Catedral de Fantasmagorías

(under construction)

My articles and posts will be published here from now on. I'll reblog content on @la-chacha-gris about the eroticism embodied in industrial pop culture, the subject of that older blog, and @chacha-shitposts will continue to focus on fashion, memes, and anything that doesn't fit in the other two.

Big Porn, [a fistful of mainstream majors] funded by free online tube sites, has acquired such a large portion of the pornographic industry that it has begun to effectively corner the market. The more time I spend observing this one company, the more it seems to exist as a glaring example of capitalism gone awry. Aside from all of the involvement with piracy and the arrest of the apparent owner on allegations of tax evasion, they’ve begun taking on unpaid interns to replace the steady stream of workers who have been driven away by poor treatment. Their corporate structure is opaque. Executive level employees issue instructions and then reprimand lower level workers for following them. The lack of respect with which they treat their crew and staff has begun to show in the lowered product quality, and Big Porn fails to see that the common denominator is, well, them.

El Big Porn, [las majors del mainstrem en pocas manos y] financiadas por sitios web de vídeos pornográficos gratuitos, ha adquirido una porción tan grande de la industria pornográfica que prácticamente monopoliza el mercado. Cuanto más tiempo dedico a observar a estas empresas, más me parece un claro ejemplo de capitalismo descontrolado. Además de su implicación en la piratería y la detención del presunto propietario por presunta evasión fiscal, han empezado a contratar becarios no remunerados para reemplazar a la constante fuga de trabajadores que se han marchado debido al maltrato. Su estructura corporativa es opaca. Los directivos dan instrucciones y luego reprenden a los empleados de menor rango por seguirlas. La falta de respeto con la que tratan a su equipo y personal se refleja en la baja calidad de sus productos, y Big Porn no se da cuenta de que el denominador común son, precisamente, ellos mismos.

If you’re thinking about or discussing ethics in porn please remember that the adult industry isn’t just the girls you see on box covers and the front pages of websites. It also includes the directors, a large amount of people who work as crew on set, and a slew of office workers who handle the post production and sale of product. I know a middle-aged dude who is built like a tank from moving lights and cameras all day might not pull on your heartstrings the way that a pretty young woman does, but he’s the one who struggles to make rent and car payments when month after month of shoots are cancelled last minute. He’s the one being replaced by people who have been conned into working for lower rates or for free because he finally had the audacity to take other work. The people you don’t see in the videos are the ones bearing the initial brunt of this new power imbalance.

Si estás reflexionando o debatiendo sobre la ética en la pornografía, recuerda que la industria para adultos no se limita a las chicas que ves en las portadas y las páginas principales de los sitios web. También incluye a los directores, a un gran número de personas que trabajan como parte del equipo técnico en el set y a un sinfín de empleados administrativos que se encargan de la posproducción y la venta del producto. Sé que un tipo de mediana edad, fortísimo de tanto mover luces y cámaras, quizás no despierte la misma simpatía que una joven atractiva, pero es él quien tiene dificultades para pagar el alquiler y el coche cuando, mes tras mes, se cancelan rodajes a última hora. Es él quien está siendo reemplazado por personas engañadas para trabajar por salarios más bajos o gratis porque finalmente tuvo la osadía de aceptar otro trabajo. Las personas que no aparecen en los vídeos son las que sufren las consecuencias iniciales de este nuevo desequilibrio de poder.

In contrast to Hollywood, neither the crew nor performers are protected by a union. Unlike the performers, the crew and office staff are not protected by agents or the kind of market value that allows people like me to refuse to work until safe working conditions are provided. When Big Porn is done squeezing everything they can out of those workers behind the scenes there is no reason to believe they won’t start squeezing the performers harder too.

A diferencia de Hollywood, ni el equipo técnico ni los artistas están protegidos por un sindicato. A diferencia de los artistas, el equipo técnico y el personal administrativo no están protegidos por agentes ni por el tipo de valor de mercado que permite a personas como yo negarnos a trabajar hasta que se garanticen condiciones laborales seguras. Cuando la gran industria pornográfica termine de exprimir al máximo a los trabajadores tras bambalinas, no hay razón para creer que no empezarán a explotar aún más a los artistas.

