What does Tour of Booty mean to you?
That's how you start off a post about this subject. We like to think that American culture is ahead of other cultures because of our influence on the world. What I've seen is that the rest of the world does not see us in the same light. To the rest of the world we are the key distributors of the bad things in the world. The worst being economic greed and pornography. I'll skip the economic greed part and focus on porn for this post.
Here's what happened. On the old blog I wrote about the Adult Video News (A.V.N.) Awards. I hadn't kept up with porn so I wrote something quick about what I knew and could maybe guess. I hadn't written anything on the AVNs since. I figured I'd do one for this blog this year. So I started researching who was who and what was what. I went to a site called XVideos which had some banner adds. I clicked through a few knowing that they show whats popular and trendy in porn. One of those adds said the words Tour of Booty. Well What The Hell is that?
I see this banner but the content catches my eye. You have soldiers having sex with Muslim women. What this ad was implying got me thinking. This is why Osama Bin Laden was wrong about defeating America. If anything this is proof that Americas influence on the world is far greater than he imagined. I think its actually because him and people like him undervalued the importance and power of cultural exportation. Basically people in other cultures like sex and rock n' roll music.
Which all got me thinking about the sex part. We know what Western music did in the 20th century. There's a series on Public Broadcasting Stations (P.B.S.) on popular music through the decades. If you watch the different episodes you get a glimpse into predominately American culture in the time periods it covers. The last one I saw was the 1980s. Having lived through that era brought me thru a nostalgia trip. But it also reminded me of what was happening from the beginning of that decade until it's end. But that's music now flip it over to sex, specifically the porn industry.
I was too young to understand what was happening in the porn industry at the time. But looking back on it now there's a strange line that you can follow on the influence of porn in Western culture. It also speaks to why Bin Laden and people who choose to repress sexual expression in a culture lose their arguments to keep sexuality repressed. Just follow along I'll get nerdy from here.
Let's skip to the early 2000s on this. See the porn industry had long been the underbelly of Hollywood celebrity culture. So much so that the porn industry was referred to as "Other-Hollywood". Regular Hollywood being the one that people are familiar with. The popularity of other Hollywood was based on the availability of a television and a Video Cassette Recorder (V.C.R.). That changed with two things, one being the Digital Video Disc (D.V.D.) the second which caught and surpassed DVD being the internet. Specifically the ability to stream content to a home or mobile device.
Back to music for a moment. Do you remember music Compact Discs (C.D.)? So CDs replaced record albums and cassette tapes as the main medium to listen to music. It was high quality, compact size and easy to copy. Well DVD was the video version of CD. Yes, most of you already know this but hold. What DVD did for the porn industry was bring the easy of use of a CD to it's videos. So people no longer had to do certain things. One find space to store these big boxes. Two limit the amount they bought because of space and high prices. Three not limit their spending on something they had no space for and couldn't afford to own a lot of. These factors helped DVD win it's format war against VCR easily. The other won being what actually played the DVD the most popular being the Sony PlayStation 2.
The PS2 is the most successful selling home gaming system of all time. What no one ever tells you is that part of what helped sell the PS2 was the idea that you could play your porn DVDs on it. That little innovation made explosive profits for the porn industry. It also carried on thru to Blu-Ray Discs and now Ultra HD Blu-Ray discs playing being a must have for any gaming system that plays games on discs. We see the power of that decision today. The internet is another story that started expanding because of Microsfots Windows 95. Your reading this blog because of the popularity of Windows 95. Now lets go back to Osama Bin Laden.
The ideas he had about America were formed before the growth of DVDs and even the internet. He did not take into account the possible popularity of Western technology on other cultures. Specifically his own Islamic culture. Not taking into account how cultural exportation comes with using Western technology he underestimated what seeing things like digital pron could do to a culture. Remember in his time before the event of September 2001 the biggest complaint people of his ilk had was against Western music. Rock music, rap music, R&B music even Classic Western European music were considered threats to Islamic culture. Those were nothing compared to the power of pornography on a culture. That ties back to my question of Tour of Booty. There's no way that he and his followers would consider an American having sex with an Islamic woman a good thing. Nevermind it being streamed to the internet for an American to make money off of it. It's something that all the clerics and preachers have to understand cannot be stopped. You can't suppress the natural human drive to connect with someone on a sexual level.
