You posted some explicit lyrics from Bad Bunny's song Safaera. The thing is, Bad Bunny did not sing those lyrics during his Superbowl halftime show. He skipped a lot of explicit lyrics from this and other songs, which is why the FCC did not take any action against him. A lot of Republican outrage was triggered by reading full translations of his songs without realizing that he sang highly edited versions at the Superbowl.
What was funny about that was the monumentally horrifying assault on epileptics in the wake of the study that showed epileptic deaths were up 83% between 2010 and 2020 in America... Proving how far off we are on monitoring things... Dirty words bad, causing seizures in viewers especially children just fine
This was a really depressing apocalyptic vision that I need to forget for the rest of the day.
So sex without taboo is just animalism? Which would have to correspond with a huge devolution in the human brain and intellect. Where does our society's pathological relationship with sex and violence fit in to this? Sex and political puritanism? If sex becomes so mundane do those other things go away or just become more mundane than they are now – which almost seems impossible, like we'd have to be literal idiots with whatever the appropriate psychiatric disorder is.
They were already complaining about oversaturation of sex in the 80s and 90s — Robert Smith wrote Let's Go to Bed as a protest against it, and Roger Ebert in his 1994 review of Belle Epoque: "The movies once considered eroticism an end in itself, and not simply the prelude to a slasher scene."
Am I reading this wrong, or are you basically saying the future of humanity is one of soulless sex robots? I'm glad I'll be dead.
I agree with you about that "depressing apocalyptic vision"! What sad, unsatisfying sex! The best sex I've ever had was with a woman I loved in a relationship that brought back my childhood innocence in the context of something ineffably holy (for want of a better word). To this day I cannot fantasize about her and our activities together.
thanks for this. so well done. i have watched these norms bend and change over the years; your article may well be the first one that nails down exactly how far we have come [for better or worse].
'Why do I have this feeling, this American feeling, that it is somehow more dangerous to quote [Mailer on Monroe] and to cogitate around pornography than it would be to blast Bad Bunny or, say, “Wet Ass Pussy”?' An insightful observation. Mailer a toxic man, probably, in 2026. In the '50s and '60s, we didnt know what our neighbors were up to behind closed doors, now its inescapable.
10 years from now ( if not THIS year ) : " who's Britney Spears ? ".
There's one site where a person can download images & maybe interactive video of virtual adult entertainment " stars ". Don't ask me how I know...🕵️🕵️♂️ AI is gonna turn adult entertainment on its ear.
This is a compelling reflection. I'm not sure things are as bad as you say, but I see the need to engage in a hyperbolic speculation for the purpose of the essay...
One little footnote though: did you know that over three quarters of the Sonnets in Shakespeare's immortal cycle were actually addressed to a man? It's true that the "Dark Mistress" figure is clearly the addressee of some of them (the theory is, 28 of them. Which...well, figure it out). But one of the biggest recurring themes, if you know how to look for it, is the superiority of male, non-reproductive erotics over male-female ones. Even the MOST famous of them, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" can be very convincingly demonstrated to be about how the love between men is immortal and pure, whereas the love of women remains tied to natural cycles and to decay...
Oh he definitely existed, and the gay was...not that secret? Particularly in the reign of James I (so after...1603 I think it is?) there was a real coterie of gayness at court (including the king himself).
Shakespeare, like many men of his time, slept with and loved both men and women, but it wasn't considered an "identity", so to speak. However, it's a pretty universally accepted thing in Shakespeare scholarship (unlike the "who was the real author of Shakespeare's works?" which is mostly cranks and conspiracists) that he dedicated the volume of the Sonnets to a man (literally, "Mr WH") who seems to have been both muse and patron, and that he addressed most of them to another man (the "fair youth"), who was possibly a different person. Prudish critics have been fighting against it for centuries, but it's really very clearly in the text.
😂 Well this solves my question: how could Shakespeare not exist but also be gay at the same time? The only explanation is he is a composite of multiple gay men.
Of course we don't really know that much about Shakespeare's private life (which is one of the reasons people are so fascinated by the enigma, and all of the theories on who he "really" was). The aspect of the Sonnets concerning their addressee(s) is not something that generally gets taught at the level of the ordinary reader: indeed, they can all be read without reference to the gender of their recipient, apart from some famous ones ("My Mistress' Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun" ...but even that is telling, as it betrays a certain wry repulsion for the real physical female body as opposed to the idealised beauty of poetic clichés...albeit in a humorous and satirical way). However, close textual analysis reveals a whole layer of gender politics and discourse within the poems that are not at all obvious at first reading. I was already a graduate student by the time I came across this stuff, and I was shocked that I had known nothing about it! But the arguments for the textual evidence are very solid, in my opinion. And in that of the vast majority of scholars. If you are interested, I can look up a few book references that lay it all out. I can't remember the exact citations off the top of my head. But I was, going into it, neutral as to the validity of the idea, and found myself entirely convinced.
