Pornography with Purpose | Andrew Deman | TEDxUW
Galileo, Disraeli, and Steve Jobs all cited passion as a source of human greatness, but the core argument from the *Lost Girls* by Alan Moore and Melinda Geabby is that passion itself is neutral, channeling into creativity, love, or destructive violence depending on whether it is expressed without shame. The discussion centers on how the sexual imagination, often repressed by culture, must be articulated—through personal disclosure—to achieve a profound emotional and creative intimacy. This suggests that true human understanding requires examining the intersection of sexual passion with other vital life aspects like love and creativity.
## Speakers & Context
- Speaker presenting on the broad concept of passion.
- Setting: Academic talk/presentation.
- Framing: Noting that passion is constantly referenced in culture, leading to a "really poor understanding of passion as a concept," despite its fundamental nature.
## Theses & Positions
- Passion is the source of finest moments, encompassing the joy of Love, the Clarity of hatred, and the Ecstasy of grief.
- Passion rules us all, compelling us to obey, as alternative to this state would be "Hollow empty rooms shuttered and dank."
- The core concept derived from *Lost Girls* is that "passion is passion is Passion all that matters is how we choose to express it."
- Sexual passion is powerful and can lead to "Joy or atrocity to destruction or healing depending upon how it's done."
- The link between the sexual drive and the creative Spirit is "importantly comingled."
- When we fail to articulate our sex lives and the role of sexual imagination within our physical passions, we fail to articulate the interconnectedness with "our violent urges or our love or our creativity."
- Passion might actually be what makes us human, and this concept needs to be openly discussed.
## Concepts & Definitions
- **Passion:** Defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "a strong and barely controllable emotion."
- **Transcendent Force:** How Shakespeare often used passion, which the speaker notes is inconsistent, frequently describing it as a state of intoxication leading to the loss of rationality (viewed as negative).
- **Lust/Physical Passion:** The specific passion Alan Moore and Melinda Geabby focus on in *Lost Girls*.
- **Sexual Imagination:** The ability to use the imagination regarding sex, cited as "constant Eternal."
- **Spank bank:** Colloquial term for the sexual imagination regarding masturbatory Fantasy.
- **Genesis of Genius:** The concept attributed to passion, as stated by Galileo.
## Mechanisms & Processes
- **Narrative Collaboration:** The process in *Lost Girls* where the writer informs the art and the artist informs the script in a back-and-forth manner until completion.
- **Intimacy through Disclosure:** The mechanism observed in *Lost Girls*, where emotional intimacy is achieved not just through physical encounters, but through the sharing of "important moments from their history."
- **Pattern of Encounter:** The structure in *Lost Girls* where two characters have physical sex, and the third character recounts a story about their individual sexual history, which in turn arouses the passion of the other two.
- **Symbolic Inversion:** The climax, where a soldier's wound (a gaping wound from crotch to sternum) is shown, and the clouds are shaped like poppies, which are then rendered to look like female genitalia, inverting expectations.
## Timeline & Sequence
- **13 years ago:** Duration speaker arrived at the University of Water to study American Poetry.
- **16 years:** Duration Alan Moore and Melinda Geabby worked on the *Lost Girls* project before its publication.
- **Circa Century Ago:** Approximate time when the hotel resort in Austria setting for *Lost Girls* was established.
- **World War I:** The historical backdrop against which the main events of *Lost Girls* take place.
## Named Entities
- **Alan Moore:** Comics author, most famous Comics author alive; known for *Watchman*, *V for Vendetta*, *The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen*, and *Batman: The Killing Joke*.
- **Melinda Geabby:** Feminist Comics artist associated with the women's Comics Collective; known for bringing Comics into a political Arena.
- **Art Spiegelman:** Creator of *Mouse*.
- **Craig Thompson:** Creator of *Blankets*.
- **Mariana Copy:** Creator of *Prilis*.
- **Ferdinand:** Character whose impending assassination sets the stage for the affair.
- **Wendy, Alice, Dorothy:** The three protagonists drawn from *Peter Pan*, *Alice in Wonderland*, and *The Wizard of Oz*, respectively.
- **White Rabbit:** Character in the narrative, described as a pedophile.
- **Peter Pan:** Character associated with Neverland.
## Numbers & Data
- **13 years:** Time elapsed since speaker began studying at the University of Water.
- **16 years:** Time spent developing *Lost Girls*.
- **Two:** Number of protagonists (Wendy, Alice, Dorothy) used by Moore.
- **60s:** Decade associated with the counterculture.
## Examples & Cases
- **Literary Works:** *Mouse* by Art Spiegelman, *Blankets* by Craig Thompson, *Prilis* by Mariana Copy, and *Lost Girls* by Alan Moore and Melinda Geabby.
