Pornographic Imagination,\" Susan Sontag Attempts

¶ … Pornographic Imagination," Susan Sontag attempts to discuss pornography free from the moral and aesthetic considerations that have previously rendered any discussion of the topic reductive, and ultimately, moot. Rather than begin with an estimation of pornographies artistic or cultural worth, Sontag seeks to discuss its various forms and effects, and then move onto analysis from here. She comes to a number of interesting conclusions regarding pornography as a literary and artistic form, and considering these conclusions in conjunction with two works that might be considered "pornographic" according to various interpretations of the term with serve to validate not only Sontag's claims but illuminate the role of such "pornographic" in society in general (in this instance "pornographic is include in quotes, because as will be seen, the term itself is problematic, and labeling anything pornographic without qualification runs the risk of contributing to the aforementioned reductive tendency). In particular, considering Sontag's argument regarding what she calls "the poetry of transgression" in light of Dennis Cooper's novel Frisk and Todd Solondz' film Happiness will serve to demonstrate how pornography exhibits and rewards an epistemological drive, wherein sexual transgression corresponds to the acquiring of previously hidden knowledge.

Before considering Sontag's argument in light of Frisk and Happiness, it will be useful to first address the notion of pornography as such, as well as its relation to eroticism and other literary and artistic modes. To begin her essay, Sontag argues that "no one should undertake a discussion of pornography before acknowledging the pornographies -- there are at least three -- and before pledging to take them on one at a time" (2002, p. 35). By three different pornographies, Sontag means "an item in social history, […] pornography as a psychological phenomenon," and finally, "a minor but interesting modality or convention within the arts" (p. 35). She does not spend much time outlining the first two pornographies, as "it's the last of the three pornographies that" she is interested in, but she does highlight how an attention to the first two has resulted in improper and unhelpful consideration of the last, due to the fact that, "at least in England and America, the reasoned scrutiny and assessment of pornography is held firmly within the limits of the discourse employed by psychologists, sociologists, historians, jurists, professional moralists, and social critics" (pp. 35, 37). It is precisely this tendency that Sontag seeks to avoid, and a look at some more recent scholarship on the subject will serve to reveal just how pervasive it is.

Sontag originally published her essay in 1966, and in the intervening forty-six years, surprisingly little has changed when it comes to considerations of pornography, at least in critical or academic circles. For example, in his essay "Erotic Art and Pornographic Pictures," Jerrold Levinson (2005) argues for certain "intuitions" about the difference between the erotic and the pornographic that he believes hold true:

(1) the erotic and the pornographic are both concerned with sexual stimulation or arousal.

(2) while the term "erotic" is neutral or even approving, the term "pornographic" is pejorative or disapproving.

(3) while "erotic art" is a familiar, if somewhat problematic, notion, "pornographic art" seems an almost oxymoronic one.

(4) whereas pornography has a paramount aim, namely, the sexual satisfaction of the viewer, erotic art, even if it also aims at sexual satisfaction on some level, include other aims of significance.

(5) where we appreciate (or relish) erotic art, we consume (or use) pornography. In other words, our interactions with erotic are fundamentally different in character, as reflected in the verbs most appropriate to the respective engagements. (p. 229).

This is an example of what Matthew Kieran (2001, p. 31) calls "the dismissal of pornographic art by definitional fiat," and represents precisely the kind of moralizing view of pornography Sontag seeks to avoid.

This approach could almost be excused when it appears in psychological or social considerations of pornography, because there are reasonable arguments to be made about the positive and negative effects of pornography on individual and group development, but when it is couched in the terms of artistic or literary criticism, as in the case of Levinson, it represents an exceedingly dangerous approach to cultural production that uses seemingly arbitrary distinctions in order to condemn certain works. That this distinction is arbitrary is evidenced by the means Levinson proposes for distinguishing between the erotic and pornographic; he argues that the way to differentiate between erotic art and pornography is to consider "what they are for, what response they are designed to evoke, what they are meant to do to us or we with them" (p. 230). However, this is an insufficient metric for discounting certain "pornographic" representations, because it takes the fact that many pornographic works do not have artistic intent above and beyond sexual stimulation to mean that pornography, by definition, cannot have this intent. Levinson's solution, which is merely to claim that these works must then be considered "erotic art," is insufficient and feels almost disingenuous, because it demolishes the very distinctions he purports to describe; in Levinson's view, pornography cannot be considered art simply because he defines it as such.

