Going Gonzo: Porn Gets Real
One hesitates to enter a discussion on porn. It’s been hashed out numerous times before with both sides firmly rooted in their arguments. On the one side, supporters of the constitution advocate for the right to free speech at all costs. On the other, feminists fight for the rights of girls and women who feel that pornography degrades and harms them, and perhaps even encroaches upon their right to freedom of expression. But, alas, there is little that remains black and white in the porn debate, and you will also find constitution defenders who fight porn and feminists who earn their living making pornographic films. Needless to say, the issue is messy.
In the mid-nineties, it got a whole lot messier. With the evolution of popular television cinema into the voyeuristic spectacle now known as reality television, pornography developed its own brand of “reality TV.” Reality Porn, or gonzo porn, appears to feature real people in real time having real sex. The name “gonzo” refers to “gonzo journalism,” a type of journalism that posits the journalist into the middle of the story. Likewise, in gonzo porn the camera is often part of the scene, with the person holding the camera performing many of the sex acts in the film. But what really sets gonzo porn apart from the realness that can also be found in amateur pornography, is its emphasis on nonconsensual and humiliating sex acts.1