Real sex would involve removing your eyes from a screen, frowned upon by our TechnoLords. Instead AI will delve into our most twisted inner desires nurturing more and more needs impossible to be fulfilled through more natural ways.
Very interesting observations, but this is what really stuck in my head:
"This is how Christianity spread in Rome, amongst the barbarians and then the low plebeians and only then the elite."
I was struck with the image of snobbish people deigning to dabble in this new-fangled "Christianity" because it has become so popular among "the poors".
Like the Roman Empire declining and the rise of prostitution professionals. I can imagine myself rising from a pit to “Shiki no Uta” for the last boss battle… living a humble moderate lifestyle.
You posted some explicit lyrics from Bad Bunny's song Safaera. The thing is, Bad Bunny did not sing those lyrics during his Superbowl halftime show. He skipped a lot of explicit lyrics from this and other songs, which is why the FCC did not take any action against him. A lot of Republican outrage was triggered by reading full translations of his songs without realizing that he sang highly edited versions at the Superbowl.
What songs did he sing?
Easily Googled.
I googled it and now I have a virus on my computer. Can you just tell me
Same
“Tití Me Preguntó”
“Yo Perreo Sola”
“EoO”
“Safaera”
“Voy a Llevarte Pa’ PR”
“Monaco”
“Die with a Smile” (feat. Lady Gaga)
“Baile Inolvidable”
“NUEVAYoL”
“Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii” (feat. Ricky Martin)
“El Apagón”
“Café Con Ron”
“Debí Tirar Más Fotos”
“Tití Me Preguntó”
“Yo Perreo Sola”
“EoO”
“Safaera”
“Voy a Llevarte Pa’ PR”
“Monaco”
“Die with a Smile” (feat. Lady Gaga)
“Baile Inolvidable”
“NUEVAYoL”
“Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii” (feat. Ricky Martin)
“El Apagón”
“Café Con Ron”
“Debí Tirar Más Fotos”
Thanks
What was funny about that was the monumentally horrifying assault on epileptics in the wake of the study that showed epileptic deaths were up 83% between 2010 and 2020 in America... Proving how far off we are on monitoring things... Dirty words bad, causing seizures in viewers especially children just fine
This was a really depressing apocalyptic vision that I need to forget for the rest of the day.
So sex without taboo is just animalism? Which would have to correspond with a huge devolution in the human brain and intellect. Where does our society's pathological relationship with sex and violence fit in to this? Sex and political puritanism? If sex becomes so mundane do those other things go away or just become more mundane than they are now – which almost seems impossible, like we'd have to be literal idiots with whatever the appropriate psychiatric disorder is.
They were already complaining about oversaturation of sex in the 80s and 90s — Robert Smith wrote Let's Go to Bed as a protest against it, and Roger Ebert in his 1994 review of Belle Epoque: "The movies once considered eroticism an end in itself, and not simply the prelude to a slasher scene."
Am I reading this wrong, or are you basically saying the future of humanity is one of soulless sex robots? I'm glad I'll be dead.
Thanks for the comment. Im saying I genuinely don’t know!
We could just become progressively dumber and more addicted to masturbation over sex.
But I’m an optimist, and maybe it will lead eventually to a loss of Puritanism and perversion around sex because there will be no hiding it anymore.
I agree with you about that "depressing apocalyptic vision"! What sad, unsatisfying sex! The best sex I've ever had was with a woman I loved in a relationship that brought back my childhood innocence in the context of something ineffably holy (for want of a better word). To this day I cannot fantasize about her and our activities together.
i too am glad i’ll not live long enough to see the total degradation of humans but i know ill be back (maybe) for the renaissance a la moorish spain.
*subscribes instantly*
*restacks instantly*
thanks for this. so well done. i have watched these norms bend and change over the years; your article may well be the first one that nails down exactly how far we have come [for better or worse].
keep on and godspeed. +1
'Why do I have this feeling, this American feeling, that it is somehow more dangerous to quote [Mailer on Monroe] and to cogitate around pornography than it would be to blast Bad Bunny or, say, “Wet Ass Pussy”?' An insightful observation. Mailer a toxic man, probably, in 2026. In the '50s and '60s, we didnt know what our neighbors were up to behind closed doors, now its inescapable.
10 years from now ( if not THIS year ) : " who's Britney Spears ? ".
There's one site where a person can download images & maybe interactive video of virtual adult entertainment " stars ". Don't ask me how I know...🕵️🕵️♂️ AI is gonna turn adult entertainment on its ear.
Yeah I agree!
even standup comedians are eerily gorgeous now since Covid.
But *real* for the time being 🤷
Go figya
They’re all meeting in the middle aesthetically!
