“People just want to see what’s real,” says Kirsten Price, a porn star interviewed by the NY Times for the article “In Raw World of Sex movies, High Definition Could Be a View Too Real” (Jan, 22). Is it more realistic to see blemishes and scars that the naked eye would not otherwise detect? High Definition’s clearer and crisper imagery follows an aesthetic trend that aims to represent “truth.” As entertainment pushes for more reality T.V that includes unflattering fight scenes, and YouTube popularizes embarrassing home videos, we see a growing desire for something more graphic, albeit vulgar. The crucial relationship between porn and this technology, (As Alex Seitz-Wald discusses), does reflect the emergence of a new erotic aesthetic whether created by pornographers or demanded by audiences.

The argument for showing viewers “real” naked bodies as they are, might follow the lines of reducing the movie star aesthetic and depicting people that actually look like an average American; people having sex who look like you and me. In theory this kind of pornography could promote healthier body images and less sexual shame. High Definition technology, however, is doing just the opposite by bringing us closer to people that look less and less like us. These fantastical porn stars and their cosmetic surgery look more “real” because we can see their pores but in doing so they are redefining what constitutes reality and truth. HD creates, forces and then naturalizes a new form of beauty that relies on hyper-explicit details of fictional humans. What happens when American men are aroused by images of women who look less and less like the women they see on the streets but who look more and more plausible?

Porn director Robby D. says that people watch porn to find closeness and intimacy. This visualized closeness; this aesthetic of the microscope, may in fact limit our sensory abilities and push us farther into isolation. If we can only be aroused or awed by images of this aesthetic, have we lost our attraction to the subtle, to the abstract? Is a black and white porn no longer sexy? What will it take to make real life real enough to be erotic?

On another note, the gendered nature of this article, both the comments of the informants as well as the reporting reflect a heterosexist and patriarchal look at porn. The article presents pornography as only made by men for men with the use of women. While the majority of the porn industry follows this paradigm, does this new aesthetic only apply to this kind of porn? Will this new “look” become the universal technological norm, or could it pertain only to a certain socio-cultural demographic? Ms. Daniels comments that men are “’willing to sacrifice our vanity and imperfections to beat each other’ to high-definition.” She describes the vulnerability of female vanity to not just the male directors but more importantly to the overriding power of technology. High definition therefore becomes a greater force controlling the male structures of desire that control these women.

I am an Anthropology concentrator with a background in photography. I am interested in pushing the connections between anthropology, education and visual media to not just give voice to the marginalized, but to open a more balanced dialogue between those with tools for representation and those without. I have taught and collaborated on photography projects in Nicaragua and Mexico and am currently teaching in Providence. I hope to bring these and other experiences into a conversation that will look for new ways to use video and other media to challenge the current economies of representation. I was similarly energized by last weeks lecture and sincerely hope to be in the class.