Bring Me The Wife Of...

"Some people go crazy with porn. Why, I do not know. Perhaps it's some shame born hundreds of years ago, when the body was much uglier..." - Patrick Alcatraz

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - It's been a few weeks since the local Internet waves were rid of cheap pornography, leading the populace to rejoice and return to the pages of their ragged Bibles, to the comfort of the words that say it is not good to covet the neighbor's wife, gamble, or play with yourself. Of course, the local citizenry still does its life impulse, their adulterous adventures as much a part of the region's culture as is breathing.

So, why the angst over a few photos of naked men and women? Why was the once-popular blog El Rocinante damned from wall-to-wall here? Why did it cause consternation from top to bottom in a town so needy of reality? Sex is there, and sex is good, no?

The photograph shown above this story is about the work of New York Artist John Currin. He has his own ideas about why the naked human body, of the female especially, brings such disdain. He explains the photo this way: "this completely archaic pose, like the three witches or something. I think of them as Danish, because of the thinning blond hair and the gaps between the teeth. They’re not pretty enough to be Swedes. Oh, and I want to do a still-life down there in the lower right corner. I don’t really know where this picture is going yet, but I think it’s going to work."

Simple and non-offending comments, it would seem. No reason to go nuts over an artistic display of breasts and crotch. Just a lovely representation of women, is what I would say. They do shop and play with themselves. That, we all know by now. So, what's the big deal?

No further explanation of why El Rocinante, edited by our ally Jerry McHale, went the way of the 25-cent taco earlier this year. It was here one day, and then it wasn't. Gone were the excitable female nudes, the provocative sexual poses, the clear idea that, yes, Maria, sex is making its rounds across this paper doll town and it'll soon be your turn, sweetheart.

McHale, himself, was perhaps too silent about the demise of his porno-laced blog. Today, there is nothing for the hangdog-faced locals, other than the pornography of bad grammar and horrendous thinking in writing that can only be described as amateurish and lacking.

Porno and the border never have been friends.

Resident often choose to damn it and not welcome it. Some say it is the strong connection to the bondage-happy Catholic Church whose doctrine says porno is bad for the soul and accountable in the beyond. Of course, that is the worst of refined bullshit. A life is tempered by such ridiculous dogma, and we also know that when engaged in properly, sex is one wild and fun-filled ride. You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss. Okay, that's from some old song by some sex-starved singer whose name we forget. A leg is just a leg.

Answers rarely come when one poses questions about the border's take on porno. That's really because no one dares ask the question as to why. Is a photo or drawing so against the word of God that it must be stomped-on and burned? Is the body a despicable thing to hide and not exhibit. As one of our old friends here used to say, "Quien sobby?"

We fully believe that El Rocinante should storm back and fill-in that white space on the faded canvas that is this love-starved town of some 140,000 legal and undocumented residents. It's part of the literature of the harsh geography.

And, besides, someone famous once wrote that there can be no literature without sex.

There are those who say Brownsville needs better public servants and better streets and better jobs and better clothing and better educated denizens and better ideas for the future and better men. But, really, it needs better literature.

Says Currin: "Pornography is so associated with photography, and so dependent on the idea that the camera doesn’t intercede between you and the subject. One motive of mine is to see if I could make this clearly debased and unbeautiful thing become beautiful in a painting.”

There you go...

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