I should stress that I mean the word ‘pornography’. Once a clearly understood concept (if infamously hard to define), it is now being applied in a slapdash fashion to anything that invokes a gut reaction, provided the person who uses the term doesn’t approve of it.
The latest example, which sparked this rant, was in a TV review in today’s Times (not online, so I can’t link to it). The show reviewed, in the How TV Changed Britain series, was about the influence of house/DIY programmes from Changing Rooms to Property Ladder on our attitude to property. The review referred to such programs as pornography.
Similarly, my own book The Global Warming Survival Kit, while not directly referred to in this fashion, did appear on a radio programme on ‘climate change porn.’
I’m sorry, but I find the usage both irritating and unnecessary. Appeal to the emotion is a fundamental aspect of successful writing. My agent regularly, and sensibly, when presented with ideas for a book will say ‘yes, but why should the reader care?’ (Interestingly, in the context of this blog, I think the failure of much science writing is because of a misguided notion that it shouldn’t appeal to the emotion of the reader, but should be cold and clinical.)
When someone refers to a property show or a book on the impact of climate change as pornography, what they really are doing is demonstrating their own emotional insecurity, and diluting and corrupting the English language to boot.
It’s time we made a stand. Keep the pornography label for the real thing.
Hear hear. I hate that expression “food porn” which seems to be used a lot to describe beautified pictures of dishes that no human being could ever create from the associated recipe: partly because none of the exotic, snob-laden ingredients is available at any normal corner shop or local supermarket; and partly because who has two days to put aside to make the darn thing from the overly elaborate and complex instructions?
When someone refers to a property show or a book on the impact of climate change as pornography, what they really are doing is demonstrating their own emotional insecurity, and diluting and corrupting the English language to boot.
Tosh and piffle, Brian. When Mrs Gee and I sit down to watch Huge Ferny-Whittlesea woggling his lummocks at River Cottage, we refer to it as smallholding porn. This does not reflect any emotional insecurity whatsoever, just a taste which we share; that it is intense; and that others might regard it is strange, baffling, even (to exaggerate, deliberately) even immoral. Sharing a guilty pleasure, as it were, between enthusiasts, as if it must be presented in plain, brown-paper covers.
And I fain that the Englisc is, forsooth, less a blushing bride than a thrawn and burly milkmaid who is accustomed to rise before the dawn and to be be taken roughly from behind in the byre by a local yokel (now, that’s porn).
I hate that expression “food porn” which seems to be used a lot to describe beautified pictures of dishes that no human being could ever create from the associated recipe
Again I disagree. The term ‘porn’ is particularly apt as the dishes pictured in
PenthouseWaitrose Food Illustrated are, like pin-ups, unattainable; probably airbrushed into unreality in any case; very likely inedible if you actually met them; and are intended to make you salivate.At least the recipes in Waitrose Illustrated list ingredients you can buy in Waitrose. (That’s the point.) The ones in the newspapers now, that’s another
storyexercise in meaningless one-upmanship.I agree that all the pics are inedible as they have to put paint, plastic coatings, etc on them in order for the colours to look appetizing (or so food eds say).
I remain firm in my personal hatred of the expression “xxx porn”, however etymologically defensible it might be in the examples provided so far.
I’m with Henry.
Nature Network, for example.
Brain porn.
.
What Maxine said. Henry, you may be able to refer to porn with pleasure, but the way this extension of the word is used in the media is intended as a put-down.
What you enjoy in the comfort of your own home (without frightening the horses, or for that matter the Gee family menagerie) is your own affair – and that isn’t what I was referring to when I talked about emotional insecurity.
What I’m objecting to is the way that the people who refer to ‘climate change pornography’ or ‘cookery pornography’ in the media are using this term to attack the idea that we can present information in a way that has emotional appeal.
Oh dear, it’s only Monday morning, and Maxine has already come to a full stop.
Brian – I think I’m on your side, but what word or phrase would you use instead?
laughs
atwith MaxineYou really think so, Brian? Maybe Australian meeja really is that different (although equally bent, of course).
Quick Henry
some pet porna pic of Heidi please.Bob – I think I’m on your side, but what word or phrase would you use instead?
Why do you need a word for it? It’s one of the few cases where I think I’m in agreement with postmodernism – the existence of the word is bringing the phenomenon into being. Property Ladder is, erm, a TV show about property not ‘property porn’, etc. etc.
(Note, incidentally, this doesn’t say anything about the merits of Property Ladder as a programme. There just isn’t any reason for applying a label that just says ‘I, the reviewer, think this show/book/picture (delete where applicable) is unsuitable for you poor, innocent consumers because it dares to appeal to your emotions, rather than be a pure presentation of safe, dull facts.’
“all the pics are inedible as they have to put paint, plastic coatings, etc on them in order for the colours to look appetizing (or so food eds say).”
