h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Not quite sure what your point is?"

My point is that the adolescents who are (one hopes) Cosmo's main market are being sold a pernicious fantasy, and worse, being sold it by a very, very few women for whom it is, by luck rather than judgement or God forbid talent, actually a reality.

I don't wish to appear sexist - I have precisely the same objection to Playboy magazine, or for that matter its current UK successor, FHM. It purveys to men the almost identical pernicious fantasy that it is possible to have a good job which causes no stress, doesn't require excessive hours, but yet pays well enough to afford sports cars, complicated consumer electronics, cool homes, excellent stylish clothes, and above all (and most expensive of all) compliant, sexually confident, available women who look like models or popstars.

This is not such a problem, necessarily, because there are men who CAN afford this lifestyle. Not wishing to brag, but personally I think I don't do *too* bad myself - I consider my partner a cut above, I have plenty of excellent boys toys, I have some great clothes even if my complete lack of anything approaching what humans call "dress sense" prevents me from wearing them, and I flew a helicopter today, for instance.

But the mags would make Prince Andrew feel inadequate on the Lad-o-meter, deliberately. Similarly, Cosmo seems specifically designed to trigger bouts of self-doubt in any woman who isn't simultaneously shagging Leonardo DiCaprio, freefall parachuting and making Partner by the time they're twenty five. It just winds me up that a bunch of self-appointed talent-vacuum nobodies whose idea of a career is JOURNALISM ferchrissake set themselves up as arbiters of what's an acceptable lifestyle. And what winds me up more than the existence of these relatively few valueless morons is the apparent existence of even MORE valueless morons who actually read what these people write and think they MEAN it, instead of realising that it's just 200 words banged out desperately on a Thursday (sorry, Thing) afternoon to pay for their next line of nostril nougat.

Is my point a little clearer?

seems like i dropped by at a very 'interesting' point in the conversation.
Considering the topic, this seems a little, erm lets say, 'prudish', but you will probably need to ******* or pick another term.

"It is in fact a pitiless little {**bad word**} that will faithfully record every wobble, every hair (or lack of same) and every unfortunate farting noise."

of course, i am quite sure i have no idea what this article is all about

As you say, in the context of the article, I think to *** out words like the one I used seems a little prudish - so I didn't do it, and I won't be doing it. I quite like the way the phrase 'pitiless little b*****d' sounds, and it doesn't sound half so good with any of the other possible words that spring to mind. If this gets picked and some SubEditor or Editor wants to do it - well, hey, writers need to be inured to seeing their deathless perfect prose butchered.

Grateful for your having read it, anyway.

" i am quite sure i have no idea what this article is all about". Sure, matey, course you've not.

Hi,

I've sent this to the Moderators for the second time for the swearing to be removed. Please don't put it back in a third time.

Mina

Hello there!
Just thought I'd say I like the entry, humourous AND practical.
One point, in the Brad Pitt footnote you should either remove the reference to yourself or it will be removed for you in the Sub-ed stage. This is because once it reaches the front page there will be two authors, so it might be a little confusing.
Oberon2001

Mina: didn't intentionally replace the swearing (didn't realise it had been removed, actually). Won't happen again.

Pitt reference changed.

Two authors?

Two authors, at the very least - look at any entry in the Edited Guide. Written and researched by Researcher A, edited by Researcher B. So if there's an 'I' in the entry, who does it refer to?

And, of course, some entries are written by Researchers A, B, C, D, E, and F and edited by Researcher G.

But the Edited Guide is, overall, a team effort, which is why authorship in it is considered to be multiple.

"Two authors, at the very least - look at any entry in the Edited Guide. Written and researched by Researcher A, edited by Researcher B."



Counting on my fingers I still make that ONE author, and one editor. Last time I checked, "author" doesn't mean the same thing as "editor" at all.

If you see someone perform the soliloquy from "Hamlet", do you say there are two actors up there? Or would you think it makes more sense to say there's one actor, and somewhere backstage someone who'd applied their stage makeup? (no speculation please about whether Nicole Kidman's false nose is going to win an Oscar...) I know where *I* would be placing the credit.

Can you name a best-selling *editor*? Just one? Can you name a best-selling author? Funny, isn't it, how usually it's the actual writer of the words who is given the credit for writing the words, isn't it?

Weird. I didn't realise that people here assumed that "Editor" was in some way *not* a mechanical job of ironing out the creativity from diverse and interesting styles and hammering them all into a homogeneous one-size-fits-nobody grey mass of textual gruel. You actually credit the Editors as though they're creative??? Weird. I'll try to remember that.

