What defines the line between Porn and Cinema?

As I don't see them as the same thing. What do you believe would seperate this branches of film (I can't think of any better wording at the moment)? For instance(and I'll list off some generic porn titles for comparison), what do you feel is the difference between Irreversible and Deep Throat? The differrence between Y Tu Mama Tambien and The Devil in Miss Jones? Charlie's Angels and The Anna Nichole Show? (These are the best I could come up with on such short notice....)

Anyway, any thoughts?

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Isn't it self evident? Some movies sold as pornography, like Caligula isn't really porn at all. The sexual revolution of the sixty's don't have anything on the ancient days. It showed it, somewhat, the way it was. It was more story than sex though. As far as the older film porns, they were still porn. Swallowing is rarely important enough to further a plot.

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So the difference between porn and movies is merely based upon the weight of the films focus on plot?

I really don't know if there is a difinitive answer. Intercourse? Storyline? Soft vs hard?

It's all relative. Do you think Caligula is porn?

Porn is sexually graphic and the focus of a porn film is to graphically depict the sex act... all else is window dressing.

Penis into vagina = Porn

Anything less than that is subject to interpretation.


In retrospect that was a very hetero definition

I should have said 'insertion' = porn

I don't think it is as simple as that anymore. Would you call The Idiots by Lars von Trier a porn flick? There is a group sex scene in there with a close-up on a penis going into a vagina, but I wouldn't call that film porn.

At the same time, there are a lot of softcore porn flicks where no actual intercourse occurs. But they are still porn, no doubt about it. I think they are porn because the only purpose of the storyline is to transport the film to the next sex scene.

Porn is about stimulating the viewer on a sexual level. The sex scenes doesn't serve any other purpose than making the viewer sexually aroused - story or no story. It is more of a genre than a label of content really. At the same time, an "ordinary" film can contain a hardcore sex scene and still not be porn because the scene has a function in the film or is motivated in some way by the story.

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Your descriptions made me sexually aroused.

Your post is porn.

I guess you are saying that my post suggests that it is all in the eye of the beholder, if someone get a hard-on, then it's porn. But that is to simplify a complicated matter, my dear Dr Toose.

I think Showtime Late-Nite defines the line between porn and cinema.

I call it art.

And that is okay!

Cumshots.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

What (if you've seen it) are your thoughts on Ken Park in this discussion, Holden?

So would you consider Y Tu Mama Tambien porn? What about Irreversible (as those were my examples...the closest I could relate to....I haven't seen Caligula or the idiots).

See...I used to think that my definition was if you could see insertion....but.....I saw Y Tu Mama Tambien recently....and I'd like to think it isn't porn.

Sidenote: What goes on in Ken Park?

I haven't seen any of these movies but Caligula (bought a VHS at a garage sale)

While I'm not on the subject, cool new avatar!

I haven't seen neither Y Tu Mama Tambien nor Irreversible yet, unfortunately.

SPOILERS!!!

I brought Ken Park up because Holden said "cumshots". In Ken Park you'll see a guy jerking off until he ejaculates in front of the camera. There are also a couple of sex scenes that involves authentic oral sex, I believe. I thought that there were actual penetration going on there too, but I read in some interview that there wasn't.

Awesome! I wonder where I can find it.

I don't know if you can call these movies "porn". Certainly hardcore scenes like that are pornographic, but softcore sex scenes aren't pornographic to me. Lots of non-pornographic imagery can be sexually exciting too -- from a breast, to a leg, a foot, a shoe, to even a couch.
If you want to call that porn, call it porn, but porn to me is hardcore sex. However, a PORNO, is a movie that's XXX rated and usually has terrible TERRIBLE music and is intentionally made to be a porno, not a film. It usually has pornographic ads for 1-900 numbers before the movie starts and when it ends, and the movie is filled with hardcore sex acts, maybe cumming, maybe something else, maybe everything possible and some you never thought possible.

I recently saw the movie Caligula in its unrated version, and while the film features a lot of sex and nudity - from softcore to hardcore - I do not consider it a porno, though it's pornographic. (However, I do think it's worthy to play in a porno theatre).

Not the hard-on but what you're inclined to do with it once it's there. In other words, would you shizzle your dizzle if you were alone. With that in mind, porn is clearly highly subjective and therefore why it's hard to ban.

Heh heh, I said "hard."

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Chunky

"Mmmm...sacrilicious..."

lolololol where do you guys come from!?!?! OK so here it is i think: PORN has actors/actresses named Gunnar Spankalicious or Jenna Tang, while CINEMA has names like Tom Arnold or Ann Margret.....and CINEMA never has movies called Grinding Nemo or Clear and Presant Dangler (my god..)

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