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ARTS & CULTURE 43<br />
Post-Postmodern<br />
Porn?<br />
JEFFERY<br />
By DAVID<br />
"I soon found out that this<br />
website more accurately<br />
embodied a social movement<br />
that has entered the<br />
mainstream."<br />
After talking to some other friends I soon found out that<br />
this website more accurately embodied a social movement<br />
that has entered the mainstream. Where have I been? I was of<br />
course addicted within a matter of days.<br />
I was eager to join the virtual conversation of these<br />
everyday porn-stars so I asked my friend for a referral; they<br />
had recently joined the ranks of post post-modern pornstars<br />
exploring the realm digital sexuality or trans-humanist<br />
orgasms (and probably just wanting the $250).<br />
In the spirit of a quasi-socialist get together and farewell for<br />
a friend, I got on my way to the perfectly bohemian ‘student<br />
who lives above flower shop’ apartment.<br />
The décor was kitsch and cool with a touch of ‘Is that black<br />
mold?’ My friend welcomed me (or more so my bag of clothes<br />
for exchange) into a community of hoarders, drag queens<br />
and hipsters. I left with a black t-shirt that was thrown in<br />
my direction accompanied by a sly wink that suggested ‘You<br />
know what this is all about’. The t-shirt read Beautiful Agony –<br />
facettes de la petite mort, which translates to ‘orgasm’ with a<br />
literal translation in English as ‘little faces of death’. I had no<br />
idea what this was about, thank you very much ***cal.<br />
In efforts to get to the bottom of the uncomfortable wink-y<br />
face I Googled it. Beautiful Agony is essentially an alternative<br />
pornography website. It aims to reconnect the viewer with the<br />
porn-star (actor, or whatever term is politically correct) by<br />
focusing purely on the face until the point of climax, which is<br />
discussed afterward on camera (it is explained in more floral<br />
and emotive language online in describing something called<br />
the Agony Principle).<br />
Immediately this insight into human sexuality in the 21st<br />
century made me think of old mates Horkheimer and Adorno<br />
from the culture industry who said ‘Fun is a medicinal bath’.<br />
Mind you, many of these videos were actually filmed in<br />
bathtubs. These short intimate encounters are the perfect<br />
distraction from work that assigns a membership fee to<br />
join the virtual conversation post-orgasm. It seems that<br />
they (the culture industry theorists) had preempted this<br />
commodification of intimacy in human relationships. First,<br />
MySpace and the inevitable online dating, then Snapchat<br />
with instantaneous 3 second ‘tit’ and ‘dick pics’, now<br />
Beautiful Agony your one-stop-shop for 15 minutes of virtual<br />
eye-locked orgasms.<br />
As you can see Beautiful Agony incentivizes its past<br />
agonists for each referral. This has inspired an informal<br />
economy of students and soon to be sex workers. I was not<br />
sure whether I should have been offended that my friend<br />
wanted reap some fiscal benefit from my precious orgasm<br />
(that- trust me, don’t occur often/ ever). Surely if I was<br />
considering an introduction to the sex industry for $250<br />
I could not blame them. Either way, I decided against it<br />
keeping in mind a potential career in advocacy and not-forprofits.<br />
It’s not really a good look.<br />
If basically every other human experience is commoditized<br />
it’s probably not a big deal that orgasms are too? I guess I’m<br />
more conservative than I thought.
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