I realize I should probably be more gracious about this, and that the television host and media mogul Oprah Winfrey might actually be granting a Book Club-style blessing on porn by dealing with it in a non-Tyra Banks/Glenn Beck manner, but I can’t shake the feeling that there is something disingenuous, self-serving, and sensational about “The Evolution of Porn And Erotica,” a special segment by Lisa Ling on today’s “Oprah.”
Featuring usual suspects like Steve Hirsch, the sex blogger Violet Blue, and Jenna Jameson (as well as Monique Alexander), Ling’s story is not so much an expose (each of the guests has said all these things many times before) as it is a way for porn personalities to bask in Oprah’s radiance while flogging their wares and for Winfrey to score easy ratings.
And that’s fine. But while Oprah can move a million little pieces of “A Million Little Pieces,” does she really have the muscle to move Middle-American housewives to reconsider “Dirtpipe Milkshakes”?
It will be interesting to see.
Of course, the focus of the program is on couples’ films, not edgier fare, but Blue does help define a new genre of porn – the free kind – to what must have been the displeasure of fellow guest Hirsch:
“If I don’t want to pay for [porn],” Blue said, “I can go online to one of the free tube sites that are basically like YouTube for porn, and I can select by genre. I can click on something [and then] click away if I don’t like it. It’s a much more targeted experience for someone like me.”
Were Blue to say something like this in 2006 (and maybe she did), it would be noteworthy, but now it sounds a lot less like empowerment than it does like “Well, Duh.”
And the argument might be that we can’t all live in this enlightened Chatsworth ivory tower, that a majority of voters elected George W. Bush once, and that “The Da Vinci Code” made its money back, but Really? Is it news that women watch porn? I don’t know a woman who doesn’t.
Possibly the most eye-opening but egregious part of the show is a visit to Jenna Jameson’s home, where we meet her twin sons. Jameson cries when she talks about how much she loves them. And doubtless many of today’s porn talent will cry when they see evidence of the financial gravy train they missed when they glimpse Jenna’s mansion, dock, yacht, and Dali originals.
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: One Day at A Time parody finds B story – today on Oprah
See also: Why Millions of Women Are Using Porn and Erotica: Lisa Ling Reports
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