{"id":5588,"date":"2012-04-30T14:21:35","date_gmt":"2012-04-30T19:21:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/?p=5588"},"modified":"2018-11-14T10:12:43","modified_gmt":"2018-11-14T15:12:43","slug":"turning-kisses-into-pornography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/5588","title":{"rendered":"Turning Kisses Into Pornography"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Burroway over at Box Turtle Bulletin quotes a little Michael Heath<\/a>…<\/p>\n

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During my lifetime I have witnessed the descent from Playboy into the abyss of online porn…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Okay…That’s about all I need to read.\u00a0 If you think the human, let alone the American fascination with pornography started with Playboy Michael, and the mass consumption therein, then you have been very grievously misinformed.\u00a0 Google Tijuana Bible Mike.\u00a0 No…that’s not a translation for Spanish speaking Christians.<\/p>\n

My own fascination with pornography ended pretty soon after it began, when I eventually figured out (don’t laugh) that there is very little romance in it. The few porn magazines I bought back in the day all had images of guys being affectionate as well as sexual.\u00a0 That was my turn on.\u00a0 No matter how hot I thought the guys were, if it was just sex I got bored if not a tad turned off.\u00a0 There had to be affection on display too.\u00a0 The more affection the better.\u00a0 But affection of that sort between males was a pretty radical thing to portray in any form back then, back room magazine rack or mainstream movie house.\u00a0 In some ways, and in some venues, it still is.<\/p>\n

I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating because it really says it all.\u00a0 Back in the day an old high school friend of mine told me about taking a college course on human sexuality.\u00a0 The course, he said, included a number of films which you might expect to find in an Adult Entertainment store rather then in a university classroom.\u00a0 And so naturally most of the college students who signed up for that course did so, according to my friend who probably did also, just to see those films.\u00a0 What they didn’t bargain for was also having to watch a bunch of sex they didn’t much like.\u00a0 This was after all, a course on human sexuality, not a course on pornography.\u00a0 In addition to the hot young babes there was also footage of folks old enough to be their own parents having sex.\u00a0 Then there were the sections on geriatric sex. You can imagine how well that went over with a bunch of college students.\u00a0 But it was the section on gay male sex that bothered some the audience most of all.\u00a0 And it wasn’t the sex specifically that offended them.\u00a0 In fact, the sex really didn’t bother that group much at all.\u00a0 According to my friend, when the gay male sex scenes came on screen the ignorant jock types in the class burst out laughing and mocked the couple.<\/p>\n

But then images of that couple being affectionate with each other came on screen and the jock’s attitude changed.\u00a0 Those scenes of that male couple being affectionate, kissing, holding hands, being in love, completely offended the jocks my friend said, far more, far, Far<\/em> more, then watching them have sex did.<\/p>\n

What pornography is, to my mind at least, is it just pushes your sexual buttons and nothing else.\u00a0 That’s all it’s for.\u00a0 That’s all it does.\u00a0 Empty button pushing.\u00a0 But that’s all some folks want it to be.\u00a0 Oh well for them I guess.\u00a0 What I discovered about myself, and had I not the freedom to at least look the stuff over I might not have figured this out about myself, <\/em>is that I am about romance, affection, playful fun, when it comes to sex.\u00a0 I like to be teased.\u00a0 I like the friendly smile and the longing look.\u00a0 And the kiss.\u00a0 Especially the kiss.\u00a0 I am not much about just having my buttons pushed for the sake of pushing them.\u00a0 There has to be more.\u00a0 There has to be love.\u00a0 There has to be the kiss.\u00a0 So what my little private collection of erotic art began to consist mostly of as I grew older, is that.\u00a0 Sex yes, but not always that specifically and always in the context of romance.\u00a0 Body and soul together.\u00a0 I love that.\u00a0 It turns me on.<\/p>\n

