Redefining a very naughty word

OK, OK, so 'porn' isn't really a naughty word. But it implies a guilty pleasure, a seedy kind of gratification.

Zombots has an interesting look at the phrase 'torture porn' and whether it can reasonably be applied to films such as 'Hostel' and 'Saw' given as the phrase implies torture used as a way of sexually exciting the viewer. This is apparently not true of most of the 'torture porn' genre - I wouldn't know because I am a wuss and get freaked out by extreme violence in films, and therefore have never watched 'Hostel' (ugh...blowtorch) or 'Saw' (I could probably handle the kinds of violence in the first film, but don't fancy trying). In fact, one could argue that the implied meaning of the phrase is shown more literally in a recent episode of 'Supernatural' (6.10, 'Caged Heat') in which a woman (OK, possessed by a demon, but we've established that demons have to use human bodies and our attention is drawn to it constantly through the episode) is tortured while strapped to a medical bed through her...um...yeah, 'Supernatural' doesn't show that much stuff, but it sure implies it. Sexual jokes are made and she's all naked (though covered by straps where it counts). Torture + naked chick + sex jokes = at least closer to 'torture porn' than 'Saw'.

The writer of the above article mentions that Cyraique Lamar redefined porn as a kind of shallow, two-dimensional representation of a real experience. I'd actually go further - I'd say that the word porn does not necessarily have to imply sexuality but instead excess and guilty pleasure. You can say 'foodporn' or 'visual porn' to imply excessively enjoyable and luxurious food or beautiful sights or filming deliberately designed to make the viewer revel in the sensual stimulation of a shot. It implies a hedonistic indulgence of sense, senses or experience that has associations of violating society's restrained niceties.

So, to come back to the writer's point, 'torture porn' could therefore mean an excessive indulgence in torturous violence for its own sake, which is the same conclusion reached at the end of the article, but the writer sees that as a defining point of difference in the nature of the movies and the phrase used to describe them. The term 'porn' is assumed to be sexual in nature due to its associations, but I think that's an outdated use. It is pejorative in some circles, sure, but that's mainly to do with the context. So, yeah, some people get annoyed about 'torture porn', but you'd be unlikely to find people getting annoyed about 'foodporn'. Redefine your terms, ladies and gentlemen.