#eroxplaining

Yes, I make recommendations for unusual artistic or erotic careers, but the thing is, women, intellectuals, artists, or those of us who are all of those things at least in part, look at and highlight, speak about and refer to things differently than the average consumer of what you all drool over and lump together under the name of 'porn.'

Some want to see skin, orifices, or people invaded, violated… it doesn't bother me, and sometimes it's even appreciated, but I want to see soul in that material, and innocence shining through in moments of excess, transgression, and sin.

Given the nature of mainstream adult production, this is how limited it is…

In it, the male consumer seeks to see women as objects, never as active subjects of the action. They do things, but they are ordered, trained, or punished in the footage…

Some girl bloggers here, whom you never understand, look for role models in it: strong, free, and believable women, and if they don't have them, that product or that eroticism usually doesn't work for us. It seems very simple to me, but it's difficult to explain.

The book recounts the adventures of a young, naive, orphaned peasant girl who arrives in London and, initially without realizing it, becomes a prostitute. You'll have to read it to understand how her naiveté and lack of comprehension of the euphemisms used by those around her lead her to this profession. The important thing is that Fanny Hill manages remarkably well to offer her services and, despite numerous obstacles and countless adventures that enliven the text, ends her career as a wealthy and beloved woman. This was a relatively novel argument before, one that has been repeated a thousand times since, but Cleland's original text marks a major innovation in another sense…

El libro cuenta las aventuras de una joven e ingenua campesina huerfana que llega a Londres para, sin darse cuenta en principio, convertirse en prostituta. Tendreís que leerlo para entender como su ingenuidad y no comprender los eufemismos con que le hablan le hacen tener ese empleo. Lo importante es que Fanny HilI logra notablemente bien ofrecer sus servicios y, a pesar de numerosos obstáculos e innumerables aventuras que amenizan el texto, termina su carrera siendo una mujer rica y amada. Esto era un argumento relativamente novedoso antes que se ha repetido desde entonces mil veces, pero el texto original de Cleland marca una innovación capital en otro sentido…

What is striking is how her erotic descriptions abandon all references to small birds or nature, as was previously the case with sensual metaphors in writings of this kind. Now, the analogies with poetic interest for the carnal are drawn from mining, manufacturing, or banking. Something has changed forever. The male sex is now called a "weapon," a "tool," a "lever," a "spring," and sexual relations are now described in the manner of engineering and production. The prostitute is transformed into a "machine," and her paid amorous activities belong to the world of investment and resource management. Fanny Hill describes how the madam monitors the market in order to recruit new "merchandise" for the "use" of her "clients"; or how she "bargains" the virginity of her employees with those seeking this exclusive and fleeting commodity; They talk about the need to ensure the "circulation" of girls for the good of "commerce." And so on.

Lo llamativo es como sus descripciones eróticas dejan de lado toda referencia a pequeños pájaros o a la naturaleza como solía hacerse antes para las metáforas sensuales en escritos de este tipo. Ahora las analogías con interés poético para lo carnal se toman de la minería, la manufactura o los bancos. Algo ha cambiado para siempre. El sexo del hombre ahora es llamado "arma", "herramienta", "palanca", "resorte" y las relaciones sexuales son ahora descritas al modo de la ingeniería y la producción. La prostituta se transforma en "máquina" y sus actividades amatorias remuneradas pertenecen al mundo de la inversión y la gestión de recursos. Fanny Hill describe como la encargada del burdel vigila el mercado con el objeto de reclutar nuevas "mercaderías" para "el uso" de sus "clientes"; o como ella "regatea" la virginidad de sus empleadas con los demandantes de este exclusivo y fugaz artículo; se habla de la necesidad de asegurar la "circulación" de chicas para el bien del "comercio". Y así sucesivamente.

Cleland uses all these terms and describes the new social order 20 years before Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations. It's as if sex had been industrialized before everything else, which would confirm the fact that prostitution was indeed a precursor profession. The world was heading towards a profound transformation, already foreshadowed by Aretino's innovation, which we saw in a previous post in this series: to pause and describe (coldly, some might say) sex in its gestures and details as an attractive, autonomous activity that could exist without a moral, legal, social, or even romantic context. Meanwhile, in the real world, the worker was no longer the son of a friend or a potential brother-in-law, an ally, or a devout believer whom you already knew from your childhood community. On the path to what we know as modern industrial capitalism, human beings are judged first and foremost by their productive capacity as workers and the quality of their labor. They must, in principle, be efficient and consistent, which guarantees that their product will be of high quality and abundant, with moral and social aspects being valued only afterward.

