A cursory glance at "mainstream" porn

Took this from the comments box two doors down; it seemed worth a post in itself, since we've been talking about it for a while here and elsewhere.

I was in my friendly local indie video store the other day (bought myself the Little Britain series 1, woo hoo! can't wait till they get the second in). Unlike Blockbuster, they do rent hardcore porn, a whole back room's worth (also some softcore "erotica," gay and straight, and animated porn, in the main room). I decided to have a gander just to see if, indeed, things looked very different from the way AH/GR were describing the average breakdown of what's available (that is, vanilla vs. hardcore "violent" porn).

So, okay. I should've taken notes (haw! would've loved to see another customer's reaction as I did...) But the breakdown, roughly:

Front few shelves: Andrew Blake (glossy, reasonably "soft" stuff, pretty-pretty, in the mode of Playboy Channel or a more explicit Zalman King). Some racks devoted to favorite stars and directors, same as they have in the main store (Bergman, Bette Davis). Here: Rocco (famous Italian stud), Bella Donna, Jenna Jameson, some others I'm not as familiar with. Nina Hartley, of course.

Going farther back:

A shelf or so of "interracial" (which seems mostly to mean black on white), and various "ethnic" subgenres (all-black, including one hosted by Snoop Doog, and some Asian, which unlike the all-black vids and more like the interracial seems heavily skewed toward pleasing white fantasies of other-raced stereotypes. on the whole, off the cuff, imo and based on my sightings of such subgenres elsewhere). "BBW" or however they were terming it there, probably more vulgarly: women with some meat on their bones, is the gist.

Moving right along: specialty tapes: "gonzo" (no plot, "wall to wall" sex); all-girl (of course); anal sex ("buttman"); mildly fetishy stuff like stockings or latexwear; and our favorite, facial cumshots.

I think I saw maaayyybbeee three or four covers that indicated a nod to leather or kink. Including "Fashionistas," one of the few I've seen recently and one of the rare few "mainstream" porn flicks to have BDSM acts and hardcore sex, both. For the most part, you know, you cannot these days have both BDSM and penetrative "vanilla" sex in the same movie; it's one or the other. Don't remember where that comes from (need to look that up), whether it's an actual U.S. or state(s) law or whether it's a self-rpotective move by the industry; all I know is, that's far and away the way it is. (Indie stuff, esp. on the Internets, is something else, of course) "Bisexual" porn, which differs from "straight" porn in that unlike in the latter, man-on-man is okay in a mixed threesome or moresome, as opposed to just woman-on-woman. Not a whole lot of those.

Then the back half of the store, which was pretty much all gayboy porn (the video store is queer-owned and there's a heavy representation in the non-porn section as well). Which also seems to have its own subgenres: interracial, certain fetishy looks like military (I think), "shemale"/tranny porn, others. On the whole I'm a lot more familiar with indie lesbian visual porn (which by and large they don't carry there; you have to go to Babeland or some such)

A quick gander at the back of some covers seems to confirm: hetporn: no protection in sight, anal, vaginal, anything. Gay porn: at least in some shots of anal intercourse, the condom is clearly visible. And everyone's shaved (straight and gay, male and female), and everyone's coventionally pretty, and while the women aren't overall quite as skeletal-looking as they are in yer average fashion rag, there is definitely a certain...aesthetic...dominating, no doubt.

In short: same ol, same ol'. Rife with creaky sexist, racist, heterocentric, fat-phobic, and god knows how many other reactionary drippings from the overall zeitgeist, absotively. Often made in dodgy and frankly unsafe conditions that could probably use a good union or six, no doubt. But is it "horrific," as some woman at the recent Dworkin commemorative asserted? shrug. Not to me. I mean, depends what you consider "horrific," but: no meat grinders. No broken, bloody noses and bruises. No one getting killed.

In fact--you know where I see much more of the latter two? You know all those "softcore" quasi-noirish movies that Blockbuster and a lot of yer teevee after-hours channels seem to like so much? The ones that have shit like "sin" and "obsession" in the title, and always seem to end with some beautiful stripper or suchlike either getting murdered or being a murderer or both? I find those a lot more disturbing than most of the mainstream hardcore shit, myself. Isn't it interesting that the former, with their lack of actual depicted genitalia or oral sex or whatnot but plenty of dead women, are O.K., right up front and center in the big video chainstores; but the latter, many of which are pretty much just people gettin' it on pure and simple, if explicitly, are relegated to the back room of the indie joints?

How else to interpret this, if not as *sex IS dirty and dangerous, really?*