"Sex Times Technology Equals the Future"---J.G. Ballard
NewsPsychopathia Sexualis | Published on September 29, 2007
What: Arse Electronika 2007, a conference about pornography in the Digital Age.
Speakers: the usual roundup of sexperts, theory jocks, gadget fetishists, smoke-shoveling cyberpundits, and hairy-palmed hangers-on.
When: I'm delivering a keynote lecture on Saturday, October 5, at 11 A.M. PST. Conference schedule here.
Where: Kink.com Porn Palace, 415 Jessie St. San Francisco, CA 94103.
What I'm Talking About: "Humanimal" Porn in the Age of Xenotransplants and Genetic Chimera." Executive Summary: "Humanimal" porn is calculated to blister the mind of even the most been-there, done-that pornsurfer. Armed with image-manipulation software, morph auteurs are conjuring up images worthy of a medieval bestiary or a postmodern Decameron. The result is Dr. Moreau's idea of Web porn: Hyperreal cheesecake in which nude babes with cow ears, tails, and udders suckle each other and naked werewomen flaunt donkey ears straight out of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Is this an absurdist attempt to push the envelope of fetishism to the point where not even devotees of this obscure desire can take it seriously? Or an earnest attempt to feed the fantasies of a vanishingly obscure market niche that would have flown under radar cover in the lost world before do-it-yourself Web porn? Or is it something more profound---a campy, tongue-in-cheek exorcism of our cultural anxieties about genetic hybrids and human-animal transplants in the age of pigs with human hemoglobin and babies with baboon hearts?
Caveat: That's what I'm contracted to speak about, in any event. As always, there's a better than even chance I may just go off on some hairy-eyed rant about one of my current obsessions, such as: pathological masculinity in America, the country that brought you warporn, gorenography (a.k.a. "torture porn" in the Saw and Hostel vein), The Passion of the Christ (considered as Foucauldian fever dream), Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, and 300, that dyspeptic mix of homophobia and homophilia whose target demographic seems to be the sweet spot between Michael Savage and Tom of Finland.
Consider yourselves forewarned. And come up and tug on my sleeve if you make it to this thing.
Posted by Mark Dery at September 29, 2007 08:56 AM |
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Sounds interesting!
Would this have any relation to anthropomorphication in the 'furry' sense, or am i barking up the wrong tree in thinking along those lines?
Posted by: Si at October 9, 2007 08:16 AMBull's-eye! As it happens, Nexus T.'s humanimal porn stands, as you partly surmised, at the junction of furry fetishism, preggo porn, and BEM (Breast Expansion Morphs). Fascinating stuff. Check it out at
http://projectp.tfcentral.com/main01.html
As it happened, I ended up not delivering the lecture I'd promised, but going off on the threatened tangent---more appropriate to the conference, as it turned out.
Posted by: M. Dery at October 9, 2007 09:07 AMYour tangent was awesome. I'm sorry there was so much going on, that I didn't get to introduce myself.
Posted by: Viviane at October 9, 2007 04:16 PMFlattering of you to say so, Viviane. The audience was spectacular. Even my lamest laugh lines set the house a-roar. And thanks for blogging my talk. (I think you made some mention of it, unless I'm having a Senior Moment. Am I?)
Posted by: at October 9, 2007 05:56 PMhi mark,
So glad you made that last-minute hairpin turn, even if it might have been less furry ... californians probably don't need more incentive for what stranger market niches remain untapped.
And it seems like the conference desperately needed some grounded reference pts. to properly assess those slippery + e-lubed slopes of the uninhibited drives, that everyone seems to voraciously buy into as the inevitable progress of desire(.com)
wish you had been around to comment on the rest, it did in parts get hairier.
btw, we are still analyzing Arse-E at XL terrestrials, if you can send or direct us to any available/online texts you have related to your talk.
thx, jam On !
Pod p.
Really wish i'd been there - it sounds like fascinating stuff. I've never managed to keep my eyes away from the strange stuff that seems to permeate what devotees of the genre/fetish name 'furrydom', although it does seem in many ways (to my own jaundiced eye, anyhow) to be turning in upon itself in ever tighter circles. Thematically, at least.
I can't say i've stumbled across any of the work you mentioned above by Nexus T, but will peruse after working hours to avoid getting my butt kicked here by the big Kahuna.
Posted by: Si at October 12, 2007 06:14 AMPod P.: "californians probably don't need more incentive for what stranger market niches remain untapped." Well, spelunking into the sexual unconscious, especially the paraphilic fringes, is an important part of my research, these days. My lecture wasn't intended as a mash note to fetishism, but as cultural anthropology. Going to and fro in subcultures, I try to be a participant-observer. No moral judgment---pro OR con---implied, unless we're talking about children, animals, cadavers, or non-consenting adults, in which case I feel fully authorized to philosophize with a hammer.
"And it seems like the conference desperately needed some grounded reference pts. to properly assess those slippery + e-lubed slopes of the uninhibited drives, that everyone seems to voraciously buy into as the inevitable progress of desire(.com)"
Curious to know exactly what you mean. Are you referring to the audience's seemingly uncritical embrace of the ero-topian politics of libertinism?
"wish you had been around to comment on the rest, it did in parts get hairier."
Inquiring minds want to know: Hairier? How?
Posted by: M. Dery at October 13, 2007 10:56 AM"turning in upon itself in ever tighter circles": Really? How, exactly?
Posted by: M. Dery at October 13, 2007 10:58 AMI would say, obsession with themes that seem to have evolved very little since i first came across the genre, really, furry slave saved by and indebted to human master, things along those lines; although having had a look at the fp site you mentioned above, i wonder if furry is in that same ballpark. Nexus T's work seems to be a more objective attempt at realising an anthro transformation; i really feel that 'furs' are by and large more besotted with the lifestyle behind the concept of anthropomorphism; the language, conventions, fursuiting. There seem to be more popular genuses within the field as well, although i wouldn't have a clue as to why; foxes in particular seem to be exceptionally prevalent, along with dragons and often wolves.
Posted by: Si at October 14, 2007 07:07 PM