From: ahng@ee.ualberta.ca (Allan Hong-Kay Ng)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.madonna
Subject: Re: SEX! and Madonna
Date: 10 Nov 92 20:54:26 GMT
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada

kristinw@cc.usu.edu writes:




>In article <-hg10jf@rpi.edu>, lohrbt@rs6215.ecs.rpi.edu (Trevor Wolfgang Lohrbeer) writes:
>> I bought the book.  Forty dollars actually. I read the book. It was tame, but 
>> in today's social environment, inevitably needed.
>> 
>> The book is not pornographic.  Some of it is art, some of it is erotica. Either
>> way, none of it is dirty.  It's a new concept, particuliarly to the Western 
>> world. In my view, it was an amusing erotica album; the type one puts out on 
>> a coffee table for people to flip through when visiting.
>> 
>> The photographs are about as risque as Playboy, some edging toward Penthouse.
>> There was really nothing these magazines haven't been doing for years.  But it
>> brought it out as a new concept.  The whole concept of nude photographs being
>> erotica rather than porn.
>> 
>> I've seen soft porn magazines (i.e.: Club International) as well as what is 
>> often cited as porn magazines (i.e.: Playboy, Penthouse). Madonna makes an 
>> important step to recategorising the latter into the category of erotica. 
>> 
>> I, myself, am exploring the fine lines between art, erotica and pornography. How
>> pornographic can one get before one stops calling it art and starts calling it
>> porn?  What exactly is porn?  Is it anything that turns you on? It is anything
>> that degrades women, or mixes violence with sex?  I'm going to a seminar on
>> pornography tomorrow, so maybe I'll get a few of these questions answered. What
>> I do say is that nothing Madonna does is pornographic. She's trying to get 
>> people to understand their sexuality and the simple fact that people see her 
>> acts as pornographic is proof that they are do not understand sex all that well.
>> 
>> Finally let me say that Madonna grabbing her crotch has nothing to do with sex.
>> It is a common gesture in certain sub-cultures indicating power over someone 
>> else and happens to be done mainly by men.  Madonna, in grabbing her crotch, is
>> saying that men and women are equal. It's about equality, not sex.
>> 
>> Oh yeah.  And somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Madonna's original
>> profession (the one she was trained for and originally claimed to be) as a 
>> dancer. Everyone's saying that she can't sing, she can't act, etc., but no one
>> has said anything about her dancing ability. Remember her roots. She's a dancer
>> who's hobbies happen to be music, acting, etc.
>> 
>>                                               - trevor lohrbeer
>> 
>>      No more peeping through keyholes! No more masturbating in the dark! No more
>> public confessions! Unscrew the doors from their jambs! I want a world where 
>> the vagina is represented by a crude, honest slit, a world that has feeling for
>> bone and contour, for raw, primary colors, a world that has fear and respect 
>> for its animal origins. I'm sick of looking at cunts all tickled up, disguised,
>> deformed, idealized. Cunts with nerve ends exposed. I don't want to watch young
>> virgins masturbating in the privacy of their boudoirs or biting their nails or
>> tearing their hair or lying on a bed full of bread crumbs for a whole chapter.
>> I want Madagascan funeral poles, with animal upon animel and at the top Adam and
>> Eve, and Eve with a crude honest slit between the legs. I want hermaphrodites
>> who are real hermaphrodites, and not make-believes walking around with an 
>> atrophied penis or dried-up cunt. I want a classic purity, where dung is dung 
>> and angels are angels.
>>                                   - Henry Miller, Black Spring, 1963.
>> 
>I cannot believe that both of you are supporting Madonna's new book.  It makes
>me sick to think that that type of pronography is available to anyone who wants
>it.  I define pornography as any picture of a nude man or woman that is meant
>to sexually arouse or has anything to do with sex.  I don't care if Madonna has
>sexual desires and acts but I don't want her to share them with the rest of the
>world.  It only makes it more  difficult to teach children the proper morals
>they need.  The only reason why you both support it is because you are avid
>readers of pornographic material, otherwise, how could you compare the pictures
>with Penthouse and Playboy?  Shame on you both.>

I have never read Playboy or Penthouse and I agree with the first gentleman's
comments.  I have no idea where the second guy is coming from.  However you
sir I will address by saying that the best thing you could do with your kids
is show them some of this material and then tell them your opinion (good/bad)
about it.  This will leave a lasting impression.