Humpjones

Is Anything Obscene Anymore?

Posted Jun 10, 2008 14 comments

After an article on vomit porn—and a long hiatus to party like a dying god and exterminate rational thought—I think we should start over with a simple question: is anything obscene anymore? They’ve been making schiesse porn for decades now over in Germany.  We haven’t covered the phenomenon of squid porn yet, but rest assured, seafood sexuality will be explored in due time.

Still: internet pornography is everywhere, and we’re about to witness the political awakening of a generation that grew up in a world where porno is normal.  There are more adult bookstores per capita in the alleged “Bible Belt” than anywhere else in the United States.  Major corporations are making good money off pornography, thanks to satellite TV and hotel pay-per-view.  Porn stars are celebrities, if not royalty—all in all, the reader could be forgiven for thinking that America has become a sexually permissive culture. 

Unfortunately, that’s completely motherfucking retarded.

The Cambira List as Skeleton Key

Paul Cambria is one of the main attorneys for the largest pornographic production companies in the United States, and he was about 5 feet away from his client, Larry Flynt, when the Hustler publisher was shot by a sniper in front of a Georgia courthouse.  That was in 1978, but it’s mighty interesting to remember why Flynt was shot—it wasn’t for split beaver shots, it wasn’t for offending Christians—it was over inter-racial porn.  There are still millions of Americans, and not just in the deep South, who find nothing more offensive than a black man having sex with a white woman. 

Paul Cambria is just a footnote to Flynt’s attempted assassination, but he’s at the center of a more recent controversy in the porn industry—it’s even named after him.  After George W. Bush got elected in a blatantly corrupt fashion (the first one, not the 2nd one) the porn industry bigwigs had a meeting to discuss how to avoid another Meese-style crackdown.  What they came up with is a list of truly naughty sex acts, a guideline of What Not To Do in order to avoid prosecution.  It’s called the Cambria List.

And you know what, kids? Nearly 50 years after Brown vs. Board of Education, somehow, inter-racial sex was on that list.  Even more telling was the specific wording: “No black man-white woman topics”—in other words, white men can fuck black women all day, every day, but if a black dude touches a white woman, you’re begging for a lawsuit.  Also dangerous: any gay sex, any fisting, food used as a sex object, coffins, and girls sharing the same dildo.  (That last one was probably inserted by a toy manufacturer, don’t you think?)

I should emphasize: the list was not a random selection of what some executives found to be personally icky, it was based on three decades of legal experience and exhaustive research into what had triggered obscenity charges in the past—so the list is really a look into the mind of the American legal system.

Highly Defective Primates

Thanks largely to the work of Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson—both architects of the Christian Coalition, the driving force of politically active right-wing Christianity in the USA—a great many of our elected officials are among the very stupidest people in the entire country.  Seriously, if you believe that the earth was created by a god named Jehovah around 6,000 years ago, you shouldn’t even be operating motor vehicles, let alone making decisions that affect an entire nation.

And yet.  Somehow, someway. 

I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again here: we still live in the Dark Ages—don’t fucking kid yourself, human.  Don’t get me wrong—the future gets better every single day.  But it’s also a slow, iterative process, and there are powerful forces keeping people stupid...look no further than the miracle of public education.  Although millions of kids who are just turning old enough to vote have grown up being barraged by silicon titties and double penetration, they’re still calling anyone they don’t like a “faggot”—and they still can’t read too good, you know?

Am I being pessimistic?  Should I take heart, knowing that although millions of grown-ups want to make it illegal for a black man to have consensual sex with a white woman, their kids are going deaf listening to Young Jeezy and calling each other nigga?  Is this progress?  Should I be more enthusiastic? 

This beer is for Robert Mapplethorpe

Now, that was a real damn Artist....Robert Mapplethorpe, yes sir.  He pushed the envelope harder and farther than any mere pornographer ever did or could—and best of all, his work is beautiful.  Here at Hump Jones, I don’t kid myself for second...this will only ever be bad writing about good sex. 

And yet.  Somehow, someway.  I feel compelled to carry this man’s torch.  Is anything obscene anymore? The jury is still out on that one, but rest assured: if it’s out there, we’re gonna find it, right here at Hump Jones Dot Com. Some delicate mix of psychosis, hubris and alcohol poisoning compels me to keep the search alive, to find those soft fleshy pressure points in the Global Brain and keep pushing until the twitching stops. 

I think that’s a pretty reasonable goal for an artist to have.

Filed in: Zeitgeist

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