The new Avant Garde

So the other day I was watching a documentary about the ever booming porn industry (13,000 DVD titles a year just out of the US) and I started thinking about how and when it all became so violent. Porn it seems has become about competitive degradation.

A friend of mine spoke at Ted this year about the effects that US porn has on teenage kids and what they regard as normal sexually... and the boundaries of acceptable have been massively expanded since the 70s. The modern porn industry is at a place that seems to be increasingly violent - with spitting and choking being the moves du jour.

This is where the degradation part comes in. The theory is that we see things as being degrading if we, when we imagine OURSELVES being in that position the thought is one that would make us feel less about ourselves. Of course this idea of what's personally degrading has changed over time. It was degrading to be a stripper long before it was empowering. Blow jobs on film once made you persona non-grata with Hollywood now you're no-one until you have a sex tape (Paris, Kim, Pam *2, Nicole, Colin, Meg...) and having a sex tape isn't going to keep you out of the teen magazines. And so it goes on. Where people draw the line on what's acceptable comes down to a couple of things... familiarity, social acceptability and access.

The internet has brought about access and familiarity. Look up a sex act, any sex act, and you're going to find 100s of matches. It's hard to be a pervert when there's a vast machine amalgamating every whim and quirk out there. So it's easy to think "well everyone is doing it"... and because access is a click away it feels a lot more socially acceptable too ---> porn isn't something that you have to seek out in cinemas, along top shelves and in dodgy back rooms behind slash curtains anymore, it doesn't come in a brown paper bag. No porn stopped being something that you whispered about when it moved from being something you had to look for to something that you had to block if you didn't want to see it. The modern world is made of bits, and most of those bits are given over to reproducing 'the bits you didn't used to see'

So okay porn is everywhere and what's acceptable is changing as technology brings visibility. But why is it increasingly about demeaning women? And why do women agree to be demeaned so?

Good questions blog readers. And again I think that the answer is two-fold (maybe more, we'll see)

The first is a simple one. There's no shortage of young women looking for easy stardom in the porn business. There's money to be made and ever since Jenna crossed over there's the chance of real fame and perhaps and actual fortune. So for young women the industry holds opportunity. Or they think that it does. The problem is that to become breakout means being stand-out --- and standing out in a world where physical attributes can now be copied, cloned and siliconed means finding a niche and owning it.

So to stand out you've got to do something that the other girls won't. Which means more girls prepared to do more and more stuff. And to get more extreme in order to do it.

Then you've got to be able to live with yourself. You do this by detaching from the fact that you're doing things purely for fame or for money and you start to believe that what you're doing is pushing the boundaries. That you are the avant-garde. And of course you can point to how far people have come in 30 years as evidence that you're not being violated - you're leading the charge into a brave new world. 30 years ago a handful of girls would do anal, dp etc. now a handful won't. So your deciding to ram a swan up your ass whilst taking out your own appendix isn't a desperate cry for attention... it's a political and artistic statement.

When you get to this stage you can actually do things that the world may look at and say 'that's degrading' and not feel degraded in the slightest. A tough argument for the feminist politic to handle. That their outrage is nothing more than a generational gap and a refusal to move with what's acceptable.

This socio-political, avant-garde, anything for attention, perversion as an artistic statement porn movement has a face too. That of Sasha Grey. Gray is smart (The name "Sasha" was taken from Sascha Konietzko of the band KMFDM, and "Grey" represents Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and the Kinsey scale of sexuality), she's happy to do things that others would baulk at - and she's turned this full on hypersexuality into a career that's seen her become a model, a singer and now a legitimate actress in Steven (Ocean's 11) Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience.

I've no idea what prompted this. Maybe it's that I'm thinking about what I want to shoot for 'The Dirty Show' or maybe it's just a look at how we each justify bravery (or self abuse)... I'll stop

yes, but are you happy?

Right now I'm loving Montreal. Only the lurking brutality of winter is clouding my view of what otherwise seems to me a perfect city. For example yesterday I got up and did a couple of hours of work before breakfast. This paid me as much as I'd have made for a day's work in previous lives.

Safe in the knowledge that I had earned a crust I toasted some bread bought from the market and then headed to the gym, where I broke a sweat and shed some pounds. From there it's a 25 mile drive down to the beach, where I shed all of my clothes in the company of around 300 likeminded people and get about reading the first installment of Michael Palin's diaries (see pic above, if only my camera phone hadn't lost its zoom function when I accidentally threw it to the ground).

