© Breeze Vincinz
Pornography as described by Merriam-Webster is defined as material that depicts erotic behavior intended to arouse quick intense emotional sexual excitement. I imagine most Freudians claim Merriam-Webster's dictionary to be their bible. Maybe I'm being cynical but it just seems to me that the basis of modern day society is the management of sexuality and perversity. It seems to be the diving board in the construction of everything from baby toys to skyscrapers to governmental policies; the main query being, "will this somehow arouse the most depraved of us to the point where the monkeys will overthrow the monkey house?" Everything has to go through that filter. Let's go back to the baby toy suggestion. I can only imagine the canals a new toy has to go through to make sure that a generation of toddlers aren't slobbering over some thingabob that while smooth, bright and too large to swallow doesn't even remotely resemble parts of the human anatomy that are smooth, bright and too large to swallow.
Now as a confirmed bleeding heart liberal, I have been trained to taunt and ridicule factions that try and make this a more anal retentive country. In the metaphorical Woodstock of existence I have rolled around naked in the mud and shit with my brethren as the acid rock of life is played on the stage. I have smoked a doobie passed to me by someone else with a noun for a name as we smoothed clay and excrement out of our hair. I missed the last presidential election because I was too busy spending the day arranging my Tori Amos and Joni Mitchell cassettes and giving head to my boyfriend and I'm damn proud of it! But alas, as I grow older, I have begun to appreciate, if not the actual presence, then maybe the concept of the keepers trying guard the gate of decency.
While I appreciate an ever growing world and the artistic interpretations of that evolution, there is something to be said for its reciprocal effects, for every angel born there is a demon sired. And while I have shed tears in the presence of some of the most ethereal art I have had the pleasure to experience, there is also a Brittany on the MTV Awards, there is a Hot Ghetto Mess and most recently, there is a 2 Girls, 1 Cup.
For those of you not in the know, and I pray that this means you, 2 Girls and 1 Cup is a video that is making its rounds through the annals of the information highway. It features two women defecating and vomiting into a cup then taking turns consuming the excrement and vomiting into each others' mouths, eliciting sexual arousal from the acts.
A friend of mine suggested that I take a gander at this little nugget of heaven and for the life of me my anarchist spray painted little hearted just wouldn't let me do it. I will admit that there is a mild curiosity, I have even gone so far as to see the first two seconds of the video where the two girls are embraced in a homoerotic kiss but I couldn't bear to see in actuality what my imagination has already sickened in my mind. But it wasn't your typical right-wing "lemon" fear whereas I was afraid that it would be so tantalizingly awful I would be interested in licking again, this was more of an adult morality calm of, "I don't need this in my world view."
There have been several things that have occurred in this life in which that high road didn't seem necessarily haughty, just simply a good choice. I never saw the leaked pictures of the deceased body of Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopez. I thought that it actually was a breach of Geneva Convention rules on the treatment of prisoners of war when pictures of Saddam Hussein in his underwear shuffling around after his capture were shown in newspapers and I was even more thrown at the pictures littered everywhere showing the torture and abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib. When Madonna is photographed with naked men surrounding her, MTV bans her, when Lynndie England is photographed with naked men surrounding her, they preempt Saturday morning cartoons to show that shit.
And all of it, the graphical reproductions of it, I don't need to see. I can honestly say in my heart of hearts, from the pits of my very existence, that I can live a full and meaningful life without ever having seen Iraqi prisoners pile their rectums up on one another in front of two redneck soldiers, Saddam Hussein in his boxers, the corpse of a beloved R&B star, two women defecating and vomiting into a cup then taking turns consuming the excrement and vomiting into each others' mouths. Not that I want my world view to be filled with kittens, lemonade and dandelions, but the more I am made aware of the depravities of this pin prick of a world, the more I understand the fight to keep the few precious kittens, lemonade stands and dandelions patches we have left around.
