dr_pwnage

Now that my antidepressant prescription has been doubled and I am again a functional human being, rather than a gibbering suicidal idiot holding my knees and rocking back and forth and drooling on the floor, I am able to think a little more clearly. There are benefits to this, and also there are disadvantages. Whereas until recently I have been unable to think clearly for more than 20 or 30 seconds at a time, now I find myself able to obsess compulsively on just about any given subject for hours or even days at a time.

Because I really don't have anything to do all day, and I don't really have much human contact, there is nothing keeping my mind running along decent tracks. My mind is filthy, and by filthy I mean hilariously dirty and twisted. I really don't feel ashamed of this as long as people don't know how big of a deviant I am. In fact, I enjoy the twisted paths down which my consciousness weaves.

I was thinking out loud today with a friend of mine about pornography and prostitution. I reflected that both of these are situations where someone is paid for performing sex...the difference in my mind seemed to be that prostitution is paying one person for sex, whereas pornography is paying two people for sex. One is illegal, the other is not. This was a very naive approach to take, because certainly you can pay two prostitutes, and in addition I was thinking of pornography strictly in terms of the adult film industry and straight guy-on-girl sex.

Keep in mind this is a comedy entry into my blog, friends. I am much more sensitive, intelligent, and caring than I am putting forth in these words.

I did, however, think kind of seriously for a little bit about the philosophical differences between pornography and prostitution, because a lot of people find either one of them acceptable and the other not, or the other way around, or both of them COMPLETELY unacceptable (or completely acceptable). I do find humor in this, and I wonder how many real comedians have touched on the possible comedic irony that could be exploited. All of this led me to go to dictionary dot com and look up the word 'pornography.'

Look at these beauties:

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pornography[pawr-nog-ruh-fee] S
noun
obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, esp. those having little or no artistic merit.

por-nog-ra-phy (por-ng'r-f)
n.
Sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal.
The presentation or production of this material.
Lurid or sensational material: "Recent novels about the Holocaust have kept Hitler well offstage [so as] to avoid the ... pornography of the era" (Morris Dickstein).


Por*nog"ra*phy\, n. [Gr. ? a harlot + -graphy.]
1. Licentious painting or literature; especially, the painting anciently employed to decorate the walls of rooms devoted to bacchanalian orgies.
2. (Med.) A treatise on prostitutes, or prostitution.


pornography

Books, photographs, magazines, art, or music designed to excite sexual impulses and considered by public authorities or public opinion as in violation of accepted standards of sexual morality. American courts have not yet settled on a satisfactory definition of what constitutes pornographic material. (See obscenity.)


pornography
1857, "description of prostitutes," from Fr. pornographie, from Gk. pornographos "(one) writing of prostitutes," from porne "prostitute," originally "bought, purchased" (with an original notion, probably of "female slave sold for prostitution;" related to pernanai "to sell," from PIE root per- "to traffic in, to sell," cf. L. pretium "price") + graphein "to write." Originally used of classical art and writing; application to modern examples began 1880s. Main modern meaning "salacious writing or pictures" represents a slight shift from the etymology, though classical depictions of prostitution usually had this quality. Pornographer is earliest form of the word, attested from 1850. Pornocracy (1860) is "the dominating influence of harlots," used specifically of the government of Rome during the first half of the 10th century by Theodora and her daughters.


Main Entry: por-nog-ra-phy
Pronunciation: por-'no-gra-fE
Function: noun
: material that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
NOTE: Pornographic material is protected expression unless it is determined to be obscene. However, child pornography is illegal under federal and state laws prohibiting the depiction of minors in sexual acts.

pornography application
Still and moving images, usually of women, in varying states of nudity, posing or performing erotic acts with men, women, animals, machines, or other props. Some say it degrades women, some say it corrupts young boys (who down-load it from the World-Wide Web or exchange it on floppy disks). Most of it is in the form of JPEG images. Many web sites offer porn of all sorts, almost always for a subscription. It is said that these are a driving force in the evolution of new technology and techniques for the web. Advertisments for them certainly constitute a significant proportion of all spam. There are even pornographic computer games, an early example being Mac Playmate.
Beware - many institutions, particularly universities, have strict rules against their computers and networks being used to transfer or store such things, and you might get corrupted.

******

Now...really take a good look at those. Look at the words that are used, and look how different each of the definitions are. Some of the differences are subtle, and some are quite radical from one another. All of these are definitions pulled from different dictionaries, and all of them definitely promote a different perspective. You can see which ones honestly attempt to provide a definition, and others are tainted by religion and/or political dogma.

If we can't even agree on what words actually mean, what does this say about our ability to convey the meanings of our works to future generations?

Is the search for definition futile, or is it something that must be continued by humans for all time?

Will the human need to define actually end the differences in the languages and customs of the different peoples of the Earth?

Will this be something that constrains our abilities in the future to understand contact with alien life?

What does all of this have to do with pornography?

Nothing, really. Well, I guess that depends on which definition of pornography you are using.