Sunday, May 05, 2019
Porn Star The Medusa, Risen Star The Jesus, Part 3
Here continues a 4 part blog series on how, in our contemporary world of the broken relationship between “male and female”, we are reenacting the story of Medusa. This, I hope, has become apocalyptically apparent in and through the figure of the Porn Star. See links here for Part 1 (LINK HERE) and Part 2 (LINK HERE) of this blog series. Briefly, there I discussed the beginnings of how Medusa and the Porn Star tell and embody a story of how originally faithful and creative desires for a treasured and gifted beauty are shaped into jealous envy of other suitors, as well as into raging coercion, deceit, control, and violence wielded upon the image of humanity out and because of our weakness and faithlessness that are “fed” when we participate in worship of and give power to false gods who are not gods – images of powers like Medusa and the Porn Star.
I did that, in Part 1, by attempting to reveal how the mythology of the power of the image of Medusa is not so very foreign to our contemporary, modern, “empirical fact” of a world. I also told of how the stories of my friend Kari, a woman on a Subway in NYC, and my “stunningly beautiful” friend at the bar restaurant, are all re-enactments of this same story of Medusa. In Part 1, however, I only hinted at how the power of and worship at the altar of the Porn Star shapes us and is interwoven with the story of Medusa. As I noted there, Parts 1 and 2 were more about Medusa the Porn Star.
I now aim to reveal more about the power and work of the figure of the Porn Star in our world, so this is more about Porn Star the Medusa. This post is more about the "objectification" of the Porn Star as an extension of the lifeless, fragmented, bloody body of the beheaded Medusa. The next post, which accomplishes its end at the Cross, is more about the associated violence. Perhaps – as God tends to somehow use deeply wounded pain, faithlessness, and brokenness for redemption into strength and recreation - such an obscene exposure of our reaching up and grasping for our Porn Stars can put us on a path of an encounter with the revealed Lord of transforming mercy, grace, love, and life.
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Pictured, Classical Greek depiction of Medusa as a Gorgon, from the fourth century BC
Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side… - John 20: 27.
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Let me return to the article noted in Part 1 that discussed the harmful effects of porn – SEE LINK AGAN HERE – which I also posted on Facebook. I realize that porn is pretty widely accepted these days. I can vaguely imagine that a small number of people can manage to function healthily while still remaining engaged with porn. But, I also imagine that those people – assuming they are functioning in a healthy way - don’t struggle with the shame, disordered desires, paralysis, guilt, and controlling tendencies I’ve struggled with in my life when it comes to my sexuality. Godspeed to them, if those people actually exist at all. I strongly suspect that my story is the more common one, perhaps really the only one. I also suspect that the story of this article, along with conversations with friends such as Kari that came as a result, that the picture they paint is the more predominant one.
Such new stories indicate that the old stories of ancient Greek mythology didn’t stop being told with the death of Ovid or of the Roman Empire. We continue to re-enact them. And, further, it seems to me that porn has quickly become a central means of shaping, forming, and molding us into this broken and traumatic story of Medusa and Perseus. From the story of “Growing up in Pornland”:
From “Growing Up In Pornland” again:
We’re unable to engage with women in substantial relationships, but our sexual desires – even our very physiology - are shaped towards fleeting games, towards chaff in the wind of male whims? It sounds to me like such playful whims could easily turn into the rushing winds of the sea of Poseidon.
No wonder the distant STONE-cold images on cell phones are used as tools for humiliation of girls and women. I doubt Medusa thanked Poseidon after he raped her.
In “Pornland,” we are not only falsely cast and molded into ephemeral, disembodied beings incapable of face to face, intimate relationality. Not only that. We are also thereby incapacitated from “getting our wants on the Table” in a safe, healthy, and graceful way that allows for the inevitable dynamics of honor and shame, edification and degradation that arise in all relationships – especially those belonging to the order of our sexuality - to work themselves out gracefully without resort to scapegoating the figure of the Porn Star we worship (or anyone elese). In “Pornland”:
Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side… - John 20: 27.
The fact that we habitually relate to women who are neither Porn Stars nor Medusa as though they are indicates to me that the world of the Porn Star and the story of Medusa shape us in ways beyond our face time with the screen of pornography and beyond the pages of Ovid.