A Chinese company even made a robot " duplicate " of Scarlett Johansson ( ? ) & got sued for it. A decade from now : " Scarlett WHO ? ".
This is a compelling reflection. I'm not sure things are as bad as you say, but I see the need to engage in a hyperbolic speculation for the purpose of the essay...
One little footnote though: did you know that over three quarters of the Sonnets in Shakespeare's immortal cycle were actually addressed to a man? It's true that the "Dark Mistress" figure is clearly the addressee of some of them (the theory is, 28 of them. Which...well, figure it out). But one of the biggest recurring themes, if you know how to look for it, is the superiority of male, non-reproductive erotics over male-female ones. Even the MOST famous of them, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" can be very convincingly demonstrated to be about how the love between men is immortal and pure, whereas the love of women remains tied to natural cycles and to decay...
I may tweak the wording of my Shakespeare reference: the narrative voice of the poem is addressing a woman.
But I am a bit disdainful of this obsession that Shakespeare both did not exist and was also secretly gay. Which is it?
Oh he definitely existed, and the gay was...not that secret? Particularly in the reign of James I (so after...1603 I think it is?) there was a real coterie of gayness at court (including the king himself).
Shakespeare, like many men of his time, slept with and loved both men and women, but it wasn't considered an "identity", so to speak. However, it's a pretty universally accepted thing in Shakespeare scholarship (unlike the "who was the real author of Shakespeare's works?" which is mostly cranks and conspiracists) that he dedicated the volume of the Sonnets to a man (literally, "Mr WH") who seems to have been both muse and patron, and that he addressed most of them to another man (the "fair youth"), who was possibly a different person. Prudish critics have been fighting against it for centuries, but it's really very clearly in the text.
I have been aware of this theory. I have no bias against it being true, but I wonder what is the further proof beyond dedications to men?
I thought Shakespeare was several gay men over the course of two centuries. Did I make this up?
😂 Well this solves my question: how could Shakespeare not exist but also be gay at the same time? The only explanation is he is a composite of multiple gay men.
This is a good enough start, in any case : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuality_of_William_Shakespeare
Of course we don't really know that much about Shakespeare's private life (which is one of the reasons people are so fascinated by the enigma, and all of the theories on who he "really" was). The aspect of the Sonnets concerning their addressee(s) is not something that generally gets taught at the level of the ordinary reader: indeed, they can all be read without reference to the gender of their recipient, apart from some famous ones ("My Mistress' Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun" ...but even that is telling, as it betrays a certain wry repulsion for the real physical female body as opposed to the idealised beauty of poetic clichés...albeit in a humorous and satirical way). However, close textual analysis reveals a whole layer of gender politics and discourse within the poems that are not at all obvious at first reading. I was already a graduate student by the time I came across this stuff, and I was shocked that I had known nothing about it! But the arguments for the textual evidence are very solid, in my opinion. And in that of the vast majority of scholars. If you are interested, I can look up a few book references that lay it all out. I can't remember the exact citations off the top of my head. But I was, going into it, neutral as to the validity of the idea, and found myself entirely convinced.
Real sex would involve removing your eyes from a screen, frowned upon by our TechnoLords. Instead AI will delve into our most twisted inner desires nurturing more and more needs impossible to be fulfilled through more natural ways.
Hef never would have encouraged gooning.
I think they are also IMPORTING desires. The cybernetic aspect of amateur porn is now a new desire — the nudes, filming sex with cellphones, etc.
Indeed. Hence gooning.
With the advent of AI image and video generation, even the pornstars won't be having sex anymore before long.
solipsism is a great word
Very interesting observations, but this is what really stuck in my head:
"This is how Christianity spread in Rome, amongst the barbarians and then the low plebeians and only then the elite."
I was struck with the image of snobbish people deigning to dabble in this new-fangled "Christianity" because it has become so popular among "the poors".
Childish rubbish. This is not porn.
Like the Roman Empire declining and the rise of prostitution professionals. I can imagine myself rising from a pit to “Shiki no Uta” for the last boss battle… living a humble moderate lifestyle.
Excellent piece -- a lot to mull over! I gathered some related thoughts in this short book:
https://www.vol1brooklyn.com/2022/12/19/the-parable-of-rod-on-gribby-a-review-of-david-leo-rices-the-pornme-trinity/
See Chloe Cherry in Euphoria
Interesting observations. I personally don't see a problem with sex or porn perse. All in good measure, and the quality of it matters.
But the pornstar does not whisper, “I want you to make me pregnant.”
Oh yes, she does. There's a whole "breeding" subculture in porn.
Also, "A pornstar will be in a Hollywood film before we discover the reality of another inch of the experience of consciousness after death."
Confirmed. Nina Hartley was in "Boogie Nights." Several other porn stars have made the transition as well.
Not as popular a genre though. And I mean pornstar in Hollywood films in non-porn roles.