Porn Weavings
 |
| The first artist's proof. Untitled, 2017, 14" x 11" archival computer prints, sliced in strips and woven together NFS  |
 | |||||||||||||
| The first finished full sized piece. "Glasses" 2020, 44" x 44" unframed, archival computer prints on acid free paper, cut into strips and woven together. Mounted on acid free foam core $7,500
Artist's statement |
“But why weaving?”
my boy asked. He’s 16. It’s embarrassing for him to come home and see massive
photos of naked women laying on the studio work table being
sliced into strips and woven together to make art. But why is it
embarrassing? Certainly he looks at porn online.1 Though he would
never admit to it. I guess I would have been embarrassed too, at that age.
Maybe not because of the pictures themselves but rather because of having to
see them at the same time and in the same place as my dad.
Truth is: porn is
a private thing. Sure, some couples or groups of enthusiasts may view it
together or even incorporate it into their carnal activities, but mostly, it’s something that one person
looks at by themselves. Alone. Watching with no one else watching.
It’s private but it’s also deeply ingrained into the
(American, anyway) psyche and therefore the subject of some amount of public
discussion. I remember Johnny Carson joking, 30 or 40 years ago during a Tonight
Show monologue, that there’s now a special “Playboy magazine for married men”
and that it had a nudie photo of the same
woman in every issue. Forever. The Mills Brothers sang about porn in one of
their greatest hits, “Paper Doll”:
I'm gonna buy a Paper Doll that I can call my own
A doll that other fellows cannot steal
And then the flirty, flirty guys with their
flirty, flirty eyes
Will have to flirt with dollies that are real
All kinds of pop culture has dealt with pornography over the
years and it’s had the effect of normalizing this inherently taboo topic and
its ever-attendant partner in crime: masturbation. They go hand in hand.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist.) Masturbating. Jerking off. Rubbing one out. Shaking
hands with the governor. Spanking the monkey. Beating the meat. Having a wank.
Tugging the slug. Shucking the corn. Flogging the log. Jerkin’ the gherkin. Slapping
the salami. And on and on forever, including: making the bald man cry and fapping.
Even the surfeit of slang for it (the male version) shows how deeply pervasive
this is in our society. That now-polarizing character Woody Allen summed it up perfectly when he said: "don't knock masturbation; it's sex with someone you love."
And Tom Waits joked about it in “Better Off Without a Wife”:
Well
usually about 2:30 in the morning
you've
ended up taking advantage of yourself
There ain't no way around that you know.
There ain't no way around that you know.
Yeah,
making the scene with a magazine, there ain't no way around
I'll confess you know, I'm no different you know.
I'll confess you know, I'm no different you know.
I'm
not weird about it or anything, I don't tie myself up first
I just kinda spend a little time with myself . . .
I just kinda spend a little time with myself . . .
But let’s not leave out the girls and women! A preponderance of online studies show that 1/3 of women over 18 watch porn at least once a week. There are even porn
sites specifically targeted to women, some of which are carefully and ethically
produced and designed to challenge well-worn porn stereotypes and worn-out porn
“plots”, such as they are. The content on these sites seeks to diversify the
offerings with content created by women and for women and starring women.
And there’s not just
porn for women or porn for gays or porn for Hispanics or blacks or Asians or
straight white males. There’s porn for EVERYBODY!!! Estimates show 12% of all
websites are porn. That’s about 25 million porn sites!! And 25% of all search
engine requests are porn related; that’s about 68 million porn related searches
every day. In fact, porn sites get
more visitors each month than Netflix, Twitter and Amazon combined. Let that
sink in for a minute. So naturally, market segmentation and specialization
would begin, right? A short digression:
Years ago, I used to pass these people walking on the back
roads of Woodstock, where I lived at the time. They were always out there
walking. A couple. A man and a woman. Someone told me that they’d retired after making millions
creating and hosting the first website devoted to transgender people. The first
place EVER on the web where trans men and women could go to commune with others
like them - to ask questions, read answers, whatever. At the time, 15 – 20
years ago, it seemed so very niche and specialized. Today, it seems remarkably
broad and unspecialized. People’s proclivities and appetites have become much more specific over that relatively short
span of years and the porn industry is all too happy to cater to them. (*see "Feeder Porn")
Nobody and no place has a better handle on all of this
market segmentation2 than Pornhub, the most popular porn site ever with an
“average of 115 million visits per day. One-Hundred-Fifteen Million – that’s
the equivalent of the populations of Canada, Australia, Poland and the
Netherlands. Every day!” (source: Pornhub 2019 year in review. (https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2019-year-in-review.