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Let us face one another at the Table of Grace. Let us place there, out in the open, our disordered desires: our aspirations to be known in and by a “stunning” beauty, our hope of entering into the world into which we cast the figure of the Porn Star, as well as our jealous rage roused by her other suitors. The guy who rubbed his hands intimately on the stunning beauty he didn’t know? I confess that I wanted to punch him in the face. Let us also bring to God our tendency to, in our blind rage, scapegoat, punish, and humiliate the gift we can’t, in our weakness, our paralysis, and our vulnerability, figure out how to unwrap. It was impossible in that moment to discern how much of that desire to punch the suitor in the face was out of the jealous rage of Poseidon and how much was out of respect and care for the actual person of the “stunning beauty” who was not being treated the way she is made to be treated, to be (appropriately, according to the nature of the relationship) loved and respected with faithful love to the point of death by the One who made her.
I did that, in Part 1, by attempting to reveal how the mythology of the power of the image of Medusa is not so very foreign to our contemporary, modern, “empirical fact” of a world. I also told of how the stories of my friend Kari, a woman on a Subway in NYC, and my “stunningly beautiful” friend at the bar restaurant, are all re-enactments of this same story of Medusa. In Part 1, however, I only hinted at how the power of and worship at the altar of the Porn Star shapes us and is interwoven with the story of Medusa. As I noted there, Parts 1 and 2 were more about Medusa the Porn Star.
I now aim to reveal more about the power and work of the figure of the Porn Star in our world, so this is more about Porn Star the Medusa. This post is more about the "objectification" of the Porn Star as an extension of the lifeless, fragmented, bloody body of the beheaded Medusa. The next post, which accomplishes its end at the Cross, is more about the associated violence. Perhaps – as God tends to somehow use deeply wounded pain, faithlessness, and brokenness for redemption into strength and recreation - such an obscene exposure of our reaching up and grasping for our Porn Stars can put us on a path of an encounter with the revealed Lord of transforming mercy, grace, love, and life.
********************************************************************************
Pictured, Classical Greek depiction of Medusa as a Gorgon, from the fourth century BC
Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side… - John 20: 27.
********************************************************************************
Let me return to the article noted in Part 1 that discussed the harmful effects of porn – SEE LINK AGAN HERE – which I also posted on Facebook. I realize that porn is pretty widely accepted these days. I can vaguely imagine that a small number of people can manage to function healthily while still remaining engaged with porn. But, I also imagine that those people – assuming they are functioning in a healthy way - don’t struggle with the shame, disordered desires, paralysis, guilt, and controlling tendencies I’ve struggled with in my life when it comes to my sexuality. Godspeed to them, if those people actually exist at all. I strongly suspect that my story is the more common one, perhaps really the only one. I also suspect that the story of this article, along with conversations with friends such as Kari that came as a result, that the picture they paint is the more predominant one.
Such new stories indicate that the old stories of ancient Greek mythology didn’t stop being told with the death of Ovid or of the Roman Empire. We continue to re-enact them. And, further, it seems to me that porn has quickly become a central means of shaping, forming, and molding us into this broken and traumatic story of Medusa and Perseus. From the story of “Growing up in Pornland”:
"If there are still any questions about whether porn has an impact on young people's sexual attitudes and behaviours, perhaps it's time to listen to young people themselves. Girls and young women describe boys pressuring them to provide acts inspired by the porn they consume routinely. Girls tell of being expected to put up with things they don't enjoy."They reach for and then cast people as distant images on stone screens to humiliate girls? Perhaps they were roused to a jealous rage in the face of other suitors? Remember that it was only after Medusa was raped by Poseidon when she came to be viewed as a MONSTER. Perhaps this was a projection of sorts. My friend Kari is not a young girl, but these Australian girls seem to be living in the same story. To return to it:
....
"As the Plan Australia/Our Watch report found, girls are tired of being pressured for images they don't want to send, but they seem resigned to how normal the practice has become. Boys use the images as a form of currency, to swap and share and to use to humiliate girls publicly."
“These people who said they cared about me had NO INTEREST IN TRUE INTIMACY, in knowing about how I felt, what I wanted, who I am, which is so so so sad. And they are people who uphold an image of being emotionally mature. It’s MONSTROUS. Why aren't more men looking at their behavior and getting the help they need to grow? Why do they think it's ok to abuse women? Why do they want to be like that? Every woman I know has stories like this.” [emphasis added]Perhaps the aspirations and desires of Kari’s friends were shaped by the distance from face to face interaction, by the world of divinized fantasy inhabited by the figure of the Porn Star as she is cast into her role as object of our hallowing. Her hallowing is why we vicariously enter into her world, the world we create with our own hands and into which we cast her.
