The Dark Side Of Porn season
Channel 4
In a nutshell: Nasty men in macs corrupting the yoot.
The 411: Here at Aerial Telly, we abhor porn. We are porn abhorrers.
You may have heard that we spend all day downloading bongo vids off the InterWeb thing – that’s a myth. If you believed that, you were myth-taken.
Yet put us beside Channel 4 in the Porn Abhor Handicap Stakes and we are but pygmies in the presence of a giant. Because Channel 4 really hates porn.
we have Christopher Eccleston telling us important facts like "60 gallons of semen are ejaculated every year in the porn industry". How does he know? Aerial Telly demands a recount.
No, straight-up – it does. And it spends thousands of man-hours every year trying to convince us that the adult entertainment industry is the new Gomorrah. The Dark Side Of Porn season is just the latest in a series of such sterling efforts.
Once the enfant terrible of British broadcasting it now seeks a patrician role. The channel who brought you The Camomile Porn, sorry Lawn, and The Red Triangle (a mid-Eighties guarantee of sex masquerading as a nookie early warning system) is finally playing with a straight bat.
I fondly remember the days when Channel Four’s controller was dubbed pornographer-in-chief by the Daily Mail – happy times. Now it’s all "Down With This Sort Of Thing" and "Careful Now".
So in Porn Shutdown we have Christopher Eccleston telling us crucial facts like "60 gallons of semen are ejaculated every year in the porn industry". How does he know? Aerial Telly demands a recount.
Attacks on pornography from the left and right do stem from a shared puritanism. Their concern for the workers in the industry is counterfeit. They cherry-pick the views of the workers that suit their arguments and push them like they were gospel.
It felt like a man holding a torch underneath his chin saying "Woooooo! Scary cock!"
Pornography is based on a lie so it’s no surprise that most of its producers, stars and workers are such accomplished liars. They believe their own drivel, heroin addled and bow-legged as they are from the 45th gang bang they’ve endured that month. Encouraged by the anti-porn lobby to perpetually see themselves as victims, taking responsibility for their actions is not their strong point.
The Dark Side season dwelled, as these things always do, on women who really didn’t want to be involved with porn which ignored the fact that women are queuing up every day to star in porn movies. What other industry pays women five times more than men?
Yes, pornography is a lie. But it is a lie that we choose to believe along with lies like women don’t really enjoy sex, all men are dogs and that these documentaries mean a damn thing.
It’s an uncomfortable truth that there are women who enjoy being fucked by strangers and being paid to do so. The porn industry is driven by greedy women as much as it is by desperate men.
The real moral issue around pornography is the commodification of human intimacy not some dopey, outdated model of gender oppression.
Pornography may be bad for our spiritual health in the same way that fast cars, loose women and spicy food are. And we will still seek out all these things with abandon.
The entire season tried to make the porn industry seem more sinister than it really is. It felt like a man holding a torch underneath his chin saying "Woooooooooo! Scary cock!". And there’s nothing scary about cock (just don’t go waving yours near me).
It really ain’t so bad. Like Willie D said: you gotta let a ho be a ho. It’s the American way.
The best thing about it: Enthralling insights into the production values of Split That Booty vol. 6
The worst thing about it: Overpaid whingeing whorebores moaning about how terrible it is to get fucked for a living.
The verdict on The Dark Side Of Porn : If the band you’re in starts playing different tunes, I’ll see you on The Dark Side of the Poon.
Marks out of 10: 6