And keep in mind; I say all of this while (metaphorically) covered in mud and feces, smoking a joint and listening to acid rock. There's an old saying that a Republican is a Democrat who's been mugged. When I hear about things like 2 Girls, 1 Cup, I begin to feel like that robbed Democrat, getting out of the mud and shit, putting down the bong, taking a shower, cutting my hair, damning those dirty hippies to hell.
I gave my father a copy of my poetry book "Life as a Boy" for Father's Day last year. I never discussed it with him outside of him saying how immensely proud he was of me when he opened the package. After a recent conversation with him, he informed me that he would never show that book to his friends and he deemed the work pornographic, something to wit I took great offense to. But after a talk with my sister I began to see the bigger picture. I began to see that that threshold of civility is different for everybody and I tend to think that no matter how you fight it, it gets lower as you get older. I can call my father a 63 year old stick in mud for being offended by poems about fellatio and enemas but I also can hear the young calling me a 36 year old stick in the mud for being offended by 2 Girls, 1 Cup. Who knows, maybe if we were all 22 we would read my raunchy poetry, watch offensive videos then tape our reactions and post them on You Tube to see if we can get the most hits and wind up on Letterman.
But alas, I've come to the conclusion that I think I'm just too much for my Dad. I think that sometimes I force him to experience some of the more verboten aspects of my life and demand him to accept them and me whole heartedly and that maybe I am in the wrong for doing that. I am sure there are certain things that he can live a full and rewarding life without ever having experienced either and maybe my short story, "Enema: A Love Story" is one of them. I often imagine what my reaction would be if my kid came home and showed me his latest work "2 Girls, 1 Cup". It's a startling thought. And I've been reconsidering the idea of pornography, profanity, being cutting edge and turning over the apple cart just for the sake of turning over the apple cart ever since.
I've been trying to come to terms with the artistry of being a cart turner, the rebel rouser, the revolutionary. I don't think I want to leave the mud and shit but I also don't want to get anybody else dirty that doesn't want to get dirty and I most certainly don't want to add anything else even more septic into the shit I've been playing in all this time. And I guess at the end of the day I want my shit to have some higher purpose, some higher goal, some resonance. There has got to be more to life than mindlessly smoking weed and playing in shit, and there has got to be more than watching two women eat it.
One of the occupational hazards of living in Los Angeles is this city's incessant fascination with the life and lifestyle of celebrities. It's an old yet frustratingly true cliché about the ole city of angels. You can't take a crap in this city without having somebody with a respectable imdb profile in the stall right next to you. And with them come the paparazzi who have blood signed deals with the devil to get cash for getting even the most indistinguishable shots of even the most indistinguishable celebrities doing the most indistinguishable things in exchange for a little dignity, a little honor and more than likely at least one testicle.
And while rich white girls have been notably and understandably demonized during the celebrity witch hunts of 2007, I did find myself fascinated with the celebration and/or degradation of three E-List celebrities last year, Chris Crocker, Sanjaya Malakar and Perez Hilton, mainly for the noticeably gay slant they brought to the table.
There have been many people who have supported Brittany's crazy ass in the past and there have been a plethora of people whose voices could induce gastro problems in cows on American Idol, but none have ever done it with as much direct and indirect male girlpower as Chris and Sanjaya and I often wondered if their heightened feminine appearances was a major factor in the media's voracious need to rake them over the coals. I can't help but wonder if America's longtime apprehension of effeminate men and homosexuality in general was the true reason these two were put on the spit? And as homosexuals, what exactly should our stance be?
I know that I am not comfortable with the idea of my own sexuality being so subjective to greater society; I don't want it to be the ulterior side note one keeps handy, ready to be used as icing if I succeed or bullets once I fuck up. I could simply be a hack writer. But with the whole gay thing, I would be the hack writer without a gag reflex because I give head so much. And I guess I don't want the lack of having a gag reflex to my "thing". I don't want it to be my blue hair, my off key feminine tune, my mascara-running call for a better Brittany understanding world. I would want to just work on not being a hack writer.