risquéliscious and

they have human agency. The author may be forced to compromise the integrity of his art in

order to get his book published by a capitalistic mode of production that will substitute

aesthetics and values with titillation and provocation, as it is more marketable. On the other

hand, the author may intentionally choose to describe characters making love, as in the

beautiful poignant scene between the elderly couple in the novel Love in the Time of Cholera

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014). After a lifetime of unrequited love the description

of the gentle union underscores the poignancy of getting something almost too late.

Interestingly, the DNA Sunday Mag. on November 13th, 2011 carried an article “Where’s the

Kama Sutra for the elderly?” The article had a healthy attitude towards a sexual need which is

part of one’s life no matter how old. Thus art mirrors life. On the other hand one sees all kind

of porn but never of the elderly for the elderly, obviously that part of market demand isn’t

very demanding. Thus literature caters to a variety of needs, of a very broad spectrum of

society, giving a little something to everyone.

Dr Johnson in his famous defence of Shakespeare talks about purpose of comic relief

to ease the tension caused by a concentrated intense viewing; perhaps another form of relief

in a plot could be sexual relief. Thus rather than a purgation of pity and fear one could have

the purgation of libido leaving the body calm all passions spent bringing about a very real

catharsis of another sort within a properly constructed plot, performing a very necessary

psychological function.

However there are two impressions, one, which is supported by Dworkin, is that

explicit sexual scenes over stimulate the viewers or readers encouraging them to commit

sexual crimes after watching an adult scene. She feels there is “direct evidence of a causal

relationship between the consumption of pornography and increases in social levels of

violence, hostility, and discrimination” (Pornography and Civil Rights). Edward Donnerstein

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counters this by claiming that it is graphic violence that triggers aggression irrespective of the

presence of sex.

On the other hand perhaps the exposure reduces the fascination for the unknown as

the viewers live vicariously through the characters. The viewers over time become

desensitized making them less obsessed and hence react less. Due to the familiarisation,

people will eat, sleep, defaecate and fornicate all in a day’s work without being enamoured

by any one of them in particular. Sadly, this approach of sexual catharsis in literature, if over

used, invokes a disturbing future where all art will in turn be reduced to the mundane, making

it mundane.

In the case of the reader there is the option of skipping unsavoury pages or the

viewers shutting their eyes in a movie. The unsavoury need not always be sexual, it could be

horrific acts of violence or simply a bad movie or book that puts one to sleep. Thus the reader

or viewer still has choice or human agency.

So are the writers, actors, readers or viewers victims?

Advanced Oxford dictionary defines a victim as a person who has been tricked, killed

or destroyed as a result of crime. In the case of literature perhaps only an author may fall prey

to a predator producer but in the case of cinema all three are compromised, most of all, the

actor.

On the other hand, if the solution was to keep the unsavoury under wraps and out of

sight, the rape of a “burkha” clad woman in an Islamic country would be unheard of.

Prohibition has had an unfortunate history of back firing on itself, for rather than exorcize a

desire, it heightens it due to the mysterious aura the tabooed item develops. Hanadi Al-

Samman in an interesting article titled “Out of the Closet: Representations of Homosexuals

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and Lesbians in Modern Arabic Literature” brings home this point. The only solution to avoid

the drabness of familiarization, and on the other hand the allure for the mysterious and

tabooed, is to defamiliarize it in art through the metaphor making it is present and yet absent.

Continuing with Aristotle’s criteria for fine arts—the plot should be an organic whole

so other than aesthetic appeal, the action whether it be sexual or otherwise must contribute to

the progression of the plot or the understanding of the motives as is the case in Love in the

Time of Cholera. No such demand is made of a pornographic movie which therefore satisfies

only a very limited requirement. The Literature Review has a “Bad Sex in Fiction” award to

mock the embarrassing description of sex in literature. This kind or self reflexiveness which

is absent in adult cinema tries to ensure that literature avoids the agenda of ‘sex for sex’s

sake’ and the standards are set a little higher. The given rationale is "to draw attention to the

crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the

modern novel, and to discourage it". Various eminent writers like Arundhati Roy and Stephen

King have also been nominated for the backhanded award.

Emotionally it goes against middle class values and modesty or should we say middle

class hypocrisy to admit that sex is not just inevitable but may even enhance literature but

intellectually we must accept that it is inescapable as long as people desire it. Ironically,

Literature with its iconic stature will not risk ‘sex for sex’s sake’ as it will impoverish the

work of art by distracting the consumer’s gaze and confounding the consumer’s expectations

even though there is no exploitation. Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) in his essay “The Work

of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” describes the aura of a work of art that

encourages a kind of reverential viewing elevating the work of art to the realm of the divine.

Technology ensures availability, subverting the exclusive and elite, thus shattering that aura.

Literature and art which was a product for the educated and privileged, the bourgeois class

now loses its cult viewing and ceases to be a tool for domination and exploitation. In

Sataravala 19

addition, mainstream cinema which appeals to the masses without the restrictions of taste,

allows it a raw licence to cater to a need at any price. This is disturbing and demands

cognizance. As for pornography there is no question of aura but it may be argued that it has

its own cult viewers. The relish of the viewer does not come from a sense of superiority

rather it is tinged with the awareness of the sordid, the inescapable uncomfortable residue of

the pornographic visual experience. This is perhaps because, when the site of the action shifts

from the page to a person’s body, it is exploitation and hence illegitimate. However, the

paradox is, over time there will be more and more explicit sex in movies despite the

exploitation whilst literature which is not guilty of taking advantage of a living person will

continue to resort to circumlocution and indirection in its treatment of sex.

Law has traditionally considered pornography to be a question of private

virtue and public morality, not personal injury and collective abuse.

states Dworkin and MacKinnon in “Pornography and Civil Rights”.

Hopefully a threshold will be reached when realisation seeps deep enough through the

human hide and the consumption of the risquéliscious in audio visual forms will cease but the

fact that hard porn has not yet entered mainstream adult cinema is a testimony to the fact that

perhaps a threshold is already subtly in place whether it be in the form of an official or

unofficial censorship which exclaims “hit ya flop”. It is the threshold of artistic expectation

or use value and not morality that preserves the sanctity of art thus making the irresistible

fruit resistible.

Sataravala 20

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