My hand has been made to write this article unwillingly. A
certain individual, let us call him Blank is very curious about
my thoughts on this issue. He seems to have made up his mind
already so I don't know why he is curious but maybe despite
himself he might have some doubts. I certainly wouldn't be so
anal about it if I didn't have any doubts. He agreed not to be a
nuisance with his alt accounts in exchange for an exposition of
my views.
The reasons why I don't want to go into details on this matter
are three-fold. First of all it is nobody's business and most
people correctly keep their thoughts on sex to themselves and to
their closest ones rather than broadcasting it to the world. It
is simply not something that most people want to talk about
especially where there is the possibility that my online and
offline identities will become attached. Secondly, as the title
of this post indicates my thoughts on these matters is
incomplete, in flux, a work in progress, far from the hill to
die on, far from certainty.
Thirdly, there is an advantage to keeping your cards hidden, to
be ambiguous so that you can hear out other people's actual
views rather than those the talking points they present when
they are feeling defensive or combative. Given that my own views
on this issue are still in the air, it allowed me to inquire
what others think to inform my own views - by sneaking in and
presenting an uncertain idea of my own as (and along with) that
of somebody else thus effectively allowing me to "debate" with
someone without actually being confrontational or defensive.
Once you have labelled yourself as somebody on the other side of
the argument then the arguments presented to you will only be
those tailored to the opposition. Basically just a bunch of
noisy rhetoric which are not necessarily the arguments we
present to ourselves.
I know this individual may not be able to understand this but
it is possible to inquire what others think without being
antagonistic and needlessly argumentative. Most people are happy
to share their deepheld beliefs if they don't feel like they are
being attacked. So, the task of the honest inquirer, anyone who
is actually interested in hearing what others have to say, is to
humbly ask for an answer and back off if others don't trust you
enough yet to give you an honest answer.
Basically just the opposite of the "debate me, I am an atheist
meme." What ultimately made the New Atheist movement cringe was
not their atheism bu their arrogance which revealed their fake
spirit of inquiry, more interested in humiliating others in some
pro-wrestling act than in anything like an exchange of ideas.
As I have told Blank, pornography has done great harm to men
because it is a waste of their money and time, yes, but more
importantly because of what it implies. If they spend their time
watching porn then that implies that they are probably no in a
relationship because they can't get into one, that they are not
having sex, and that they are not fine with it either. And the
knowledge of these implications only adds to their humiliation
and desperation, which inflames their lack of self-esteem (and
discipline), which results in their impotence.
As you can see, this is not a very edifying topic to talk about
but I have been compelled to by someone who sounds like they
might struggle with the kind of troubles I have described though
there is no way I can confirm that - there is certainly no
reason to assume I would get an honest answer anyway, given the
incentives.
By what I have said so far Blank would have thought that I
would have been against pornography entirely, out of
pity for the desperation it is causing and fermenting in these
low status mass-men, but he would have been wrong, because he
has stumbled upon a hidden egalitarianism in his own thinking.
As with any kind of egalitarianism it strikes as a
universalism. I wouldn't say that every universalism is
egalitarian simply because I don't know every universalism well
enough to make such a statement, but you would be surprised to
see how often this hidden egalitarianism pops up in the most
unexpected universalisms. The best example I can think of is of
the universalism of racism. If for example, you are a Han
Chinese supremacist/nationalist, you are at some level
considering all people of Han Chinese descent as your equal, as
having something fundamentally about them that you have that
makes you the same as even the lousiest of them in some
important way.
There are a lot of people on the reactionary right who, for
instance, like music from the 60s or from later musical trends
which have their genesis in that decade. For example, The
Academic Agent, really likes David Bowie's possibly
degenerate music. How come? "That's Hypocrisy!!" cries the
midwit as he strikes you.
I believe in inequality and I am willing to accept the
suffering inflicted by that (on others and myself) just as the
exponents of equality, well the more intelligent among them, are
willing to accept the suffering caused by their doctrine of
pity.
I do feel pity but I don't want to be motivated by pity and
nothing else. I don't want to go full Nietzche and pretend I
don't feel pity by pretending to hate them as he did. In fact
Nitch sounds like he had to pretend he hated them because
he loved mankind too much - what a tsundere, baka Nietzche. How
could a man who could not bear to see a horise mistreated not
have pity or compassion for mankind?
Now inequality too as a universalism leads to a kind of hidden
equality - don't let Evola hear this - the equality among the
aristocrats of the soul. It is simply idiotic.
I have already said everything that there is to be said on the
matter at hand. All the pieces are there. From here onward, I
will lay it out explicitly for the especially thick.