This basic idea is what makes porn work in a odd way. Keep in mind that just like in Western cultures I don't think Muslim parents talk to their sons and their daughters about the birds and the bees. How sexual relations work is not something that is part of the education curriculum for schools in Muslim nations. I'm sure that I'm wrong on that but the perception is that I'm probably right. So the question becomes, where do they learn about sex. In this day and age they learn about it like those in Western cultures do. That being the internet and pornography. It's something that will not slow by the way. This is why I say they can't stop people from wanting to have sex. Especially with access on the different ways to have it being available to view on the internet.
Now I know you'll probably say that such content can be blocked. Yes, it can. Such content can be censured. Yes, it can. But such content cannot be ignored. As one generation ages out another will come in without the biases of the previous one. What was taboo to one generation will be a norm to another. The progression of time will guarantee that will with rock n' roll a younger generation will normalize it while the previous one will demonize it. It's something that always happen for the sake of progress. None of the countries that will block or censure it can possibly keep up with the technological evolution that is happening all over the world. Heck most of the majority Muslim countries in the world are right near India. That country is embracing technology almost as fast as its changing. The bleed over is inevitable.
I know this may sound foolish to some but this is true. The Chinese government just banned hip hop music and culture on Chinese television. Now think about this for a second. A government just banned a music and form of cultural expression from its public viewing. Now how long do you think it will take before this either backfires or is overturned. If history is any indication it would normally take within twenty years. But the Chinese government did not ban the internet. The Chinese government wants to maintain certain level of relevance in the world. So it only stands to reason that a certain level of bleed over will occur either through hip hop, rock n roll or porn. It's like trying to hold back a raging river with a paper towel.
Reuters - China takes aim at hip-hop saying low taste content must stop
It goes both ways on these things. If you've ever eaten at a Asian buffet or Chinese food restaurant, ate a pizza or a taco you've experienced cultural exportation. I remember a time when I never ate what would be considered Muslim food. Now there are whats called Halal carts all across town. In a few years there will be more food trucks. Then after more time Muslim restaurants. It'll be a normal thing which will spread throughout the country not just the Northeast.
So what is the greatest cultural export of American culture? That is still up for debate. The ones that have had the most obvious impacts are sex, music, sports and the internet. With the internet we are going to see what else comes into play. For now we just have to ride the waves of these things. You can't judge the impact of these changes until at least a century later. Until than don't expect sites like Tour of Booty to go away. Mia Khalifa gained a level of fame or infamy not because of her looks or sexual powers. Would she even matter outside of her industry if she wasn't a Arab woman with big breasts having sex on camera?
www.reuters.com
www.pbs.org
NSFW - Not Safe For Work
www.avn.com
If you liked this post please share and subscribe to receive future posts.
That's how you start off a post about this subject. We like to think that American culture is ahead of other cultures because of our influence on the world. What I've seen is that the rest of the world does not see us in the same light. To the rest of the world we are the key distributors of the bad things in the world. The worst being economic greed and pornography. I'll skip the economic greed part and focus on porn for this post.
Here's what happened. On the old blog I wrote about the Adult Video News (A.V.N.) Awards. I hadn't kept up with porn so I wrote something quick about what I knew and could maybe guess. I hadn't written anything on the AVNs since. I figured I'd do one for this blog this year. So I started researching who was who and what was what. I went to a site called XVideos which had some banner adds. I clicked through a few knowing that they show whats popular and trendy in porn. One of those adds said the words Tour of Booty. Well What The Hell is that?
I see this banner but the content catches my eye. You have soldiers having sex with Muslim women. What this ad was implying got me thinking. This is why Osama Bin Laden was wrong about defeating America. If anything this is proof that Americas influence on the world is far greater than he imagined. I think its actually because him and people like him undervalued the importance and power of cultural exportation. Basically people in other cultures like sex and rock n' roll music.
I was too young to understand what was happening in the porn industry at the time. But looking back on it now there's a strange line that you can follow on the influence of porn in Western culture. It also speaks to why Bin Laden and people who choose to repress sexual expression in a culture lose their arguments to keep sexuality repressed. Just follow along I'll get nerdy from here.
