Let’s Talk About Porn! No, Really …

Reader Comments

1. Scott 09/02/2005 @ 8:52pm

   Stay the course, Todd. Last I checked, this was your website and some of us appreciate your open minded point of view. It’s why I check this site for info about obscure films, and dont run off and read the latest gossip on Yahoo Movies.

2. Todd 09/02/2005 @ 9:15pm

   Oh, I intend to stay the course ... I’ve always intended for discussions like these to be part of the site. I want people to think about their culture rather than just following or consuming it ... this isn’t me saying that we’ll stop covering more difficult stuff, it’s me saying that if you find something difficult or troublesome or offensive that I want to talk about why rather than just having people shut down ...

3. Kurt 09/02/2005 @ 9:51pm

   I think I take more issues with the casual racism/intolerance and rah-rah ignorance of mainstream hollywood studio fare (From Deuce Bigalow to Breakfast at Tiffany’s to Anger Management to Christmas with the Kranks) than I do with an extreme sub-genre of film which exists pretty much nowhere except Japan and is somewhat unique to the culture. Pinku is much much less harmless and far more interesting. Perhaps an open mind is required and it is not for mass consumption. I say it is better to have highly specialized fare (pinku) than soul-crushing mass-consumption pap (some (by no means all) Hollywood product).

4. nitty 09/03/2005 @ 12:03am

   It all really boils down to people being open minded to different types of film.I dont think pinku films will ever be popular in North America simply because of cultural differences.I’ve read interviews where pinku directors talked passionately about their films thus making me interested in seeking them out.I remember when I saw The Passion Of The Christ people walked out and felt like they had a religious experience.I on the other hand thought it was the ultimate horror/s&m;film.Here we had a guy getting tortured for a couple hours.Point being people will always be very opinionated when it comes to sex or violence. And Todd seeing how this is your website you must decide how much world cinema your willing to cover.Its one thing if you covered the porn films of Tera Patrick or Peter North.But to not discuss pinku films like the one’s made by Nikkatsu studios in the 70’s would be a shame.I’d like to believe TWITCH readers are intelligent enough to distinguish the difference between porn and films that just happen to be filled with sex.

5. logboy 09/03/2005 @ 2:24am

   fair enough that things like this get discussed, torn over wether youll ever get much of a discussion going on specifics like this as theyre pretty much done to death - one of the eternal questions that weve all had arguments with outselves in out own minds about. worth giving them a chance, but i prefer the discussions in the comments of the topic that causes the discussion, rather than an isolated occasional ‘lets discuss this’ approach which may do little more than stop people thinking they should discuss things more specifically or occasionally or sporadically when they feel necessary… and yes, as with all websites, you cant please everybody - so in a sense i cant better describe it better than “dont try to please everyone, youll always please somebody with anything"… i am sure in time there will be new writers (hopefully) which will add more areas of interest in here and some people wont feel so determined to say “dont write about this” as they will learn (as i think the large majority already have) that the best editing tool is your own mind, so read what you want and build the picture from many sites, not just this one…

6. remaker 09/03/2005 @ 2:29am

   An open-forum pornography debate on the internet does not invite terribly productive results, I would have thought, but Twitch as always is staying the unbroken course. Nice!

   Seems like the violence-and-sex debate was settled long ago by whoever said whatever it was. Uh. Heh.

   Something like: “Violence everywhere is real, and so is sex, but violence in films is fantasy to most people who watch.” The MPAA managed to put bolts on all films hoping to reach audiences, and managed to bolt down audiences based on their annoying family-value rating thing (not meant the way it reads, you know). So, parents are all conditioned to go Oh No! to nudity, which they may still practice, if only between clothes changes, and say Okay! to shooting and death and such as the morgue scene in Bad Boys II, which contained elements those parents would never, ever see in life, and I’m referring as much to their tidy bubble lives of zero minority interaction as to the exploding corpse car chases.

   Sex is something my little sister is evidently doing with her boyfriend these days. It’s also something I’ve done or, porn alert, watching other people do. Whereas putting bullets in people’s faces is strongly within the realm of Hollywood. Just to pop more examples, not making personal assertions or whatnothey.

   Best!

7. remaker 09/03/2005 @ 2:32am

   and whoops, look at logboy go and say everything I wanted to four minutes prior, and better as always!