No paint, no coatings, no photoshop:
(from the lab, also eaten by now)
@ Graham: Would this do instead?
Come up and see me sometime, Big Boy
Which reminds me of the difference between ‘erotic’ and ‘exotic’: the former is a feather – the latter is the whole chicken.
@ Brian: What I’m objecting to is the way that the people who refer to ‘climate change pornography’ or ‘cookery pornography’ in the media are using this term to attack the idea that we can present information in a way that has emotional appeal.
I think you protest too much. I don’t think people think that way at all. I think people use the word ‘porn’ to refer to an intense enthusiasm that the observer perhaps does not share, you know, like release-of-calcium-from-intracellular-stores porn, but of which the observer is sneakingly or pretend-secretly envious.
Holy cluck !!!
Raf – I’m sure it tastes less sorcerous than it looks.
Sorcerous:) – You should have seen (and smelled) my Urtica manure!
Yes, but I bet the soil slurped it up…
Having been halted in my tracks very effectively by rpg earlier, I hesitate a little to contribute further, but only a little….
Another phrase I do not like, and had never heard of until it was forced into my vision via Alistair Campbell, is the phrase “sexing up” (as in the infamous Iran nuclear weapons dossier).
Why do we need to borrow phrases out of context such as “sex” and “porn”? To grab attention? When Alan Clark used the phrase “economical with the actualite” when he meant “lied”, he was being clear about what he had done.
“Sexing up” a dossier, or “property (or xxxx )porn”, why not use “embellish”? It is an existing word that means to over-describe something beyond acceptable accuracy, to make it sound more attractive.
Sexing up – eurggh. Now I do agree. Horrible NuLab PoliticoSpeak.
Oh good, I was a bit worried there that I was beginning to sound like Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells. When you reach my advanced age, you need a reality check now and again just to be sure you aren’t fossilizing in your attitudes.
I can’t wait to see the search query log for this page next month.
At least Brian has been restrained on his tags, Euan!
I agree with Brian and Maxine. I think the reason for using the term is different. I think the reason people attach the ‘pornography’ label to climate change science, cookery and to property refurbishment is to denigrate those who find it enjoyable to participate in it. To imply that the only reason people participate in such things is because of a prurient interest in the subject matter and that such interest is not natural and that people who have such unnatural interests cannot be taken seriously because they are smarmy.
It is appropriate for people who do have prurient interests in things to label them as pornography of the appropriate type as Richard and Henry have done. It gives the rest of us fair warning that we should treat their emanations on such subjects with a grain of salt, with
rubberkid gloves and perhaps a jigger of disinfectant.I see labeling climate change as pornographic as a tactic similar to the label of “anti-intellectuals” of another time. It is meant to marginalize the people most informed on the subject so that those less informed can have a larger voice in the debate.
Moving swiftly along, I apologize to Maxine for derailing you so effectively. It was not my intention.
However can I make it up to you?
OK – how about some more fruit porn?
Raspberries, impossible to eat them all
Phwoar.
oooh the irony. For some reason, jpegs are coming out here with the small red X box here at the office. As such, I’m sort of “censored” from gasping or saying Phwoar at this fruit porn image.
Raf, just let me at them.
It’s not porn if you can attain it and it hasn’t been touched up (I’m with Maxine and Brian on this divide.) It could be distasteful, but that certainly doesn’t apply to the raspberries above.
P.S. Maxine, feel free to chide me for my misplaced full stop above. Punctuation porn?
@Richard, you don’t need to make it up to me. It is quite nice to be stopped in my tracks now and again. Keeps me young.
@Heather, I have made enough spelling and punctuation errors in various NN posts to be extremely forgiving on the subject!
Can’t help it – must add some veg porn here:
Invasion of long green vegetables, yesterday
(More here)
I’m jealous, Raf. My cucumber plants are absolutely pathetic.
Hah – I almost got arrested by the veg porn Police for unveiling this monster at a huge (pun intended) vegetable show in Beijing, mid ’98. Thankfully, as you can see, they were overjoyed after I agreed to hand over the lot to them before scuttling back home.
Which one is you, Graham? The green-looking entity?
Now, that’s worth a caption competition…
Moment of silence for the now confirmed as late Nippy (black armband and sombrero now discarded)
—
Oh futtock, that pesky Dr Ghee hath spotted a false impression of this, sorry, this real moment of photosynthesis that had arse all to do with myself.
Try the “Cap’s off” boutique Henry….
Holy alt+control+dalek button,
The second url above should have led to the below.
I have no option now but to blame my Mum who (honest Gov) called whilst composing the above post.
I also appear to have already started the comp with:-
Try the “Cap’s off” boutique
whilst referring to the “Caps Off button” on one’s keyboard.
My lawyers are on standby.