Re: <nettime> Sodom Blogging - "Alternative porn" and aesthetic

[Florian Cramer <fc-nettime@plaintext.cc>]

Am Donnerstag, 07. Dezember 2006 um 12:25:42 Uhr (-0800) schrieb lotu5@resist.ca:

> Is your point about punk being dominated by heterosexual white men
> ignoring bands like Crass? The Penis Envy album with heavy feminist
> themes, came out in 1981, the same year as the Slime album you quote. 

You can even further go back in punk history to The Slits, an all-woman
feminist band founded in 1976. There were non-white punk bands, too,
like the Bad Brains. But, to use a German proverb, those artists were
rather the exceptions that prove the rule. Punk was and continues to be
dominated by white males just like hip hop is dominated by black males -
dominated, not monopolized. 

> I'm no punk history expert, jsut clarifying and trying to avoid
> smothering difference for the sake of argument... I mean, clearly some
> punks were more than just dressed up as leftist.

In the 1970s, some punks also dressed up with swastikas. What might havebeen an anti-establishment provocation in England (with its particular
history of fighting Germany in WWII), was taken much more literally in
other parts of Europe. In most European countries, the late 1970s/early
1980s punk scene was mixed left-wing, right-wing and nihilist until it
broke up into predominantely right-wing skinheads and predominantly
left-wing punks. 

To my knowledge, the situation was different in America where punk
apparently was on the political left from the beginning on. In Europe,
it was posing against the hippie movement, took pride in its political
incorrectness and considered the term "alternative" an insult. American
punk on the other hand, like American counterculture in general, seemed
to be "alternative" from the beginning on and conceived of itself more
in continuity of 1960s protest movements.

> Its interesting that you don't mention nofauxxx.com at all in your
> article, and then you come to a conclusion that seems overly simplified.
> nofauxx is not an example of some kind of psychological unmasking or
> confessional, as it is more an extension of an existing community in
> olympia, wa where most people looking at the site already know each other.
> also, nofauxxx includes models from lots of sexual and gender orientations
> and doesn't adhere to the same kond of normalcy that suicidegirls.com
> does, which is often just like playboy with tattoos and piercings.

I was aware of nofauxxx.com and actuallyed asked "Texte zur Kunst" to
illustrate my article with a screenshot of its homepage.  (I haven't
seen the printed magazine yet and therefore can't confirm whether it's
really in there.) I liked the nofauxxx homepage a lot precisley because
it perfectly embodies alt.porn stereotypes: Although I agree that the
site is more interesting than suicidegirls.com or, worse,
burningangel.com, it has the typical rhetoric of the authentic: "porn
that doesn't fake it". It calls itself "artistic, political and
all-inclusive" while the models fit the standard alt.porn post-punk
standardized looks and the most promiment political statement on the
page is "JOIN NOW FOR $10!". 

> The business model discussion here seems like an afterthought mostly
> unrelated to the rest of the article, but I don't think that claims like
> all indie porn is specious hold up. 

I wouldn't even claim that myself, just as I wouldn't claim that all
indie music is specious (because, for example, it continues to use the
business model of the recording industry and sell itself as a
commodity). It just seemed to me that the claims of an "alternative",
"independent" or even "artistic, political and all-inclusive"
pornography needed some critical attention.

Greetings,

Florian


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