Smut, Erotic Reality/obscene Ideology

Smut, Erotic Reality/Obscene Ideology

In the book Smut, Erotic Reality/ Obscene Ideology , by Murray Davis

(1983), the author expresses the idea that the best source for studying human

sexuality objectively is "soft core", rather than “hard core” pornography.

(Davis p. xix). The purpose of this paper is to critique Davis's claim and to

study what understanding of human sexuality someone might have if they used some

other resource that is available today, in this case the Internet.

Davis argues that , "hard core pornography is usually more abstract and

less explicit than soft-core pornography". (Davis, p. xix, 1983). Davis doesn't

go on to explain how hard-core pornography can be less explicit than soft-core.

However he does explain that hard-core pornography is more abstract in that, it

depicts the sex act only and not the emotional or personal characteristics of

the people involved in the act. (Davis, p. xx) He believes soft-core

pornography is describing "a sexual experience", which conveys characteristics

of the participants that are not described by hard-core pornography. Hard-core

pornography describes "sexual behaviour" which involves more of the act of sex

rather than the characteristics and feelings involved with sex. (Davis, p.

xix) Although Davis admits that the vocabulary of sex is changing (Davis, p.

xxv), he also states that hard-core pornography uses considerably more vulgar

terms that are associated with lower-class activity, such as, "prick, fuck, and

suck" (Davis, p. xxiii). Davis believes that hard-core pornography, induces

imaginative behaviours by using these lower-class, four-letter words. The

stories use phrases such as "First we sucked, then we fucked."(Davis p. xix,

1983), to allow the reader the tools to imagine the scene actually taking place.

The reader is lead by the author through the story by using words that may be

more understood or common in the readers' everyday life. He also accuses hard-

core films of being "behavioristic" and "abstract" because they often fail to

"fully inform the audience about the characters personality types and social

categories."(Davis, p. xx, 1983) Soft-core pornography, on the other hand,

often depicts "the subtle phenomenological effects that result when a

character's sexual behaviour clashes with his or her personal and social

characteristics." (Davis, p. x...

... middle of paper ...

... to the search.

For example, love plays a role in our sexuality. If someone did not know this

they would enter “human sexuality” into the search engine and again may be

distracted by flashy, hard-core, sex-sites and may not find anything on love.

The over-all understanding of human sexuality would be limited according to

which sites were looked at.

Although I agree somewhat with Advisee's claim that soft-core , rather

than hard-core pornography, may be a better resource for studying human

sexuality. I feel that using only one resource for information can limit the

view and even sometimes distort an individuals ideas of human sexuality. When

using a resource such as the Internet, one may be overwhelmed with information

and marketing tactics may win the attention of information seekers and take away

from the sites that actually offer factual information regarding human sexuality.

Therefore, I believe that an individual should use all resources

available to them when studying any topic, especially a topic as complex as

human sexuality.

References

Davis, S. Murray. (1983). Smut erotic reality obscene ideology.

University of Chicago Press: Chicago.