Coming from the generation of "money shot" porn, the majority of porno films I have witnessed have all concluded with the external ejaculation of the man onto some part of the female body, most commonly the face, ass, or tits. Call me crazy, but I never really found such climax, well climactic. But then again, I'm not that into meat shots either.
However, my
existence in this generation as well as a capitalist society leads me to discuss these themes, as Linda Williams does in her work on fetishes.
As stated below in my entry on
Hustler, pornography plays a huge role in America's
development of free speech rights and resistance to censorship. The film
Deep Throat is another great example.
Deep Throat was the first porn film in theaters to show the public not only the male phallus, but the external ejaculation. Williams reports that before its creation, the only other film to show a penis was two documentaries on Danish sexual visual culture where massed-produced visual pornography was legalized. It is key here how discourse was manipulated into a more acceptable form, the informative documentary, but its
essence still being about sex and showing it; “justify seeing this film as part of a quest for knowledge about the sexual mores of a different culture” (W p. 98).
Again,
Deep Throat was a revolutionary release, just in the sense that is was
released. Indeed, the fact that this graphic film was out there in the public was almost as alarming as the actual content itself; "what was new in these movies, aside from their occasional color and sound, was the simple fact of their exhibition on large, legal, public screens” (W p. 97). In the class order, sex is something low and dirty which should be
kept out of the public eye. Thus,
Deep Throat was highly contested.
But we all know that sex does sell and before protests even began, thousands had already seen the film. And for some, it was kind of a revelation of sorts. As Williams details, porn before these films were focused on
Stage Films, in which only the female body was shown; a strip tease that worked itself up to showing inner lips and lesbian play. So, as one critic put it, when the male was finally showed in action, he had to stand and give his applause; “deep-throat fellatio followed by a money shot, which seemed to him an affirmation of an organ that had been kept under wraps for far too long” (W p. 100).
Can the
coming penis really replace the "mysteries" of female orgasm? I certainly hope not as I agree that the money shot “is a poor substitute for the knowledge of female wonders that the genre as a whole still seeks” (W p. 94). However, in capitalistic society, the external ejaculated penis has more means to an end. As Williams discusses, current capitalistic modes focus on visibility. Before, when porn consisted of meat shots (penetration), one was unable to see most of what was going on. Now with money shots, there is more visual gratification to feed our consumerism; “the money shot seems the perfect embodiment of the illusory and insubstantial ‘one-dimensional’ ‘society of the spectacle’ of advanced capitalism- that is, a society that consumes images more avidly than it consumes objects” (W p. 106). Further, this visual is what sells. When you buy a porno, it is not
because you like the
actual item on the shelf, it is
because you want to own that image that is not printed on the back cover; “what is most characteristic of late capitalist fetishistic consumption, then, is that increasingly nothing tangible is purchased” (W p. 107).
But as well all know, fetishes are not just that particular thing we obsess on, they speak louder to social functions; “Fetishes are thus short-term, short-sighted solutions to more fundamental problems of power and pleasure in social relations” (W p. 105). I might have been lucky however, others who see porn featuring the money shot, perhaps before they have even experienced sex for themselves, are being a bit brainwashed by those who want us to continue to consume this product, or action. When he "pulls out", it is a visual trick, telling us that this is the more pleasurable way to have sex; “viewers are asked to believe that the sexual performers within the film
want to shift from tactile to a visual pleasure at the crucial moment of the male’s orgasm” (W p. 101). As Williams notes, women in the films also give auditory clues that this is pleasurable for them when they "ask for it" in dirty phrases like "I want to you to come on my face" or "let me see that hard cock". But this really does trick us
again as usually the woman doesn't even see the climax as her eyes may be closed as he goes on her face or she is turned when he aims for her ass; “it is always quite evident that this spectacle is not really for her eyes” (W p. 101). Although some
do like it, let us find out for ourselves without so much pressure!
So what is the
solution? Change it up to conclude with the female orgasm? Perhaps push the marketing of the female squirting fetish? Williams and I disagree. We need to
unpack things a little more to get to the sources of power and conflict and be able to create a market place of discourses that show a variety of pleasures; “while celebration of the clitoris thus might constitute one way to begin to challenge the power of a phallic economy of pleasure, it could do so only if the goal were not to set up an alternate organ of fetishistic worship but rather to dismantle the hierarchy of norm and deviation and so create a plurality of pleasures accepting of difference” (W p. 102).
Linda Williams, Chp 4 from Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the 'Frenzy of the Visible,'" Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989.
