Porn, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder

Minister Lulu Xingwana has rather shamelessly decided to come out of the closet. Next thing we know artists will be allowed to show gay people expressing emotion. But it is all rather confusing. If the reported remarks attributed to her are right - that photographs displaying naked women embracing each other are “immoral, offensive and [goes] against nation-building” - then she is either an immoral homophobe or a philistine who misses the point and place of art and artists in society. Or, possibly, a lethal mixture of both. Either way, I’d rather she had kept these naked prejudices in a closet where they belong.

Not that I am intolerant or anything. Some of my best friends are homophobes who miss the point of art. Still, did the minister have to flaunt her homophobia in public just because she can?

This “anything goes” democracy of ours is getting out of hand. I can only hope there were no kids around when she flaunted. Do we really want children exposed to moving images of homophobia? That undermines nation building and social cohesion.

In fact, such homophobia is worse than bad 1980s German pornography. At least bad pornography does not harm anyone. Or so I think. Homophobia, unfortunately, leads to black lesbian women being killed. Your attitude is not only offensive, minister, it is also deadly. Quite literally.

Besides, just because your lowbrow artistic needs are satisfied by images of a bowl of fruit or flowers with clover leaves engraved on your dining plates, does not mean that my appetite for more engaging, evocative images of intimacy between two women should be disparaged. Your pornographic hell is my aesthetic heaven. It is all subjective. Do not assume that the rest of us saw sex when we looked at those innocuous photographs. It is you have the wandering mind, minister. We had no such naughty thoughts. Do not be a bad influence on us, please.

Real pornographic images are explicit sexual images that aim to arouse a consumer sexually. These images that offended you are not that, minister. If they did generate sexual thoughts in you, then I you must see sex everywhere.

I suspect that you are not actually a philistine. Rather, it is probably the picture of two intimate women that leaves you cold. So much for setting an example of tolerance and acceptance of everyone’s right to love and feel freely.

Even so, being the true liberal that I am, I will risk rebuke from progressive friends and colleagues by defending your right to harbour these irrational homophobic attitudes. But, could you really not have waited till the weekly meeting of your local branch of Intolerant Homophobes before expressing your disapproval for the existence of gay love? Or has your branch’s chairperson been sent to Uganda, perhaps, leaving you no choice but to be the next public spokesperson for bigotry?

Still, minister, presumably you conceive of yourself as a political leader who has an obligation to pay public lip service to our constitutional values, even if you secretly wish the liberal constitutional edifice was less demanding on bigots? For your career’s sake, here is some free advice: be more strategic in when and how you choose to express prejudice and ignorance. Honesty is not always prudent. That is a basic principle of political life you should know by now.

Besides your display of homophobia, it is also distasteful how you blatantly miss the point of art. Artists have to be true to themselves by producing works that reflect how they see the world and not how donors or Big Brother would like them to portray the world. The artist lives an introspective existence in which the work she produces reflects not only her social reality but also her unique take on that reality.

You, minister, would rather the artist become a liar. You do not want her to challenge your prejudices. You want her to confirm your prejudices. Ironically, your reaction has betrayed your prejudices more successfully than her attempt to mainstream same-sex intimacy.

You remind me of Soviet Russia, in fact. Remember how the communist government forced artists to only produce works that will whip up nationalistic fervour? Granted, we got some fantastically majestic, feel-good symphonies as a result. But the price for this was artistic integrity often being thrown into the socialist dustbin. You, too, would rather prescribe to artists what to do. Not explicitly, of course. But through the crafty mechanism of making biased decisions about who to fund depending on what your aesthetic sensibilities are that morning. That is a tragedy.

All works of art are inherently subjective creations. Judgments about the quality of those productions are also inherently subject. My writing, for example, may strike you as verbal pornography. Will you huff and puff about critical writing too? Kindly do not impose your moralising aesthetic preferences on the rest of us. It goes against nation-building. As for what lesbian pornography, I could happily direct you to the real stuff so you can see that the photographs you saw were but fool’s gold. Minister, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=95439