While people attack the entire porn industry for giving employment to the women who want to work in it, there are a number of unseen workers being treated in ways that look pretty unethical to me. It is just as inaccurate to hold up a few high profile female performers as evidence that the whole industry is ethical and provides fair treatment across the board as it is to paint all of porn as an exploitative pox on modern society. The reality is many different people being treated in a variety of ways that fall somewhere in between the two ends of the spectrum. In order to fix a lot of the problems in various parts of the adult entertainment industry, they need to be addressed as what they are: workers’ rights issues.

To begin with… you say that some photos could be from adult films—a few are!—but they come with commentary and are taken out of context in the style of French Situationists and meme humor. I'd say there's more posing, but not the Playboy kind (though there are some), more like a hosiery catalog… but anyway, you consider what's published to be showing personal taste, and I've said many times that naked women aren't my sexual priority. It's like watching a news report of a game and thinking it's because the journalist is a fan of the winning team… journalism, reporting, analysis. And to think that a journalist doesn't get emotional or show favoritism doesn't mean they lack a passion for the sport or affiliation with a team… it means they're doing their job objectively, not from behind a bar talking to friends, but formally addressing a large audience that follows them not for who they are as a person, but for what they report and show.

I don't understand the confusion between good and mainstream, or what it's about. Haven't I made a thousand jokes about the clichés and ridiculous things they sometimes do? When I say that mainstream is good?, there are countless references to the fact that it's only the most generic and massive spectrum, about adult productions seek the largest number of consumers by catering to general tastes and repeating formulas to absurd. Are you reading me carefully, or are these things slipping through because you're writing to me as an AI?

If it was already a mistake to adopt a popularizing tone and a journalistic stance with a personal opinion or lack of judgment, it's another mistake to think that anthropology or sociology can determine what's good. They can be used to clarify dynamics or outcomes that await understanding of their causes in order to modulate them, or simply to map a culture to understand why things are done. But the man with a mustache who disembarked on an island to ask the indigenous people to cover up because it bothered him, and to take notes while judging them is demodee. The establishment of serious criteria on 'cultural relativism,' an expression coined for anthropological study defending the need to refrain from judgment. Analysis is paramount if we want to understand.

Your complaint—if it's serious and not just a polite insult to get a response—is based on many assumptions that aren't there, that don't apply. There's counterculture on my blog, at least underground; just look at the music I post. But how can you focus on adult pop and mainstream culture without addressing the generic? It's like valuing anti-colonial thought and the study of the soft power that imperialism exerts through mass culture… and dismissing as "non-thinkers" those who wrote "about Donald Duck" because they talk about Disney stuff… to do exactly what you want to find, you demand to find it, and in return for nothing!

Why the last sentence? Because it has a lot of influence. Neither thought nor culture is born and travels in a vacuum without conditions or circumstances. It's expressed differently, and without photos, in an academic paper. Sometimes I cite one, but it's nothing people want to read because of its length and boring style. People hardly read anything in general. Here the rules are different: publishing doesn't cost as much as it does there or in the press, but you fight for attention by scrolling. Do I want to say something serious, profound, intelligent? Well, it has to be short, easy to read, and accompanied by attractive photos of a wide range that are examples or jokes related to what I'm saying. But beware! Another danger is censorship by AI. I mustn't use certain flagged 'words' or have the post flagged for what the photos show because that makes it appear less in feeds and less recommended in what's called 'shadowbanning.' So, between jokes, memes, lingerie, and pretty nudes (of women, because men's are less popular and the AI ​​censors them more because their private parts are more visible when they're standing), I offer these reflections, these ideas that break the cycle of not thinking, that question things. It's like riding a wave or using the current to sow that difference.

My authors are always credited, and sometimes I upload their books if it's legal. Anyone who wants more, something deeper, can search for them and their work further. Here, I can do what I can given the circumstances. And I don't intend to introduce you to the complete thought of Mark Fisher or Camille Paglia; this isn't the place, and there are a thousand other topics. But I know from the feedback that many people have told me they've come to know about these people, their works, and their ways of seeing things because I've shown them examples.

