Tag Archive: Fifty Shades of Grey


WHAT IS WRONG WITH PORNOGRAPHY?

Filed under: Gender — Leave a comment
December 9, 2014

haveyourwayNowadays it often seems increasing redundant, even prudish, to claim that there’s anything wrong with pornography.

In essence, sex has become just another commodity to be casually consumed then discarded.

In my view, the typical check list of arguments against porn don’t get at the heart of the matter.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997) and the casting of porn actor James Deen in Paul Shrader’s The Canyons (2013) is a measure of the more laissez-faire attitude to the so-called ‘adult entertainment’ industry. Continue reading →

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CAMERON, PAGE 3 AND ONLINE PORN

Filed under: Fiction, Gender, Movies, Parenting, Photography, Politics — Leave a comment
July 23, 2013
One the earliest known page 3 girls

One the earliest known page 3 girls

British PM, David Cameron, has refused to back a ban on the publication of  photos of Page 3 topless models in The Sun tabloid ‘newspaper’. He argues that to do so would be to an invasion of consumers’ right to personal choice.

By implication, he sees no fundamental harm in pictures of semi naked women being used to sell papers.

It’s interesting, and ironic, that this story has broken at the same time as his party announce legislation to censor online pornography.

I see these two issues as intrinsically connected in a way that Cameron and the Conservative Party do not.

Allow me to explain.

There is nothing illegal in what The Sun chooses to publish and, since it is the UK’s top-selling newspaper, it is arguable what they print is wholly in tune with what the great British public wants.

Governments cannot legislate against bad taste, nor should they attempt to do so. Continue reading →

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IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO

Filed under: Books, Movies — Leave a comment
January 8, 2013

LAST TANGO IN PARIS directed by Bernardo Bertolucci (France/Italy, 1972).

Paul shows Jeanne another use for household butter!

Paul finds religion as he shows Jeanne another use for household butter.

Pauline Kael is a critic I admire  but I have to agree to differ with her hyperbolic assessment of Bertolucci’s notorious movie as a masterpiece on a par with Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

This is a film that I would defend but don’t particularly like. Its power to shock means that is as controversial now as when it was made. Continue reading →

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