I know that many on the right are not going to like it, will
not hear me because they are not ready for it, which is why I
have refrained from saying this outright, opting instead to
leave a trail of breadcrumbs, pretty large crumbs at that, which
would have led the more astute among you to the same conclusion
that I have, degenerate art is still art.There is nothing which
says that art to be art cannot have socially deleterious effects
(for the majority of people). More often than is easy to admit,
this seems to be an inbuilt feature. You have to be a pitiless
person to be an artist pretty often.
Unironically, "it's called hentai and it's art."
There , I said it, are you happy Blank? Got your little-minded
"gotcha"-moment on hand to screenshot and post around for
internet points from the trucks?
Go ahead, as this article will stay up on this site even if I
change my mind - it is my policy not to fundamentally edit
anything I have published - but to add more - to never remove -
but rather to add more.
I won't deny that for most people pornography, which here I'll
define in a blank-friendly way as any depiction of a sexual act
in any form, is harmful to them. It's mot hard to be
iconoclastic.
But I am more concerned about the few than the many trucks The
few for whom it can be made into something higher under the
right conditions, through reflection and passion into art,
rather than the many for whom it is just passive consumption of
entertainment - not to add anything to their lives but to remove
themselves from their own lives through escapism.
I am not indifferent to the suffering of the majority. I think
they would be better off without access to pornography or for
that matter without access to any media, but are we going to
destroy most culture for their suffering's sake? Even if
you did so they would find a way to ruin themselves with what
little is left, the slope is slippery either way, in every
direction - ideas in power either become more extreme or they
wane - so it is only natural that I should argue against the
most extreme logical conclusion of my opposition and nothing
else.
It is true that most of it is just smut that serves no purpose
other than to tend to the wounds of lonely, desperate men, an
anesthetic that is really a poison which weakens them, leaving
them with nothing more than a deepening sense of loss and not
always unjustifiable indignation as to what sick men modernity
has left them as.
Nevertheless the idea that we might doctor them by removing
from culture and decelerating is a fanciful illusion, I will
give Nick Land's Machine-Satan From the Future his due, and
acknowledge this fact.
"What is to be done?" as is often asked on the right, is to add
more. Lenin asked that question too and you can go look at his
corpse which Capital keeps as a trophy. Let me offer a less
fanciful dream.
As Academic said, it was fine and even of some value when it
was just David Bowie or Andy Warhol at the fringes of society.
The problem arose when was supposed to be at the fringes was
placed at the centre of the culture where they rotted and lost
any value they had. In other words rather than remove them they
need to pushed back where they belong and where they might be
productive again.
They are not supposed to be for everyone, they are not
universal but particular, a select few will benefit by burning
through their lives fast and brightly until there is nothing, no
embers left, only pure white ash.
Put simply they have their place and pretending otherwise will
only make enemies of those who could be friends, and for what?
Nothing more than a pose. No, I am not talking about the letting
in the "based conservative trump voting porn star." But if some
Japanese doujin artist on pixiv or elsewhere wants to be on this
side, then there is no reason for him not to. For one, it is
better for otaku culture if it does not become mainstream, or it
will cease to be anything more than a soulless brand to sell
nick-knacks as its clueless detractors claim that it always was
and can be. Every step towards the mainstream has been to its
detriment as well as to society's detriment. So long as it has
its place it should be fine.
To find the holy in the profane is to add it, but nothing more
than a superhuman effort can save us from Nick Land's
Lovecrafitian Monster of Capital From the Future. There are no
shortcuts to salvation. To live is to fall.
Maybe I have simply overdosed on manga and anime to imagine we
can win this way, but we must imagine the unimaginable (and bear
the unbearable as Hirohito-san said, as we still do live in the
post-war era, the occupation has only begun).
How can pornography, defined as any sexual act in any media, be
art? This is an asinine question and to utter it is to descend
to the level of the trucks. Yet that is the question I have been
asked.
Where do I even begin? With an example. I could pick an artsy
film like Titus which has a rape in it or so I am told, I could
pick a less artsy but more popular film like Clockwork Orange,
then again I could pick Gainax's Royal Space Force if I am going
for anime which again has a rape scene. In any of these cases
there will be others taking my side, the winning side.
This is an old argument, a hill that many on the right have
chosen to die on, in my view wrongly, and so it is one which is
very pointless. Here is how it will go, one side will call the
other small-minded little-people and the other other will imply
that anyone not on their side is just a degenerate while
smirking to themselves for how clever they are at saying that
without actually saying that. I have already played my role in
this farce, right here, so I guess now it is the other side's
turn to start implying things to continue this fruitless
argument.
Simply, in order to objectively answer this question you would
need to come up with a definition for art. Given that Blank has
totally failed to provide any of his own when I told him as
much, it is up to me to provide a couple of definitions for art
to illustrate my point so that even the dullest should
understand this rudimentary point.