Cleland emplea todos esos términos y describe el nuevo orden social 20 años antes de que Adam Smith escriba La Riqueza de las Naciones. Es como si el sexo hubiera sido industrializado antes que todo lo demás, lo que confirmaría el hecho de que la prostitución realmente fue un oficio precursor. El mundo se estaba encaminando hacia una profunda transformación, ya anunciada por la innovación del Aretino que vimos en post anterior de la serie, que fue la de detenerse para describir (fríamente dirán algunos) el sexo en sus gestos y detalles como una atractiva actividad autónoma que podía existir sin un contexto moral, jurídico, social o incluso amoroso. Mientras, en el mundo real el trabajador dejaba de ser el hijo de un amigo o un cuñado potencial, un aliado y un buen creyente al que conoces previamente de tu entorno de nacimiento. Camino de lo que conocemos como capitalismo industrial moderno, el ser humano ya es juzgado antes que nada por su capacidad productiva como trabajador y su cualidad de su trabajo. Debe ser en principio eficaz y regular, lo que garantiza que su producto será de calidad y abundante, valorándose luego lo moral y social.

Fanny Hill already belongs to the industrial world; she is a sex worker displaced (uprooted) from her birthplace, preoccupied with her effectiveness in providing pleasure, knowing she will be judged on her professional skills. Sex is thus transformed into a technical competency, insofar as the naive peasant girl learns to perfect it, increasing her commercial value. Fanny Hill also perhaps represents the first modern image of a self-made woman. She is, in effect, the emergence of a previously unknown female character: freed from her family of origin, Fanny Hill does not suffer domestic confinement. Motherhood is not in her plans; her relationships with potential husbands are always financial, and she is primarily concerned with her career. For Angela Carter, the first examples of liberated women in modern literature are found in Sade; Juliette immediately understands that her sex can serve as a commodity and that one can only escape slavery by becoming a tyrant. Throughout all those pages describing sexual escapades, the heroines relentlessly affirm the creed of an individualism that would be dubbed "bourgeois" a few years later. What is most surprising is that this typically modern discourse on objective efficiency and technical competence had appeared in the p-graphic field years before becoming the official doctrine of industrialization, and that sex as an activity in itself, separate from the rest of life, is not something that future adult films present as a novelty.

Fanny Hill pertenece ya al mundo industrial, es una trabajadora del sexo desplazada (arrancada) de su entorno de nacimiento que se preocupa de su eficacia para procurar placer sabiendo que será evaluada según su capacidad profesional. El sexo está así transformado en competencia técnica, en la medida en que la pequeña campesina ingenua aprende para perfeccionarla acrecentando su valor comercial. Fanny Hill también representa tal vez la primera imagen moderna de una selfmade woman. Es en efecto la aparición de un personaje femenino hasta entonces desconocido: liberada de su familia de origen, Fanny HiII no sufre encierro doméstico. La maternidad no entra en sus planes, sus relaciones con los maridos potenciales son siempre financieras y ella se preocupa antes que nada por su carrera. Para Angela Carter, se encuentran los primeros ejemplos de mujeres liberadas de la literatura moderna en Sade; Juliette comprende enseguida que su sexo puede servirle de mercadería y que no se puede escapar a la esclavitud más que volviéndose una tirana. A través de todas esas páginas en que están descritos los jugueteos sexuales, las heroínas afirman sin descanso el credo de un individualismo que será bautizado "burgués" algunos años más tarde. Lo que más sorprende es que ese discurso típicamente moderno sobre la eficacia objetiva y la competencia técnica había aparecido en el campo p-gráfico años antes de volverse la doctrina oficial de la industrialización, así como el sexo como actividad en sí separada del resto de la vida no es algo que exponga como novedad el futuro cine para adultos.

It might confuse or overwhelm you to imagine what this would replace or represent—the fullness of the lips—and to think about how he would feel being treated like this by her, but there's more to this classic that has been circulating on Tumblr for years, appearing in blogs and being stolen, its credits lost long ago… What's important to me is the expectant gaze (others would say submissive, but I think that's projecting, and that's not what it comes across as). The most memorable photos of a certain kind of attention to male anatomy are memorable not because of voracity or the capacity to encompass, but because they are read as ADORATION. It's almost a religious act of honoring that part and the power by resorting to primal masculine phantasmagories.