   :D

8. logboy 09/03/2005 @ 2:41am

   one thing i didnt mention : i think isolating arguments out into posts like this, as well as (at least) potentially stopping themselves posting in relevant items by writers, actively gives people the impression they can write in and complain / moan about site content to todd - i mean, feel free to, but my impression is that todd has a shed load of email to deal with each day and i am not sure why people think that this is a service they pay for thats intended for as large a market as possible - this isnt mainstream in its content and we (if not many people do) intend to try and push ourselves and hope that others do the same and we can all improve / grow our knowledge and understanding together. so if you email in : youre keeping todd from his work for the sake of something that should be shared on the site and opened up for discussion amongst all of us, and your trying to essentially tailor the site to either yourself (so again, read what you want, dont read what you dont want) or for other people - and thats beyond self-censorship, its an attempt to limit others, dictate to them what they understand things to be, and control what they themselves can get from the site…

9. Gummo 09/03/2005 @ 4:22am

   Yeh, logboy put it well. I think on a site that is the doorway to weird movies, the viewer needs to employ a fair degree of discretion. Boundries can be blurred sometimes, especially in experimental/alternative/underground films. I wouldn’t expect Twitch to cover a pornographic feature (i.e an out and out skin flick) due to it’s frankly generic nature. This is not a pornographic site after all. But, something like Thriller: A Cruel Picture which is an exloitation ‘classic’ and does feature pornographic moments, is probably quite apt for Twitch. As far as I have seen, a great deal of care has been taken with the content posted. But there is only so much you can do to protect the viewer with examples like the pinku movies, or something called ‘Killer Pussy’ for example, yet these films are perfectly apt for a site like Twitch. After all, I would hate to see the site curbed or dilluted in order to appeal more to family friendly audiences, when it is a site for ‘out there’ movies in the first instance. I personally have not seen anything on Twitch that I think has gone too far. I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect the readers to use their own discretion as I do mine.

10. iamNataku 09/03/2005 @ 4:25am

    From what I understand, it has been the pinku eiga related posts that have caused more of a stir than any of the more risque European/Latin film related posts.

    I think it has little to do with what is considered “pornography” and just what people are comfortable with. I myself am sometimes taken aback by the promotional materials of pink films, AND I’M ACTUALLY FAMILIAR WITH THE GENRE!

    I think there’s just a frankness in Japanese film when it comes to sex that greatly unnerves most westerners. It lacks any sort of the supposed cultural context that sex/nudity is something taboo or risque, which is a cultural dynamic that most Western films play off of when we do make films that include sex/nudity.

    Of course, if you delve deep enough into film theory, ALL MOVIES in which the actors are the main focus of the camera are pornographic (Memoirs of a Geisha anybody?).

    It’s pretty culturally myopic to say that its “okay” to stare at beautiful people on film for two hours, but it’s “pornographic” to stare at naked people on screen for a few minutes.

    On that note, it would be cool if Twitch could do an in-depth review of The Wayword Cloud DVD release.

11. Todd 09/03/2005 @ 6:34am

    Kurt and I both have copies of The Wayward Cloud, actually ... I’m not a big Tsai fan, so I’ve been leaving it to him, assuming he has time with the Toronto Film Fest consuming our time right now ... you’ll certainly never look at watermelon the same way again ...

12. Joshua 09/03/2005 @ 10:50am

    I generally think of “porn” as crap. No plot, no character development, soulless junk, celluloid Taco Bell. I realize that that’s a statement that could encompass a great number of genres and movies that aren’t technically porn. Porn just falls into the same bucket as grind house, Russ Meyer flicks, Corman, bad Italian cannibal movies, they are just out there to appeal to the lowest common denominator. God I love it all.

    In all honesty I end up getting bored. There’s only so much fleshy naughtiness that can go on. Why can’t I just do that with my old lady instead of watching someone else do it? Now if the sex (like good violence) is: there to emphasize a point, etc., etc., etc. Not just humpin for humpin’s sake.

    If I need a porn fix I drift toward ero-guro and sundry artwork. If anyone can explain to me why eye-ball licking is erotic I would appreciate it.

13. mike d 09/03/2005 @ 11:03am

    Well I think part of it is the trashy, mindless, explotitative nature of that trailer and film. Now, that alone doesn’t make it porn, (and I personally don’t think it is, and don’t mind it here at twitch) but I do think that that is one of the major elements that puts people off.

    I mean, you can compare it with this trailer: http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/002886.html

    which is a whole hell of a lot more explicit, and yet also a whole hell of a lot more human too. I would definitely agree that the pinku film is much more pornographic then the later film, regardless of the fact it has less dick in it.

14. mike d 09/03/2005 @ 11:06am

    or yeah, basically what Joshua said..

15. Kurt 09/03/2005 @ 11:37am

    The Wayward Cloud review is coming...Probably Tuesday or Wednesday next week. I made the ‘mistake’ of watching Boe’s Recontruction and it’s been occupying my brain for the last couple days (WHAT A FANTASTIC FILM IT IS!) Anyway, planning on a complete viewing of Wayward Cloud Monday Night.

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