Germaine Greer:

REPORT FROM THE WET DREAM FESTIVAL

Our cause is sexual liberation. Our tactic the defiance of censorship. Thus expressed our aims are political, for the patterns of sexual interrelationship are created by and in turn support the other social structures. The approved sexual relationship in all Western societies is exclusive, possessive, colonizing, exploitary; sex is recognized as intimately connected with violence, for the power of the one over the other must be enforced and enforceable. Butch rules bitch, pimp rules whore, man rules wife, queer rules queen. Like the most insidious tyrannies, it is spoken of as a natural law, nature red tooth and claw. This organization, which is as clear and universal as if it were indeed the expression of an irrefragable law, has as its central pole pain instead of pleasure. The pain of sexual frustration, of repressed tenderness, of denied curiosity, of isolation in the ego, of greed, suppressed rebellion, of hatred poisoning all love and generosity permeates our sexuality. What we love we destroy. Censorship is the outward and continuing expression of this distortion of the human erotic faculty. It is the one public point at which we can join battle with what enslaves us. Defiance of censorship is an emblem of the removal of the swaddling bands that have deformed our sexual personalities and it is our faith that they must be removed absolutely as a first prerequisite of freedom and new growth. But when leg irons are first removed the prisoner cannot walk... Unliberated sexuality is heavy with hatred and cruelty and desire of death. Most of it is fantasy, and hugely derived from the fantasy machines developed by commercial pornography to reinforce the sexual status quo...

Commercial porno films are made to exploit the misery of the deprived and the perverted at minimal cost, badly shot, worse played by the unhappy actors blackmailed by force or lack of money, dingy, murky, spotty, choppy films, sex without dialogue or soul or body. The effect of such films is a calculated turnoff, throwing the viewer back into himself, isolating us all from each other. Removal of restraints in Denmark produced glossier porn, better lit, better shot, but the flesh was still meaty, lit up all pink like a butcher's shop, and the plots were vestigial, the characters depersonalized. But at least the commercial porno films were aimed at a sexual response, however desolate and specific. The underground films were not even genital: either they celebrated sex in narcissistic and “artistic” ways or they offered a sort of commentary on decadent social mores. The hypocrisy of getting kicks out of the depiction of depraved sex while retaining the right to disapprove of it or satirize it was the worst turnoff of all.

Confrontation is political awareness. What we discovered at the Wet Dream Festival is that we will have to generate enough energy in ourselves to create a pornography which will eradicate the traditional porn by sheer erotic power... We must commission films, make films, write, act, cooperate for life's sake. The battle against sadism and impotence is more desperate than we ever believed. We must begin the struggle within ourselves, carry it into our relationships and beyond that into the political sphere. It is mere hypocrisy to suppose that we are more liberated than others, and sheer Puritanism to feel guilty that we are not...

We will have to steal away the victims of capitalistic sex, away from death to life. Those who depend upon violence and pain for their orgasms will protest. Let them. Traditional commercial pornography keeps their fantasies well supplied; there is never any lack of torturers and sufferers. Our task is much harder. All our skills tend to death: we must reverse them and struggle with a newborn baby's strength against the inertia of the old law. Heathcote! Bill! Jim! We can only perish in the attempt.


From an editorial in SUCK n.5. (1973?)
Source: Jeanne Pasle-Green & Jim Haynes (Edit.): Hello I Love You - A Collection of Voices


Love, in the classical definition, implies ownership. “I love you” – therefore I own you, I possess you. Personally, I am interested in freedom, and “love” for me means I respect you, I like you, I care for you, I am concerned for you. I would like to share my body, my energy, my time, my life with you. I wish to be your friend. Surely, making love is only a more profound way of saying “hello”. Why not say “hello” warmly, tenderly, openly, sincerely to all we encounter? “We can't make love, we barely know each other” could be replaced by “Let's make love, I want to get to know you!”
- Jim Haynes -


Thanks to Jim Haynes.