I still don't see where porn comes into this. Two people making love in private is not pornography. Why would making a private video change that?

Ok, all entries that must go to the Front Page need to go through a Sub-Editor first. Admittedly, I confused you by using the term "author", it should have been two "researchers" (However, if someone should come along and give a contribution to this entry and you use it, they should be duly credited). The point still stands that the term "I" (or any first-person variation) should not be used in Edited Guide entries and so shouldn't really appear in PR entries either.
Oberon2001

We're into definitions...

Pornography, to me, is the DEPICTION in some medium of an act, that depiction intended primarily to produce sexual stimulation in the viewer. Watching yourselves in a mirror at the time isn't porn. Watching yourselves on video ten minutes or ten days after the actual fact, is. It's the transfer of the act to some medium of record, be it photography, video, painting, or text, and the intention of that recording to stimulate sexual feelings, that renders it porn, to my mind. Who ends up watching it is irrelevant.

Pornography originally meant 'the writings of prostitutes'.


The OED (our bible) says "printed or visual material intended to stimulate sexual excitement". So I think that home made pornography is the right title.

I see. (And by the way, there's no need to shout. You made it quite clear in the entry that it's about depiction. I did get that.) So if the primary intention was something other than to produce sexual stimulation in the viewer, it wouldn't be pornography.

So in fact, whether what you are writing about is or is not pornography is liable to vary on a case-by-case basis. By your definition you cannot know in advance whether it will be pornography or not - all depends on the primary intention.

I think you should clarify this in the entry.

Also in the title you could consider putting 'Pornography' in quotes, or changing it to 'Sex Videos' or something.

Oh course you can know it advance- you know what you're setting out to do- sexual gratification for the viewer, or a sex ed. video?

I'm trying hard to thing of some other use for such material that wouldn't have the primary purpose of inducing sexual stimulation in the viewer, particularly given the bit in the article about not showing it to friends for a laugh, etc...

Sprout, I don't know, there could be other purposes. Some suggestions for you:

It would be a useful aid if you want to critique or improve your technique in some way.

You might just want to keep it as a souvenir, just like any other photographic depiction.

These would be non-pornographic intentions. For all I know there could be others.

Mina, I did look the word up in several dictionaries before I made my original post, but I still think the word has additional associations these days for most people (one or more of: doing it only for money, exploitation, abuse, etc). Maybe I'm wrong about that. But I wanted to check out how FB was using the word, and I still think it would be good to put that in the entry.

I don't want to seem uncooperative, but I think the title is self-explanatory to most normal people. I had and have no intention of writing some arty-farty think piece about what constitutes depravity and what gets away with being allowed to call itself art. If you want that debate (and it seems you do), why not write an entry on it yourself? This entry is about the practicalities of making pornography in the home. I think the title conveys that efficiently.

An additional point: it's NOT about making educational videos in the home, or making things just for a sentimental record (what kind of person could watch this sort of thing and have ONLY or even primarily sentimental as opposed to sexual reactions to it?), and it's certainly not about filming a documentary to allow one to critique one's or one's partner's technique (has anyone EVER done this?). If it was, it would have needed a MUCH longer title.

Right now, it does what it says on the tin, and for that reason I'm loathe to change it. Of course, if it gets picked, the subeditor or the editor may disagree. Let's see...

Just one comment - very picky, but as it's to do with the title - there's no apostrophe in 'dos', as it's a plural, not a possessive.

And even though you seem to have a bit of antipathy towards us, a decent sub-editor wouldn't change something as major as the title without consulting you

Jimster, you are of course perfectly correct. I've never like the way the word "dos" looks, though. It always looks to me as though it should be pronounced "doz", or possibly "doss", never "dooz". The last chapter of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has Zaphod swearing "bat's dos I can't work it out", and I read it about six times before I realised what he meant. Odd. But like I say, you're right. Thanks.

Number Six - I have no antipathy towards the subeds (or the Eds) at all! Sorry if I gave that impression. They're all lovely people who do a good job for no money and I don't know anyone who has a bad word to say about them.

I've no more antipathy to subeditors than I have to, say, nurses - but nurses are not doctors, and nobody with sense would suggest they are. Similarly, editors are not authors. The phrase above, " once it reaches the front page there will be two authors", and its subsequent clarification - "Two authors.... Written and researched by Researcher A, edited by Researcher B." appears to suggest editors are the same as authors. They aren't. That's all. (sheesh, is this *worth* it?)

So... until there are any other suggestions, thanks.