(Really worth a look.)) In this year-end round up, they list the searches that
defined 2019’s fresh desires as:
-
Amateur
-
Alien
-
POV
-
Belle Delphine
-
Cosplay
-
Mature
-
Bisexual
-
Apex Legends
-
ASMR
-
Femdom
Now, if you’re like me, you have to look up some of this
stuff. And yet, there it is: amongst the top 10 porn new searches online for 2019. (Kinda makes you feel your “Curvy
Moms” or "Sexy Dad Bod" search is pretty tame, no?) To save you time: Belle Delphine appears to be an overly cute English
girl; Apex Legends is a massively multi-player online game (MMOG); and AMSR stands
for autonomous sensory meridian response. (Seriously, read this article and
click on the first link in it; it’s fascinating: https://www.vox.com/2015/7/15/8965393/asmr-video-youtube-autonomous-sensory-meridian-response.)
I’m guessing that each of these more or less G-rated things has, on Pornhub, an
x-rated expression. I’m further guessing that lots and lots and lots of people
find those particular x-rated expressions to be quite titillating. Titillating
enough. My goodness, what a world.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
When I was a kid, my friend Bill’s dad had a collection of old Playboy magazines. We all LOOOVED going over to Bill’s house. Later, a friend of my big sister had a vast collection of Penthouse magazines in his garage, which he moved from house to house and town to town. Nowadays, there’s no real reason to collect porn since it’s all available online anytime day or night, and yet estimates say that 35% of all internet downloads are porn related. So clearly, people do collect it! They download it and, I'm guessing, save it! Porn definitely feeds obsession, maybe even addiction.3
It’s fascinating and taboo-breaking, or
taboo-exploiting or taboo-reinforcing or whatever. But it’s out there and
people, evidently, obsess over it and, personally, I've wanted to make art about all this stuff for a long time. Initially, I thought I would write and perform a monologue about it but then, somehow, round about 2016, the idea of doing a paper weaving about it popped into my head. I'd done a bunch of paper weavings in the past, including this one (below) from my "After the 11th" show:
 |
| "Loss of innocence" 2002, 40" x 60", paper weaving - map of world and map of U.S. |
It's a cool technique that I'd been doing since about 1985 when I was first exposed to it by Laurie Anderson, who was giving a slide show about her early work as a visual artist and sculptor.
And so I tried one. A rough mock up, a sort of "proof of concept":
I finished it, a small mock-up, and I loved it. Somehow the weaving captured all kinds of things I thought and understood about pornography and people's lives with pornography. Even more, it seemed to capture some things that I felt about it all, things that I couldn't quite explain rationally. The weaving just seemed right.
 |
| Laurie Anderson, "New York Times, Horizontal/China Times, Vertical”, 1976 |
And so I tried one. A rough mock up, a sort of "proof of concept":
|
The first artist's proof. Untitled 2017 about 12" x 9"
|
I finished it, a small mock-up, and I loved it. Somehow the weaving captured all kinds of things I thought and understood about pornography and people's lives with pornography. Even more, it seemed to capture some things that I felt about it all, things that I couldn't quite explain rationally. The weaving just seemed right.
The weaving
process, and the finished woven piece itself, is obsessive and repetitive and fetishistic. Weaving is a craft that has been traditionally engaged in by women and (though this seems to be changing very slowly) porn continues to exploit primarily women. The
source material is taboo (ish) and really, actually, disturbingly graphic on its own. I print these out with a master printer in Woodstock, up the mountain by the monastery, and he's seen it all in his 70 years or so. He's seen everything. But these images, printed big were really kinda disturbing for both of us. And yet when they're cut into slices and woven together, they lose almost all of that power and become something else. It's almost as if the traditionally female craft of weaving takes away the disturbing power of the traditionally female-exploiting pornography. And in all these ways, I feel, the "Porn Weavings" mirror many
people’s relationships with porn (very specified kinds of porn in particular), the
compulsion to collect porn, the porn industry’s business-building relationship
to its own offerings,3 and the on-going, often troubling history of porn and women.
And that, dear son of mine, is "why weaving".
Note: the title of each piece in this series is from the specific search criteria that
led to them. Some of the search terms were offered by the porn sites themselves on their landing pages, some were
found after clicking through on those first, offered categories, some were suggested by friends, and some were thought up by me. An aging and imaginative American consumer
of porn.4
FOOTNOTES!
1 The average age at which a child first sees porn
online is 11.
2 Now, researchers have put a nail in the coffin of porn addiction. Josh Grubbs, Samuel Perry and Joshua Wilt are some of the leading researchers on America’s struggles with porn, having published numerous studies examining the impact of porn use, belief in porn addiction, and the effect of porn on marriages. And Rory Reid is a UCLA researcher who was a leading proponent gathering information about the concept of hypersexual disorder for the DSM-5. These four researchers, all of whom have history of neutrality, if not outright support of the concepts of porn addiction, have conducted a meta-analysis of research on pornography and concluded that porn use does not predict problems with porn, but that religiosity does. (David J. Ley, PhD.) (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201808/science-stopped-believing-in-porn-addiction-you-should-too)
In related news: Conservative Mormon Utah holds the record for the nation’s highest online porn subscription rate per 1,000 home broadband users: 5.47
3 I always loved this Prego spaghetti sauce case
study anecdote. It seemed to me that everything changed with Moskowitz’s
insight: https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2011/03/content-marketing-diversification/
4 For what it’s worth, the number one search term
used by porn users over the age of 65 was “Mature”. I think this is kinda
sweet.