- **Familiar Tropes Subverted:** *Alice in Wonderland* is presented as a journey through "a world of actual Madness" through sexual abuse; *Peter Pan's* Neverland is reimagined as a meadow in a public park for sexual interaction.
- **Dorothy's Story:** A narrative featuring three passionate affairs involving different farm hands (one with no courage, one with no emotion, and one essentially with no brain).
- **Atrocity vs. Bliss:** The depiction of a battlefield scene where a soldier has a wound from crotch to sternum, juxtaposed against the earlier depiction of "orgasmic Bliss."
## Tools, Tech & Products
- **Lost Girls:** The book/work central to the discussion, proposed as a new form of non-exploitative, emotionally resonant pornography.
- **Comics Literature Movement:** The ongoing literary movement within which *Lost Girls* is situated.
- **Watchman, V for Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Batman: The Killing Joke:** Comic series by Alan Moore.
## References Cited
- **Oxford English Dictionary:** Source for the definition of passion.
- ***Buffy the Vampire Slayer*:** Source for Jos Weeden's quote defining passion.
- ***Peter Pan*:** Source material for Wendy.
- ***Alice in Wonderland*:** Source material for Alice.
- ***The Wizard of Oz*:** Source material for Dorothy.
- **John Lennon and Bob Marley:** Artists who both featured "Make Love Not War" in the same year.
## Trade-offs & Alternatives
- **Peace vs. Passion:** Life without passion leads to being "Hollow empty rooms shuttered and dank."
- **Sexual Expression:** The initial passionate affair/pleasure vs. the impending violence/death of WWI.
- **Artistic Process:** The traditional separation of writer and illustrator versus the collaborative model of Moore and Geabby.
- **Theological Interpretation:** The alternative reading of the battlefield's poppy-covered wound—suggesting the trauma of war can be reinterpreted as a symbol of female genitalia, inverting the expectation of violence.
## Counterarguments & Caveats
- **Vagueness of Definition:** The OED definition of passion ("a strong and barely controllable emotion") is deemed too vague.
- **Shakespearean View:** Shakespeare's frequent usage of passion frames it negatively, associating it with intoxication and loss of rationality.
- **The Scope of Passion:** The discussion moves beyond just sex (the *Lost Girls* focus) to argue that passion's interconnection covers love, creativity, and violence, meaning it cannot be confined to just one domain.
## Methodology
- **Structural Analysis:** Deconstructing narrative elements in *Lost Girls*—the coupling of physical sex with the telling of personal sexual history.
- **Symbolism Interpretation:** Analyzing the poppy flower in the final scene to derive its dual meaning as both a symbol of war/death and female genitalia.
- **Cross-Genre Comparison:** Applying the emotional/structural logic of literary analysis (sexual disclosure) to the inherently sensational genre of erotica/pornography.
## Conclusions & Recommendations
- The central advice for relationships is to try "embarking on a 16-year elaborate pornography together."
- The text concludes that passion is powerful beyond human reckoning and might define what it means to be human.
- The ultimate goal of discussing passion is to reveal the profound, interconnected ways that sex, emotion, and creativity interact, preventing repression.
## Implications & Consequences
- If human sexual imagination is repressed, the resulting failure to articulate this dimension prevents the articulation of love or creativity, leading to emotional deficit.
- The ability to discuss the full spectrum of human passion—from the sensual to the sublime—is crucial for psychological health and cultural understanding.
## Open Questions
- The overarching question remains: "What does it all mean?" concerning the symbolic weight of the novel's traumatic ending.
## Verbatim Moments
- *"passion is the Genesis of Genius."* (Galileo)
- *"man is only great when he acts from Passion."* (Benjamin Disraeli)
- *"people with passion can change the world for the better."* (Steve Jobs)
- *"passionate passion is the source of our finest moments uh the joy of Love The Clarity of hatred the Ecstasy of grief."* (Jos Weeden, *Buffy the Vampire Slayer*)
- *"we would be Hollow empty rooms shuttered and dank without passion we'd be truly dead."*
- *"passion: a strong and barely controllable emotion."* (Oxford English Dictionary)
- *"The Passion of the warrior is the same as the passionate of the lover is the same as The Passion of the artist inspired."*
- *"passion is passion is Passion all that matters is how we choose to express it."*
- *"I'd recommend to anybody working on their relationship that they should try embarking on a 16-year elaborate pornography together."*
- *"sex can be channeled in a lot of different directions: sexual passion can lead you to Joy or atrocity to destruction or healing depending upon how it's done."*
- *"I'm afraid lots of boys will be dying in mud when they should be effing in bed war is such a frightful perversion."*
- *"Make Love Not War."*