Guccione: Well, I think I’ve just been branded as one of the few people who knows where porn is going. If only I was that exciting. You know, I don't know where it can go. It is now so unbelievably boring. It is such a drag to get sent a link now of people eating each other, frankly. It’s a sad thing to say, but it’s true! It’s true. I think we’re going to have a different reaction in relationship in the next few years with eroticism. I don’t think it has become more artistic. I think it’s going to go back to where it was in the 1600s, in the 1400s, in the 1700s, when there was an explosion of what we would call porn, which was just eroticism. The danger has gone. There’s no danger in porn today. There’s no excitement. There’s no edge. There’s no, you know, possibility of awkwardness which is where the thrill and the energy usually comes from in sex. That’s all gone. But if we can get that back, if we can get that back through arts, and I think it will be more artistic, it will be more sensual, it will be more intellectual. You know, I think it will actually to return to the true roots of what makes something erotic and that becomes more stimulating. So that maybe… that it is where I can see it’s going. I see what is happening now becoming even more marginal and, you know, eventually if you project, three or four years, that it’s irrelevant.
Discuss
mark rothenberg on January 30, 2009, 7:35 AM
Hey Bobby….
Been many, many years since I helped you design that first issue of SPIN….and been @ PENTHOUSE ever since until a few weeks ago when I got caught in the downsizing….It be greatly appreciated to hear from you, as am looking for a place to put my stamp of excellence on….I can be reached @ maypoman@hotmail.com…..I wonder if you still have that lousy karate kick in you….HEHEHEHE..Regards, Mark Rothenberg
Mike Mennonno on January 31, 2009, 3:42 AM
The more elaborate porn becomes the more irrelevant. Because what is compelling about sex (doing it or watching it) is the insight into “the thing itself” it can provide. The ‘80s was full of “artistic” porn that looks merely pretentious to us now. The web has ushered in an explosion of “reality” porn that, at its best, gives us a glimpse into something true. Sex will always be endlessly fascinating, and endlessly banal. There’s no getting around the banality of it, but its fascination is just as potent, and has less to do with elaborate plots and exotic locales than with what humans are when stripped of all the accouterments of culture and viewed truly naked. Some people will always be more beautiful or exciting to watch, but more elaborate productions will only take us further from the fundamental appeal of watching them. Truth is, if it bores you after a while, you’re probably doing something right. You might be asking too much for it to be “art.” Its truths are enough without it having to be anything other than what it is.
Karina Goldenlove on March 10, 2009, 1:32 PM
I don’t agree at all..artistic can be very exciting, but there will always be a market fo visceral gonzo bread-and butter smut.
I think what will really re-ignite the pornographic flame giving that edge back will be the unabashed representation of religious themes which of course has always the biggest of all taboos.
Just consider the Mexican Playboy furore of late, and the fact that religion has been inextricably linked with Art throughout it’s history with religious themes predominating in Baroque & Renaissance Art.Tthink about it, but who has the guts to do anything that risqué these hyper-pc times?
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