The Media and the Mess: Porn and Crime Part III

A key to understanding why rape seems to have become a part of the general criminal complex at this moment, particularly committed by young men, is Internet pornography. Anyone looking at Internet porn from the perspective of of visual and media culture(s) within the wider frame of consumerism, would have noticed that pornography has penetrated and mutated mainstream culture, and its consequences. (I’ll pause a moment for the snickers and leers.) In mainstream television, fashion, and in pop culture generally, porn imagery, clothing, and sexual subjectivity are now in the mainstream. You can see it (in varying degrees) on US TV—from the trashy Kardashians and Flava of Love, to music videos (from Britney Spears to Vybes Kartel), and  sitcoms (Two and a Half Men and so on). At home, porn aesthetics are now indistinguishable from Carnival aesthetics in fete patrons’ and performers’ behaviour, mas costumes, and some of the music. This isn’t news. Books and articles have been written about it, like Carmine Sarracino and Kevin Scott’s The Porning of America (and many more), or Natasha Vargas-Cooper’s interesting article in The Atlantic magazine in January-February this year.

Of interest here are the relations among power, sexual subjectivity and consumerist desire, which have been redefined in the last few years thanks to the wide availability of Internet porn. The business now requires numerous mise en scenes as sexual desire becomes more specific. Some sites offer, variously, sexual humiliation; bondage; interracial sex; rough sex; and a “reality TV” genre, wherein louts in cars drive around offering money to random wom-en. This is the tame stuff. There is more, sicker stuff which is widely consumed. The point is, as much as the act, context is crucial to gratification. And the juxtaposition of backdrop—attitudes, justifications, clothing, cars, interior decors, jewelry, even furniture—and act, signals how the leap from sex-obsession to rape occurs. In brief: pornography’s sublimation into mainstream culture in pop music videos, television, and news (cf Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Paris Hilton) has blurred, or erased, the line between the acceptable and the unacceptable. The overall result is that sexual gratification is now an element of the consumerist complex. The generalised aggregate desire for bling (money, cars, power, and ethnic respect) now includes sex in that amalgam. And inevitably, scripts, narratives and emotional logic are formulated, validating the reality. I might add that wom-en and girls might involuntarily and unconsciously accept the logic. (This does not mean women consent to rape.)

A question arises: Are these consequences visible in other cultures? The (US) Newsweek magazine reported on Nov 25, in a story by Chris Lee, a “sex addiction epidemic” in the US, fuelled in part by Internet porn. There have been reports linking the widening access to the Internet and increased sexual activity among US teens and pre-teens. In Trinidad, the (by some reports) rampant sexual activity in schools, and porn videos made and distributed via cell phones, have been here for quite some time, if studiously ignored by the authorities, who prescribe abstinence and prayer. These are predictable consequences, but they’re not rape, which existed before the Internet.  So why has it suddenly become an element of acquisitive crime? The answer is “culture,” as the primary weapon of socialisation. If the culture prescribes and enforces boundaries and supports them with serious social and legal consequences, this provides a strong deterrent. The normal agents of cultural counter-insurgency are schools, churches, and official channels, like the police and state-social institutions. The schools should ideally have strong programmes in media, sex education, and sociology, intended to directly counter just these impulses. (Religious education and prayer don’t cut it.)

However, if you have a culture that teaches you to “resist” “white” values, that you have been wronged by slavery and are entitled to reparation (aka the world owes you something), and “others” have taken your “patrimony,” the picture, and boundaries, change. Sex becomes one more thing you’re entitled to. These narratives have intensified since the PP came into power. Combine this with irresistible, omnipresent consumerism, and here we are. Then there’s the other part: the worst aspects of sexual perversion, violence, and value nullification combine in the State’s cultural centrepiece: Carnival. Apart from the general orgiastic, laissez faire atmosphere, there are staged events which provide the other emotional components. At the Canboulay reenactment this year, I noted the hostility in the performances, and Pearl Eintou Springer’s articles in the Express around that time made it clear: rage and violence were appropriate emotional responses to everything, and by the way: criminals/ jamettes are heroes. (Special thanks to Earl Lovelace for this.)

This connection is actually a part of the academic aspect of Carnival studies. This all came together for me when, recently, on the TV6 Morning show, I heard an Afrocentric apologist say that disempowered youth need a “sense of self”—which they had provided in the past with “programmes” to the poor communities. This explains a lot about crime. (I intend to file a Freedom of Information Act request with the Ministries of Culture and Community Develop- ment for information before I say anything more.) But this educational component begs a comparison with the better educational and disciplinary rec-ords of the religious board schools. This success might be less about religion and more about boundary enforcement. In the absence of hard data (thanks to the born-agains and other idiots infesting the humanities and social sciences at UWI and elsewhere) we can only speculate. Data and research are needed to provide answers. Which means we’ll hear no more of this.