Your mileage may vary.\u00a0 That’s fine.\u00a0 I’m pretty sure in any case that your definition of pornography Michael is almost certainly a lot broader then mine.\u00a0 Anything having to do with same-sex couples even if it’s just a kiss probably counts as pornography in your book.\u00a0 No…Especially<\/em> if it’s just a kiss.\u00a0 Because homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex.<\/em> But here’s the thing Michael…most of us just look the other way when we’re grossed out or disinterested.\u00a0 When I found out there wasn’t much in pornography that interested me, at least of the hard core sort, I stopped looking.<\/em> But you can’t for some reason.<\/p>\n

Don’t you think that puts you in the same ugly peep show stall that the people you’re railing against are stuck in?\u00a0 Well…except they seem to be enjoying themselves and you’re not.\u00a0 And what is offending you most of all Michael, isn’t the sex gay couples are having.\u00a0 It’s the affection.\u00a0 It’s their joy.\u00a0 It’s the kiss…isn’t it Michael.\u00a0 You’re calling it “sodomy based marriage” now…it’s your new slogan that you seem to honestly think is a winner but it’s merely your way of turning kisses into pornography.\u00a0 Because that’s how they seem to you.<\/p>\n

You begin your email to supporters with a little rant about pornography, but it’s all about same-sex marriage with you, not pornography, not sexual decadence.\u00a0 And that’s because it’s the kiss that offends you, not the sodomy.\u00a0 Marriage is about love and devotion, about body and soul together as one, and same sex couples are fighting for access to marriage, because they love, because they are devoted, because they are one in body and soul.\u00a0 And you see it don’t you.\u00a0 Yes…yes you do.\u00a0 And it bothers you massively doesn’t it.\u00a0 And you can’t look away.\u00a0 Why is that Michael?<\/p>\n

Some might suggest that it’s because you’re a closet case yourself.\u00a0 I honestly doubt that you are in that particular sort of closet.\u00a0 There’s another, darker, colder one your sort lives their lives in.\u00a0 There is a marvelous scene in Mary Renault’s The Fire From Heaven<\/em>, where Alexander’s father Philip, punishing his son and his son’s lover for a transgression, knowing that the punishment of his lover will hurt Alexander more then his own punishment, thinks, “…between contempt and a deep secret envy…The man does not live that I could feel that for, or the woman either.”<\/em> <\/em>There you are Michael.\u00a0 There’s why you can’t look away.\u00a0 There’s why you need their kisses to be empty.\u00a0 There’s why you hate them.<\/p>\n

   <\/p>\n

[Update…<\/em>] After I cross posted this over to Truth Wins Out<\/em> I checked out some of the other posts there and found This One<\/a> from Evan Hurst concerning Peter LaBarbra’s post also referencing the rant of Coach Dave Daubenmire that I riffed on a few posts back.\u00a0 Remarkably, it contained this image from an episode of Glee, tastefully censored to prevent cases of the vapors in the kook pews.\u00a0 I’ve captured the full context from Pete’s site….just look at this would you…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

…blocked for decency’s sake…<\/em> Oh make my case for me why don’t you?\u00a0 Christ almighty…Pete…listen…there is something seriously wrong with you.\u00a0 If the image of two guys in love kissing is enough to motivate you to start up the image editor of your choice, load that image into it, and take the time to carefully black out (white out?) those two dear little pairs of lips locked like they were mashing genitals instead of kissing, you have problems. Seriously…get help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jim Burroway over at Box Turtle Bulletin quotes a little Michael Heath… During my lifetime I have witnessed the descent from Playboy into the abyss of online porn… Okay…That’s about all I need to read.\u00a0 If you think the human, let alone the American fascination with pornography started with Playboy Michael, and the mass consumption […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,65],"tags":[32,70,139,103,19],"class_list":["post-5588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-thumping-my-pulpit","tag-hate","tag-sexuality","tag-the-bigot-mindset","tag-the-human-heart","tag-the-jackass-chronicles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}