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Nicely argued, but certainly if you are talking about porn and not erotica, what we are delivering cannot qualify as art just because, like art, it consists of visual images. Porn is a purely commercial product quite specifically intended to appeal on an entirely different level.
Should we stand up for ourselves? Yes of course, but for there to be any point, we need to put our house in order. I was flicking through some TGP's this morning: of the twenty or so that I went to directly from SexTracker, three had b*astiality and inc*st categories, and one r*pe too. The biggest TGP's may themselves be clean, but click a trade and then one of his trades... the point is that sectors of our industry which are illegal in some countries and distasteful to most of us, are not many clicks away once someone ventures into our territory. And on most of these sites are many of the same sponsors as appear on the mainstream sites (and of course in everyone's email every day).
Sure, there are people who would throw a blanket around a classical Greek nude statue, but these are not the people we have to fear because they are regarded as the lunatic fringe by the vast majority of the population. Our biggest problem is that so long as we refuse to distance ourselves from those who peddle extreme material, we are doing most of the work for every half-assed politician and social reformer who wants to make a name for him/herself.
It will be 5-10 years before this industry matures enough to recognize it needs to organize and for there to be enough professionals to make it happen. Until then we will continue to be the cause of most of our own problems, and meanwhile, although we should indeed stand up for ourselves, the financial cost alone can make that impractical.
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