I've never said my blog is countercultural or punk; I am, or perhaps these are my tendencies. I'm also a bit of a troll, but in a good-hearted way: I immerse myself in sexualized environments, I study them, and I expose clichés, absurdities, and unrealities of the mainstream, and I open debates about eroticism and the roles within it. Perhaps what's countercultural or different isn't what I post, but how or why, but I don't know. I just keep this alive every day and let my ways of doing things emerge, discuss some of them, and refine them. It's a continuous process; I'm playing: I'm learning to be a blogger and communicator, in addition to learning about what I comment on. I do it all while fearfully avoiding being banned and spreading ideas that don't usually find a place here. I don't consider myself a thinker, but rather someone who tries to think, to stimulate myself to write a little each day and read a little more so that what I say is well-researched and makes sense. I don't expect to create a masterpiece, a legacy, or generate my own system of thought, but rather to engage in an activity, a continuous process, that pulls me to think and study, shaking me out of the daily grind and from being a mere consumer of series and YouTube.

I don't give myself the importance you all want to give me. But often, breaking the dynamic of silence or the sexual harassment I usually receive, I find comments similar to yours where people who hide their true identities, even as a blog, reproach me for not being good enough to deserve their attention because I don't condemn adult films, the adult industry, or because I don't address the things they want in the way they want on my blog… I do something light and fun that I learn to do as I go. I've said it a thousand times: I don't find the photos I post sexy myself—unless I explicitly say so—and I don't entirely agree with all the quotes I include, but a debate, a process of thinking or rethinking something, begins this way: by presenting and mapping different perspectives on the topic. There are texts that condemn adult films, and the opposite; but you also find other theses about the mechanisms of terror or how it is sexual. There are many topics, opinions between photos that are just to keep the constant posting going, so stop demanding or questioning me for not being or not doing what you'd like me to be, based on what you've imagined I should be or what you understand by "thinker." I think, I express my own ideas and opinions, as well as those of others. As you can see, I also dedicate time to criticism if it's more articulated than mere insults… but I don't have final, preconceived opinions about everything. I came here to form them, to learn things, and to have debates, but what I get are requests for my breasts to see and anger from people I don't know for not being what they think I should be.

My blog is a conversation: between the posts that sometimes continue and have recurring themes, between my past and present self, where I revisit topics, expand on ideas I jotted down elsewhere… and between anyone who wants to comment on what I post. I don't speak from a pulpit or from a rigid system where everything is fixed in my opinions. If that were the case, and I couldn't benefit from what you tell me in my search, I would write a book, not a public journal where I listen to feedback, don't give lessons, and seek opinions, new ideas, and references that invite you to share what I share with you.

I'm sorry to disappoint you and that you think I don't think. If that's truly the case, and you're not just trying to mock me and make me feel stupid, I'm doing the best I can. This is how I know now; I'm learning, and the truth is, the lack of feedback, or feedback like yours, isn't helping me at all. If you have concrete ideas on how to do what I say, tell me. I'm looking for ideas and ways to improve, but to think that I must be unintelligent or lack taste because I post photos that appeal to my almost 23,000 followers…

Maybe I post mainstream photos because I talk about what mainstream media is like to a broad audience (that is, the mainstream in terms of readership). Haven't you considered that? I wanted to answer this alone, but I felt it might sound passive-aggressive to point out that you hadn't thought about something.

I'm more comfortable on this blog. I post fashion, memes, and only people who are clothed, nothing marked as 'adult,' between the downloads and posts with text that I'd like to keep if I suddenly had to delete the other one because of nudity. Any study is done with data. Here's some: this blog has 2,100 followers, and the other one has 23,000, as I said. Maybe it's because of the mainstream photos and my comments about them.

As I said before, you don't create something from nothing and there are conditions: artists have to make something they can sell if they're not rich, and blogs have to be attention-grabbing. If I'm going to talk about pop culture being invaded by pornography, I'll have to talk about adult films, pop culture, and mainstream culture. And I'll have to give examples, and discuss them, and compare the statistics between the two blogs—that's what differentiates this blog from the other in terms of content, and the other blog has ten times more followers. Maybe I do it for that reason and not because I don't think, maybe…