While the US government seems content (so far) to allow its citizens to read funny poop stories, it has drawn the line at allowing them watch people poop on each other. Ira Isaacs, a fifty-seven-year-old Los Angeles director, will go on trial next month [1] on a six-count federal obscenity indictment for making films like Laurie's Toilet Show, Mako's First Time Scat, Gang Bang Horse (Pony Sex Game), and Hollywood Scat Amateurs No. 7.
(You don't want to Google those titles.)
But Isaacs isn't pursuing common-sense defenses like First Amendment arguments or the fact that consenting adults should be able to watch other consenting adults poop on whoever and whatever they please. Instead, he's arguing that his work is art, not porn, and thus not subject to decency laws.
"I don't want to say this is porn," Isaacs told Radar Magazine, "I don't think the people watch my stuff to watch sex. They can watch porn for that."
Isaacs elaborates in an interview with Adult Video News [2] (link NSFW): "People don't buy my videos because they want to watch people having sex. Regular porn does that. I need to convince people that mine is serious art."
So he's going to take the stand and argue that Debbie Does Imodium is serious artistic expression. And 2 Girls 1 Cup, as Reverse Cowgirl points out [3], is going to bolster his case -- because (and our own poll supports this point [4]), the people watching it are not looking to get their rocks off. "People are trying to shock themselves, because in today's world, everything is shock on TV. {...} People need a lot to be shocked these days." People watching 2 Girls 1 Cup, he says, aren't seeking sexual gratification. So the gratification they get can only be artistic.
Isaacs' product is packaged like porn, is marketed like porn, and is consumed like porn. Doesn't that make it porn? Six years ago, I asked the same question to Jed Ela, the artist behind ShitBegone toilet paper [5]. "Your {declared artistic} intentions aside," I asked, "you are making and selling a product. You market something that appeals to a niche. To me, that sounds like capitalism. If you consider ShitBegone art, how do you differentiate it from what Proctor and Gamble does?"
Ela's answer convinced me that ShitBegone is art. So because I'm also convinced that Merde d'Artista [6] is art and Fountain [7] is art and Cloaca [8] is art, does that mean that I have to believe Hollywood Scat Amateurs Numbers 1-6 are art as well? I sure hope not. Because that kind of art is gross.