Let's skip to the early 2000s on this. See the porn industry had long been the underbelly of Hollywood celebrity culture. So much so that the porn industry was referred to as "Other-Hollywood". Regular Hollywood being the one that people are familiar with. The popularity of other Hollywood was based on the availability of a television and a Video Cassette Recorder (V.C.R.). That changed with two things, one being the Digital Video Disc (D.V.D.) the second which caught and surpassed DVD being the internet. Specifically the ability to stream content to a home or mobile device.Back to music for a moment. Do you remember music Compact Discs (C.D.)? So CDs replaced record albums and cassette tapes as the main medium to listen to music. It was high quality, compact size and easy to copy. Well DVD was the video version of CD. Yes, most of you already know this but hold. What DVD did for the porn industry was bring the easy of use of a CD to it's videos. So people no longer had to do certain things. One find space to store these big boxes. Two limit the amount they bought because of space and high prices. Three not limit their spending on something they had no space for and couldn't afford to own a lot of. These factors helped DVD win it's format war against VCR easily. The other won being what actually played the DVD the most popular being the Sony PlayStation 2.The PS2 is the most successful selling home gaming system of all time. What no one ever tells you is that part of what helped sell the PS2 was the idea that you could play your porn DVDs on it. That little innovation made explosive profits for the porn industry. It also carried on thru to Blu-Ray Discs and now Ultra HD Blu-Ray discs playing being a must have for any gaming system that plays games on discs. We see the power of that decision today. The internet is another story that started expanding because of Microsfots Windows 95. Your reading this blog because of the popularity of Windows 95. Now lets go back to Osama Bin Laden.
The ideas he had about America were formed before the growth of DVDs and even the internet. He did not take into account the possible popularity of Western technology on other cultures. Specifically his own Islamic culture. Not taking into account how cultural exportation comes with using Western technology he underestimated what seeing things like digital pron could do to a culture. Remember in his time before the event of September 2001 the biggest complaint people of his ilk had was against Western music. Rock music, rap music, R&B music even Classic Western European music were considered threats to Islamic culture. Those were nothing compared to the power of pornography on a culture. That ties back to my question of Tour of Booty. There's no way that he and his followers would consider an American having sex with an Islamic woman a good thing. Nevermind it being streamed to the internet for an American to make money off of it. It's something that all the clerics and preachers have to understand cannot be stopped. You can't suppress the natural human drive to connect with someone on a sexual level.This basic idea is what makes porn work in a odd way. Keep in mind that just like in Western cultures I don't think Muslim parents talk to their sons and their daughters about the birds and the bees. How sexual relations work is not something that is part of the education curriculum for schools in Muslim nations. I'm sure that I'm wrong on that but the perception is that I'm probably right. So the question becomes, where do they learn about sex. In this day and age they learn about it like those in Western cultures do. That being the internet and pornography. It's something that will not slow by the way. This is why I say they can't stop people from wanting to have sex. Especially with access on the different ways to have it being available to view on the internet.
Now I know you'll probably say that such content can be blocked. Yes, it can. Such content can be censured. Yes, it can. But such content cannot be ignored. As one generation ages out another will come in without the biases of the previous one. What was taboo to one generation will be a norm to another. The progression of time will guarantee that will with rock n' roll a younger generation will normalize it while the previous one will demonize it. It's something that always happen for the sake of progress. None of the countries that will block or censure it can possibly keep up with the technological evolution that is happening all over the world. Heck most of the majority Muslim countries in the world are right near India. That country is embracing technology almost as fast as its changing. The bleed over is inevitable.
I know this may sound foolish to some but this is true. The Chinese government just banned hip hop music and culture on Chinese television. Now think about this for a second. A government just banned a music and form of cultural expression from its public viewing. Now how long do you think it will take before this either backfires or is overturned. If history is any indication it would normally take within twenty years. But the Chinese government did not ban the internet. The Chinese government wants to maintain certain level of relevance in the world. So it only stands to reason that a certain level of bleed over will occur either through hip hop, rock n roll or porn. It's like trying to hold back a raging river with a paper towel.
Reuters - China takes aim at hip-hop saying low taste content must stop
It goes both ways on these things. If you've ever eaten at a Asian buffet or Chinese food restaurant, ate a pizza or a taco you've experienced cultural exportation. I remember a time when I never ate what would be considered Muslim food. Now there are whats called Halal carts all across town. In a few years there will be more food trucks. Then after more time Muslim restaurants. It'll be a normal thing which will spread throughout the country not just the Northeast.
So what is the greatest cultural export of American culture? That is still up for debate. The ones that have had the most obvious impacts are sex, music, sports and the internet. With the internet we are going to see what else comes into play. For now we just have to ride the waves of these things. You can't judge the impact of these changes until at least a century later. Until than don't expect sites like Tour of Booty to go away. Mia Khalifa gained a level of fame or infamy not because of her looks or sexual powers. Would she even matter outside of her industry if she wasn't a Arab woman with big breasts having sex on camera?
www.reuters.com
www.pbs.org
NSFW - Not Safe For Work
www.avn.com
If you liked this post please share and subscribe to receive future posts.
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