Planned pieces
|
 | ||
"Rope bondage" Photoshop mock up of planned piece
 |
"Gay hentai" Photoshop mock up of planned piece.
 |
"Hentai" Photoshop mock up of planned piece
"Furries Sex" Photoshop mock up of planned piece
|
 |
| "Ball Gag" Photoshop mock up of planned piece |
 |
| "Blindfolded" Photoshop mock up of planned piece |
 |
| "BBW With Dicks" Photoshop mock up of planned piece |
 |
| "Bathroom Sex" Photoshop mock up of planned piece |
 |
| "Smoking" Photoshop mock up of planned piece |
The Process
 |
| It starts with cutting the "connected strips". This piece will be the anchor for the finished weaving. |
 |
| Next up is the slicing of the "free strips". They've got to be labeled to keep them straight and in order. |
 |
 First cross strip goes in.  Work continues. And continues.  And continues....  And continues....   For this next piece, each strip was cut the exact same width (the width of a ruler that a nun might proverbially use to smack your knuckles for bad behavior) . . .  |
. . . so I was able to make a little loom-like tool . . .
. . . to raise up every other "connected strip" . . .
. . . so it was easier to slide the free strips through.
APPENDIX
SOME OTHER SONGS ABOUT PORN & MASTURBATION
"Pictures of Lily" |
The Who
Pictures of Lily made my life so wonderful.
Pictures of Lily helped me sleep at night.
Pictures of Lily solved my childhood problems.
Pictures of Lily helped me feel alright.
"Darling Nikki" |
Prince
Knew a girl named Nikki,
I guess you could say she was a sex fiend.
I met her in a hotel lobby,
Masturbating with a magazine.
"My Ding-A-Ling" |
Chuck Berry
When I was little boy in grammar school,
Always went by the very best rule,
But every time the bell would ring,
You'd catch me playing with my ding-a-ling.
"Rosie" |
But Rosie, you're all right
(You wear my ring)
When you hold me tight
(Rosie, that's my thing)
When you turn out the light
(I got to hand it to me)
Looks like it's me and you again tonight, Rosie
"Orgasm Addict" |
The Buzzcocks
Well you tried it just for once found it all right for kicks,
But now you found out that it's a habit that sticks,
And you're an orgasm addict, you're an orgasm addict,
Sneaking in the back door with dirty magazines.
Now your mother wants to know what all those stains on your jeans
"I'm a Wanker" |
Ivor Biggun and the Winkers
I'm Britain's champion wanker,
Renowned throughout the land.
Everybody knows my name,
But nobody wants to shake my hand.
"Turning Japanese" |
The Vapors
This I've got your picture, I've got your picture,
I'd like a million of you all round my cell.
I want a doctor to take your picture,
So I can look at you from inside as well.
You've got me turning up and turning down,
And turning in and turning 'round.
I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese.
"I Touch Myself" |
DiVinyls
Do we even need to write the lyrics here? You know the damn thing by now don't you? Don't you? Fine, here it is:
I don't want anybody else,
And when I think about you I touch myself.
Ooh, ooh, ooh, aah.
Cyndi Lauper
Well I see them every night in tight blue jeans
In the pages of a Blue Boy magazine
Hey I've been thinking of a new sensation
I'm picking up good vibration
Ooh she bop, she bop
Do I want to go out with a lion's roar
Huh, yea, I want to go south and get me some more
Hey, they say that a stitch in time saves nine
They say I better stop or I'll go blind
Hey, hey they say I better get a chaperon
"She Bop" |
Well I see them every night in tight blue jeans
In the pages of a Blue Boy magazine
Hey I've been thinking of a new sensation
I'm picking up good vibration
Ooh she bop, she bop
Do I want to go out with a lion's roar
Huh, yea, I want to go south and get me some more
Hey, they say that a stitch in time saves nine
They say I better stop or I'll go blind
Hey, hey they say I better get a chaperon
Because I can't stop messin' with the danger zone
Hey, I won't worry, and I won't fret
Ain't no law against it yet, oh she bop, she bop
Hey, I won't worry, and I won't fret
Ain't no law against it yet, oh she bop, she bop
11 days of the year when people watch the LEAST amount of porn
Valentine's day
Father’s day
Memorial day weekend
New Years day
Independence Day
Christmas Eve
Easter
Thanksgiving
Christmas Day
Comments
Post a Comment