From “Growing Up In Pornland” again:
"A 2012 review of research on "The Impact of Internet Pornography on Adolescents" found that adolescent consumption of Internet pornography was linked to attitudinal changes, including acceptance of male dominance and female submission as the primary sexual paradigm, with women viewed as 'sexual playthings eager to fulfill male sexual desires.'…."I would like to explore something, and I would like to do so safely, peacefully, and respectfully. I wonder if the guy on the subway - from the video in Part 2 - was surprised when the woman didn’t enjoy his slapping of her ass? I wonder if the guy who caressed the “stunningly beautiful” woman in the bar restaurant who he had never met was confused when she was uncomfortable with it? Perhaps the reason women are viewed as "sexual playthings eager to fulfill male sexual desires" is because the figure of the "objectified" Porn Star, of the disfigured Medusa and the world we inhabit with them, is crafted by the hands of male desire in the first place? To return to the “Pornland” article:
"The proliferation and globalisation of hypersexualised imagery and pornographic themes makes healthy sexual exploration almost impossible. Sexual conquest and domination are untempered by the bounds of respect, intimacy and authentic human connection. Young people are not learning about intimacy, friendship and love, but about cruelty and humiliation."I wonder if the caressing and slapped men felt humiliated by their rejection? Shamed, perhaps? Such are the internal workings of emotional paralysis into a conglomeration of STONE. With what kind of rage and conviction might they tend to react to such humiliation and rejection? To break free from their STONE coffins?
We’re unable to engage with women in substantial relationships, but our sexual desires – even our very physiology - are shaped towards fleeting games, towards chaff in the wind of male whims? It sounds to me like such playful whims could easily turn into the rushing winds of the sea of Poseidon.
No wonder the distant STONE-cold images on cell phones are used as tools for humiliation of girls and women. I doubt Medusa thanked Poseidon after he raped her.
In “Pornland,” we are not only falsely cast and molded into ephemeral, disembodied beings incapable of face to face, intimate relationality. Not only that. We are also thereby incapacitated from “getting our wants on the Table” in a safe, healthy, and graceful way that allows for the inevitable dynamics of honor and shame, edification and degradation that arise in all relationships – especially those belonging to the order of our sexuality - to work themselves out gracefully without resort to scapegoating the figure of the Porn Star we worship (or anyone elese). In “Pornland”:
"It is intimacy and tenderness that so many girls and young women say they are looking for…“They don’t know the language of face to face contact…” That sounds like Perseus finding it inconceivable and impossible to relate to the disfigured image of Medusa, in all of her beauty and power, in a human way. Finding it impossible to accept the GIFT, he had to use a mirror, which has now been re-cast as a screen.
But how will young women find these sensual, slow-burn experiences in men indoctrinated by pornography? Psychologist Philip Zimbardo says of young men: 'They don't know the language of face to face contact ... Constant arousal, change, novelty excitement makes them out of sync with slow developing relationships - relationships which build slowly.'"
Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side… - John 20: 27.
The fact that we habitually relate to women who are neither Porn Stars nor Medusa as though they are indicates to me that the world of the Porn Star and the story of Medusa shape us in ways beyond our face time with the screen of pornography and beyond the pages of Ovid.
********************************************************************************
Let us face one another at the Table of Grace. Let us place there, out in the open, our disordered desires: our aspirations to be known in and by a “stunning” beauty, our hope of entering into the world into which we cast the figure of the Porn Star, as well as our jealous rage roused by her other suitors. The guy who rubbed his hands intimately on the stunning beauty he didn’t know? I confess that I wanted to punch him in the face. Let us also bring to God our tendency to, in our blind rage, scapegoat, punish, and humiliate the gift we can’t, in our weakness, our paralysis, and our vulnerability, figure out how to unwrap. It was impossible in that moment to discern how much of that desire to punch the suitor in the face was out of the jealous rage of Poseidon and how much was out of respect and care for the actual person of the “stunning beauty” who was not being treated the way she is made to be treated, to be (appropriately, according to the nature of the relationship) loved and respected with faithful love to the point of death by the One who made her.
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