Joy Division/Factory Designer Peter Saville on Pornography

So I guess it's not totally surprising that top-shelf designer Peter Saville wrote an essay on pornography for SuperTouch and it's not only sensical but sort of brilliant. His eye is pretty proven at this point.

Saville fans will note he's clearly watching (he recommends the works of Rocco Siffredi and notes that Seymour Butts has really interesting attitude toward shoes) and be gratified to see he approaches porn flicks like a real genuine film maker ("I'm not looking to pornography for a narrative experience. Beginners tend to. But anyone with any intelligence can't really bear the ineptitude of the filmmaking").

More on "beginners":

"Pornography very rarely delivers on the voyeur's expectation. The industry hinges on that; the fact that the mind's eye is far more persuasive than the content received. This is how porn works. Yet with some people, their mind's eye's optimism takes years to diminish. You are always able to convince yourself that this video, this DVD, this magazine that's wrapped, this magazine you can't open, that this girl, this boy, this scene that you are looking at: this is the one that is going to deliver exactly what you want. And it never does. But you believe it's going to. It's always projection."

Like many dudes I know, he appears to be dispirited by the weird gang-rape turn porn has taken: "I can say categorically that porn depraves and corrupts. Absolutely...I am fascinated to see the gang rape scenario puzzling local authorities, health workers, care workers and the police...Go and look at any contemporary pornography. Gangbang is the contemporary sex style."

"More than anything, I got bored with it because it's in a lull stage," Saville writes, sounding a lot like a certain dude I know who breaks this argument out any time the conversation gets anywhere near porno. "It's difficult to know what its next stage could be. Currently, it's in a phase of degenerating social behaviour." Which is hilarious from a dude who had a whole degenerate character to himself in 24 Hour Party People.