Despite Sontag's quite correct proclamation that "an uprooting of some of these tenacious cliches is long overdue," Levinson's essay demonstrates that this almost willfully ignorant approach to pornography retains a strong hold over the discourse, even if its grasp is not quite as strong as it once was (2002, p. 41). The biggest problem with this approach to pornography is not even necessarily its perpetuation of moralizing, almost Puritanical views of sexuality, because this abhorrence of sexuality can be found in any number of places, and most notably in the absurd dominance religion still has in contemporary societies. Rather, it is so problematic precisely because it fails to accurately describe the function of pornography; by assuming that pornography exists solely to induce "sexual thoughts, feelings imaginings, or desires, […] the physiological state that is prelude and prerequisite to sexual release," and sexual release itself, critics such as Levinson blind themselves to the very real ideological and epistemological work performed by pornography (Levinson 2005, p. 229). By eschewing this reductive approach, Sontag is able to consider pornography on its own terms and make its epistemological function intelligible.

Sontag argues for "the possibility that the pornographic imagination says something worth listening to, albeit in a degraded and often unrecognizable form," because despite the various limitations of the genre, mainly due to the pornographic imagination's preference for "ready-made conventions of character, setting, and action," it nevertheless reveals some truth "about sensibility, about sex, about individual personality, about despair, [and] about limits" (2002, pp. 51, 72). Pornography is inherently concerned with transgression, because it revels in revealing the sensual and sensory elements of human sexuality that are normally cloistered away out of social convention. Thus, according to Sontag, "that discourse one might call the poetry of transgression is also knowledge. He who transgresses not only breaks a rule. He goes somewhere that the other are not; and he knows something the others don't know (p. 71). Although one need not bring everything back to Abrahamic myths, a brief consideration of the story of Adam and Eve suffices to demonstrate this fact; the first humans' transgression explicitly brought with it the attainment of knowledge, and it is this knowledge that condemns them to a life of suffering.

Perhaps more than any other observation Sontag makes, this realization of the connection between transgression and knowledge represents her greatest contribution to the understanding of pornographic texts, because although her robust annihilation of moralistic approaches to pornography is both necessary and welcome, it is this recognition of pornography's epistemological function that helps one to better appreciate, and subsequently analyze, works that might otherwise be discounted for their "distasteful" or prurient approach to social convention. To see why this is the case, one may consider Sontag's claim in light of two arguably pornographic works, Dennis Cooper's Frisk and Todd Solonz' Happiness, because these works are only appreciable when one recognizes and reflects upon the epistemological drive inherent in any transgressive act, whether sexual or not.

In order to see how these works engage in the discourse of what one might call "transgressive epistemology," it will be useful to briefly discuss their common themes, as well as the reasons why they might be considered pornographic. Both works deal explicitly with transgressive sexual acts and desires, and particularly pedophilia. However, where Happiness focuses both on the pedophile's desires and the effect it has on his family, Frisk concerns itself almost exclusively with the desires and actions of the central character, to the point that the line between his actions and his fantasies are blurred. Nevertheless, both works are relentless in their representation of violently sexual transgression, such as Bill describing to his son how he raped his friends and "it was great," or Dennis' recounting of his various murders, and it is in these recountings of their activities that they demonstrate the epistemological drive of pornography and pornographic expression.

While neither text would likely be considered pornographic according to the aforementioned problematic definitions of the term, because they do not seem solely focused on eliciting sexual arousal or release, they nevertheless contain certain scenes that seem intent on forcing the audience to, if not become aroused themselves, at least consider the possibility of arousal. For example, while Bill is restlessly waiting for his son's friend to eat the sandwich he has drugged, the film lingers on the boy's posterior, forcing the viewer to adopt the agitated, and aroused, perspective of Bill himself. However, far from engaging in the horror film trope of the assailant's direct point-of-view, the shot is not positioned directly from Bill's position on the couch, but rather from an intermediate space such that the audience is forced to inhabit Bill's particular sexual desire while remaining physically apart from him. In this moment, the viewer participates in the same pornographic imagination as Bill, if only because the viewer is capable of imagining how the image affects him. As such, "spectators may find it difficult, if not impossible, to digest or process" any "moral position" in regards to what is shown, and thus are left only with the position provided by Bill himself (Tylim 1999, p. 307).

Similarly, Frisk forces a recognition of "the reader's complicity in [its] extreme representations," both because the reader must inhabit the mind of the narrator and because many of the most transgressive moments are relayed in the second person, such that the reader takes on the role of Julian reading Dennis' letter (Aaron 2004, p. 115). For example, when Dennis says "his ass was so little and perfect it felt more like a prototype than a real ass, which made me think about what you once said about Kevin's ass, that it was 'a toy ass'," the reader is momentarily placed in the role of commenting on an adolescent boy's ass, even if the "you" in the statement ostensibly refers to Julian (Cooper, 1991, p. 103). Thus, the text is pornographic in the sense that it represents an iteration of the pornographic imagination, even if it cannot be "used" by the reader for his or her own sexual pleasure (which is not to say that a reader cannot be aroused by Dennis' narration; in fact, one might go so far as to argue that the repulsion the reader might feel towards Dennis' actions is not fundamentally different from the arousal he feels, because it is merely the same kind of intense mental and physical reaction, albeit in a different direction).