First of all, I believe that the definition of art implied in
the plebeian whining of my opposition is some tripe like, "art
is just entertainment which has net positive outcomes." Now
don't call it a strawman when you have failed to define your own
terms. By this miserly, democratic, populist, pitiful,
egalitarian definition then sure if you were to purge any and
all sexuality from the media then you can have your dumb,
"wholesome" herd society. Actually you can already do that now
by joining some Luddite group like Amish which begs the question
why you have not done so already but that shall remain
unanswered. Revealed preferences are so... revealing for lack of
a better term. This definition of art presented by my opposition
isn't art at all but simply SOMA pills from Brave New World,
just that rather than in the form of a pill or a powder it is
administered through the media.
Another definition for art would be that it is simply a fruit
of labour, the labour of love, of the artist(s) involved. That
its value comes from the work put into making the art, the
harder it is to make the artwork the more artistic value it has.
Essentially an application of the Marxist labour theory of value
to art.By this definition of art then sure hentai is art, I
challenge anyone who disagrees to try and see if they can
replicate the artwork of the porn doujin sold at comiket.
By this definition David Bowie's degenerate art is also art,
and to anyone who disagrees well I challenge them to make better
music than Bowie (though I admit that this is a little more
subjective than the clear craftmanship that goes into making a
doujin comic or visual novel). By this definition however a lot
of Andy Warhol's art would not be art because anyone with
photoshop and the rigfht materials can make that sort of
"concept art" which is more about expressing an idea than
rigorous craftmanship and hardwork. Its simply more about
themes but this definition of art says nothing of the content of
the artwork, just how hard it is to make it.
Still it is not useless because if you can understand the
craftmanship which went into making a work of art, you can
appreciate and love it more because it is natural to admire
things which are difficult to do as opposed to those that are
easy. Of course not all things which are difficult to do are
admirable artistically. For instance if an artist shoved pieces
of broken glass up his bum and then shat the bloody contents of
it on a canvas with a map of Yugoslavia drawn on it, as a
metaphor for the cruelties committed during the aftermath of
Tito's death, it would be very funny if you know the context,
but would it be art? Sure. Would it be good art just because it
was hard to do? Not really.
Yet another definition of art, is that its value comes not from
within itself but simply by the history and context around it,
really by the stories about it - or in other words by this
definition arrtistic value is simply historical and narrative
value. For example the Eiffel Tower may have been considered by
many art critics to be an abomination in the centre of paris but
with time it grew its roots in the hearts of the people of Paris
for no other reason than that it was part of their history,
media and lives for a long time and so became associated with
it.
This can also be evidenced by the fact that there are a lot of
paintings like the say the Mona Lisa, if you have heard of it,
which derives much of its value both by the fact that it was
made by a famous person, if people didn't know it was by
Leonardo da Vinci it wouldn't be nearly as popular but also
because of the stories it was involved it - like the fact that
it was stolen, these things which add "narrative depth," or in
other words deepens the Lore about the Mona Lisa - and this lore
in and of itself has artistic value.
By this definition Andy Warhol has value because his art is a
time capsule, the story of Warhol himself and his associates
also adds to "the lore" and so the artistic and historical value
of his artwork. Same goes with Bowie. In fact by this definition
even just by analysing and making commentary about Bowie or
Warhol you are adding depth to it which wasn't already there
because it is inevitable that you will self-insert a bit about
you rather than Bowie/Warhol into your analysis of him.
Basically by this definition although it was the artist who
initially created the artwork more depth can be added to it
subsequently by all of us by making derivative works, even
commentary and analysis after all are just derivative works -
just like fan fiction in a way which is what people think
usually when you refer to "derivative works." By this definition
many things can be redeemed or damned by analysis and other
derivative works - but always its artistic value is rising
regardless so long as depth and complexity is being added to it
and so ot its "lore."Needless to say by this definition of art
works which have a sexual nature to them, have artistic value.
This last definition is the one I subscribe to the most and the
first is the one I subscribe to the least, nevertheless with
this last it is possible to alter the meaning of a lot of art to
the point where it fits the first definition though I would
caution those who would try to do so. Progressives have tried to
do this and whether you agree with their values or not their
derivative works only remove, simplify in their pursuit of
turning art into just a simple, blunt didactic tool as
opposed to depth, complexity and ambiguity, especially moral
ambiguity..Part of my logic is that since I believe that reality
is on our side, that our values are real, that reality is
complex, then it is inevitable that as more complexity is added
to a work of art - it will point to our values - no matter what
the starting point is. I know, I know, very perennialist of me,
I don't really want to call it a dialectic but it is more like
there are certain eternal truths.
Having said all this, I think it should be fairly clear that
ascribing a definition to art is a post hoc rationalisation,
something always done after you have had an artistic experience,
even more post hoc than when defining beauty because art can be
ugly too, sure there are physical forms which are naturally
pleasing to us, that is undeniable, but the forms which are
appealing to us are not always pleasing ones either.
