Pornographic Mainstream Media

Mainstream media promotes individuality, sexuality, and empowerment, largely through the exploitation of the bourgeois. Even worse is when it is the exploitation of an ideology which it promotes, like empowerment. And so frequently this line is crossed within our visual culture of consumerism. Pornography within the mainstream media seems to largely be a method of communicating that message to consumers. Within celebrity culture, we see music artists and actors constantly glorified in advertisements, which can all too frequently be easily received as soft-core porn. These first two photos give much substance to this.




This Lady Gaga photograph is straight BDSM porn. It has elements of role playing and bondage. The black tape over her nipples, the scantily black, leather-type lingerie is the outfit of a dominatrix. She wears light purple wig underneath what appears to be a sort of military official’s hat. Interesting enough, in all her seductive seriousness, this all falls apart when she is wearing the hate of an official, a dog of war, who barks orders which end up in the casualty of innocent lives, saluting the view… exposes a tattoo of peace, an emblem she has branded herself with. The ad is a contradiction, and boils it down to nothing but a pornographic image of a popular female music singer.




So close to a nipple slip… or wait, is that a nipple slip? I think it’s a nipple slip. Here, Christina Aguilera is seen coddling a white blanket… like a classical female would be engrossed by her virginity. But we know this is not true for Christina. She has already been exposed other times in the media, naked, and several months pregnant. Talk about fantasy voyeurism. So she clearly isn’t a virgin, though this image, and especially when compared to classical imagery, would maybe suggest that. So what are we left with here? An unnecessary nipple slip and a highly stylized photo of her with slightly parted lips and big innocent, puppy’ish eyes, gazing sexually out of the frame. So maybe this isn’t as bad as the Lady Gaga ad. Or is it? This ad, is post- pregnancy, and maybe we could sense this from the largeness of her breasts. Or, if that may not be enough, let me share how a website presented this picture:
Milf (Mother I’d Like to Fuck) Monday: Christian Aguilera
Where You’ve Seen Her: We all know Christina Aguilera is one slutty chick we’ve love to have a go with. Singing hit songs for the past ten years, she’s defined herself as one of the best pop singers of our time. Her name is synonymous with talent, hotness, and being a skank.

MILF Status: Christina hopped on the MILF wagon years ago, giving birth to a son whom she named Max Liron, consequently
the name of one of her hit songs that means, in hebrew, ‘The Greatest Song’.

So this is how we influence the male gaze with these types of photos in mainstream media? Wonderful. (Face-palm)



Pornography is also very frequent in advertising for sports apparel and accessories, especially when they are dealing with females. This first one is strange approach that Nike took to create an illusion of female empowerment. They appropriate the voice of women and why they should cultivate their bodies. But, this of course, is in relation to the male gaze… which tends to focus mainly on the “tits and ass” of women. So a healthy big butt is good and women should embrace it. Yes, people should always embrace their bodies; no one should ever tell you how to feel about yourself. But then, parallel to this text, is a female with her head coy and held downward, and her body exposed quite profoundly- especially her butt.



This next photo is an Ab-workout ad of a female who has absolutely no fat on her body at all. And she is as good as naked. Maybe this is to show off her abs… but her tube top and tiny bottom are so skimpy and revealing that it’s incredibly easy to just picture her naked. So presenting the model in this pornographic fashion is not necessarily being used to promote her muscularity, but rather shows her in a sexually empowered position while gripping the metal beams behind her, like a steel worker (a male dominated labor job), but her grip is still fairly lose and sexy. Rawr.



This last photo goes beyond the Freudian suggestion of pornographic imagery; this American Apparel ad is straight blunt about it. Their minimal, flesh-toned spandex ware is almost seamless against real human skin. So seamless, that they recommended this for Halloween, to actually draw on their genital areas. Party time. Men and women can enjoy it, can enjoy being naked and seeing one another naked while still technically playing by the rules of obscenity. No harm done. Even though, gosh, it looks so damned real. It seems to me they are all naked, even if it's all just suggestive drawings. But who cares... it's safe, clean, orgiastic fun. There is no way in hell this motley crew would ever make it to home base… now, would they?