Five hours later I drove home, in traffic that was incredibly light, made myself a pizza with more fresh local ingredients and wandered down to the subway station to meet a model who I was due to shoot. He was charming and good fun and very willing to work with some of the ideas that I had and I think that we got some good stuff out of the day



And the whole day the sun shone, the dog was looked after (for C$14!) and people were sweet and charming to me.

What's not to love? Now about that winter...

The perfect Montreal day

Today may have been the perfect Montreal day for me (albeit one that I spent alone)

It started, as all of my good days do with me stepping on my ambitiously named 'thinner' brand scales and seeing that my weight was down again. I'm now a full 13lbs (6kgs) lighter than I was when I got here and getting dangerously close to being Singapore weight, with some added muscle.

Delighted I took the dog out into the brilliant sunshine, a perfect 27c and just enough breeze to keep it feeling fresh and we walked along the canal for an hour before turning back for home, stopping only for fresh bread at the market.

Called Jude, who was enjoying the mountain air and felt a surge of 'gotta get me some of that' - as I did I passed a store that was advertising a workout / yoga / hiking weekend in the countryside just outside of the city. Called them and will be hiking, swimming, doing yoga, taking a bootcamp class and BBQing in 3 weeks. Perfect.

After breakfast I headed out in search of a haircut and a massage. We live in a gentrified block so it was those places that I tried first, no luck. Each place sighed sadly and then took great delight in showing me their appointment books, full to burst into the next millennial and then pointed me in the direction of someone equally busy and chi-chi. En route I chanced upon Jerry's and looking through the window spied an extra seat. I walked in and hi-fives were exchanged all around. It seems that Jerry's attracts a lot of white faces at the window, but that when people look in and see three young black guys with clippers they run a mile. I was the first white customer in 3 months and they loved it. We buzzed off the hair, sculpted the beard and did something a little Cary Grant with the moustache. I look different, but actually pretty cool.

Home to search the Internet for massage and turned down by all until I get to Miami. I call, they have a spot. I walk down, it's three blocks from the house and am offered the menu - Thai, Shiatsu, Hot Stone ($15 more), Hand job, Blow Job....

"Just a sec" I say. "I just want a massage. Is that okay? Or am I in the wrong place?"

"Up to you" says the small Asian woman who moments ago looked like a grandma but now has all of the markings of a mamasan.

"You pay me $20 for hand-job now, or you negotiate with girl and it cost more"

Too embarrassed to leave (I get very English when faced with having to offend) I walk into the small room, note the bucket full of used tissues and await my fate. In walks a girl dressed for a cocktail party/

"I only want a massage" I say

"Really? she says

"Yes I say, I'm having back problems" - I point at my back with my ring finger

"Well I make all of my money on services" she says "how about you pay me $15 for no-hand job"

I agree and her face lights up. She's from Indonesia, is learning German and Arabic, has an Aunt in Berlin and loves Bali. Freed from the idea of having to blow me she's all smiles and genuine massage expertise. I like her.

Of course only I would have to pay to get no action in a brothel.

From the massage to Dr Sketchy's - held in a dark bar away from the sunlight, but with a bikini beach theme. Mad but fun.

Back out into the street and the people are universally gorgeous. The women have decided that bags are out and that tits are in and almost to a woman have used a push up bra to create enough cleavage to act as a holster for a cell phone. They're everywhere and one wonders whether they're on vibrate.

The men are equally gorgeous. The big gay festival (well one of them) is in full swing and so the skin is uniformly olive, the arms buff and the v-neck t-shirts tight and complementing equally tightly cropped hair.

I decide to walk. Down through parks and little pedestrianised enclaves where 100s mill, eating and drinking Rose. Then down onto St Laurent and all of the fashion and boutiques. Until I come to Cinema L'amour - the biggest sex cinema in North America. I take a few shots and then a few more of the lobby. The girl behind the desk suggests I come back between shows as the theater is gorgeous and could be photographed then, but that right now they have people in and they're having sex. And here I was thinking that the sex was all on screen. This time I made my excuses and bolted.

Back home by 6.30 and realize that I've not eaten today. All of the walking has pretty much taken me past restaurants but somehow I didn't feel the urge. So here I am, contemplating what to put on my home made pizza, with the sun shining and the temperature still steady at 27c. The dog as been out and in an hour I leave to photograph a giant outdoor drag queen party... before skipping over to Parc Jean Drapeau for the fireworks and an open-air Coldplay gig.

It's been a very different day, but I finally feel like a local. Hey I almost joined my taxi-driver as he cat-called and wolf-whistled every woman he saw on the street - ruefully lamenting "And today, of all days, I am working"