There are physical and perhaps spiritual reasons which are
beyond our understanding about why we find things aesthetically
and therefore artistically pleasing, we can only guess and
provide an explanation after the fact. I hate to say it comes to
down to taste but once you take art outside of your
politcal-moral chess board and consider it for what it is then
it is so. To make this post hoc nature painfully clear consider
that someone can explain to you why he finds artistic value and
you can understand it if you are being charitable but that
doesn't necessarily mean that you will be able to feel that
artistic value as well. This is what I felt when watching a lot
of Digibro anime reviews, I could understand his reasons for
liking an anime like K-ON and considering it good but when I
watched it I did not feel what he felt even though the reasons
he provided for finding it aesthetically pleasing were not
particularly wrong and I could not refute them but this did not
change how I felt about it all.
Blank asked in disbelief how I could I post a link to a hentai,
by which I imagine he was talking about the link which I posted
to Pure
Love x Insult Complex, a 1000 chapter Japanese
pornographic web novel where the protagonist is a rapist. It is
pretty brutal, probably the most brutal thing I have read then
again most of what I read is pretty tame. There are plenty of
rape scenes and it is unapologetically pornographic by any
definition imaginable and yet at times it rises above being
smut. In particular I would recommend readers to keep an eye on
Shirasaka Yukino's character, the protagonist's first rape
victim.You would think that the story would be immediately
taking her side but rather it blames the victim, I won't go into
details about the plot (this essay is long enough, I don't want
to write a review inside it), but basically all the of the other
victims of the protagonist quickly come to grasp of their
situation and develop a sort of stockholm syndrome towards the
protagonist but Yukino is too proud for that and her pride leads
to more humiliation and suffering, her pride is stupid, but at
the same time it is admirable - and in the end she earns most
readers respect. I read this on a website with comments so I
could read people's reactions under every chapter and I found it
very interesting to see people slowly switch from hating her to
liking her. If you click the linked title it will take you to a
page on novelupdates.com which has few interesting reviews too
which will go into depths I have not gone to because as I said I
don't have enough space here to do that.
I believe that it has all the ingredients for a well written
story though a lot of characters could be cut out. I can't point
to one thing and say "it is art because of that essential thing"
anymore than I could do that with Shakespeare. Sure I could
point to the structure, to certain characters or plots as I have
briefly tried to.
Blank says that I speak like an intellectual but then I use
words like "loli" and this doesn't make any sense to him. Well,
first of all even though I haven't got the best sense of humour
and jokes sometimes fly over my head that doesn't mean I am
always serious and can't crack a joke about lolis or
whatever.There is a time to be serious and a time for banter.
Everything has its place. God is in his heaven and all is fine
with the world. Now given that he seemed fixated on that term in
particular, can anyone say that Nabokov's Lolita is not artistic
at all? The last person who tried was Ayn Rand and she
failed. Poor Humbert Humbert didn't die for this. That was
a joke if that wasn't obvious enough.
Again going back to the second definition of art, can you
replicate the craftmanship that went into writing Lolita? You
don't just write over one chapters of a novel either. Most
of the people sperging about hentai haven't got an iota of the
talent of those whom they dare to look down upon. What's that?
It doesn't matter that they are more talented. Then it's you who
has got a problem.
Blank tries to get to me by pointing out that I am a Catholic
and so de jure, that is by law, I should take a position against
this regardless of what I actually think of it. This is the kind
of Sunday School tier nonsense that turn people into atheists. I
doubt that he can understand it so let me put it this way, I
have a bit of a pagan in me too, I reject his duality. I will
have my cake and eat it too. I might go into more detail about
this in another blog-post called "Darakuron: A Thesis on
Decadence" or I might not.
Finally some comments about anal sex given Blank's particularly
earnest interest on the subject and my views on it. If this was
all an elaborate troll to get me to talk about anal sex then
well played. I don't know what he expected me to say about it.
It's dirty but it's okay if it's done within a marriage. It can
still lead to infection and injury and it isn't particularly
clean but so what? It's not totally risk-free, so what? I am not
going to castigate people for it. I still don't get what the
hell he is expecting me to say about it, I mean sometimes for
some people a little bit of pain can be pleasur- no this is
enough. As for why it was there in the VN, that's because that
character is a kind of a gender-bender version of the
reactionary right-wing youtuber Academic Agent and on the chat
of a stream after some prodding by me he revealed that he has
been pegged by a woman, the anal sex scene then is an in-joke
about that. There's a single line about that in the VN doc and I
wasn't sure whether to include it but given the butthurt, pun
intended, which it has caused among the trucks, I would wager it
is well worth keeping it.
By Otaking, or The Good Student