porn to be wild

A tabloid recently carried a news story about the proliferation of pornographic films being screened in the University of the Philippines. The Movie and Television Review and Classification Board is not at liberty to prevent such screenings owing to the State University’s independence, which means it is beyond MTRCB jurisdiction. Hence, the audiences of such queer, independent films like Joel Lamangan’s Walang Kawala, Bong Ramos’ Butas, and Monty Parungao’s Sagwan were treated to an unhampered show of male anatomical appendages. The people behind the production justify that the bodily exposures are artistically captured and are necessary to the plot’s development. The morality police think otherwise: the bold and recurrent flesh flashing is meant to be a major come-on and is there to titillate the audience.
It is tiring to hear people bicker over the transgressions made by pornographers who pass their products as erotica, or artfully sensual. The challenge is embodied in the question, “how does one know the audience gets aroused?” Only when the spectators confess rather frankly that certain scenes made them fidget in their seats does one get to consider the subject as pornographic. But then, why indeed are supposedly erotic scenes prolonged and often gratuitous? How are these particular scenes helpful in developing the storyline? This is just film; the debate is not yet extended to literature, internet and other media which confuses the demarcation between the pornographic and the erotic.
One thing that elevates art to the level of the sublime is its capacity to offer significant human experiences which, obviously, cannot be entirely appropriated to the mere stirring of the human heat. Yes, desire is a basic human emotion that can be said to unite us all, but in consummating it there must be a fulfilled moral responsibility that goes with the action. To make desire significant, it must transcend to the point of love, at most, or it must manifest mutual human needs, at least. Art captures either by way of sensitively portraying characters as humans; pornography, on the other hand, is content at exploiting actors who depict humans who only require their baser impulses done with when the heat is on.
Should pornographic films continue to mask themselves as art, time will come when the moral fiber of society becomes so frayed that everybody is reduced to beasts without so much as hesitation to fornicate. Only then will art will have avenged itself for the dishonest, disturbing and destitute portrayal of real life.