flynt and his filthy dirty magazine

[Craig Clark]

Henry M writes:
 
> The fact that there is such a thing as erotic art doesn't
> mitigate mean spirited people or creations. Sometime dirt is just dirt. 
> By not buying or borrowing/renting commercial communications that
> treat people as grotesque, contemptible, snuffable objects, 
> replaceable cogs in Their machine, I apply a "this is demeaning"
> filter. I just now turned off the tv, where there was a comedian
> (and an audience) who seemed to think that "butt-naked" is a very
> funny phrase. Seemed like a stupid routine to me, so I applied the
> "this is stupid" filter. So I guess what I object to in works that I
> consider to be pornography (as opposed to erotic art) is that they
> are stupid &/or demeaning/harmful. 
>    Guess this makes me a fascist bourgeois "old fart." Oh, well.

Well, that makes two of us. I'm not quite certain what are the 
criteria I use for distinguishing erotica from pornography, but any
person who confuses Henry Miller with Larry Flynt is clearly mistaken.
And double the same for the Brigadier Pudding sequence. If there's one
thing which is clear to me it's that this passage is not inserted to
amuse, entertain or titillate but rather to sadden and move deeply.
That's the difference between Pynchon's treatment of coprophilia and
the pornographer's.
Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
 the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
 on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"