View From The Side: The Strange Poetry Of Internet Porn Titles

As we know, for better or worse poetry has pretty much died an artistic death in an unmarked grave next to cave painting and jazz. But consider these one­hundred­percent genuine titles of uploaded porn videos I've come across on my shameful travels:

Rutted up her Trickling Grumble

Lusty Hussy Eats the Palatable Stick

A Fingerstink Frig up the Runt

Obnoxious Sexpots with Melted Fur Burgers

and ­ my favourite ­ the equally sexist and esoteric:

Theyoften­said­Seinfeld­was­a­genius­because­he­allowed­the-
other­actors­to­shine­in­the­spotlight­as­well, here­we­see-
Sophia­in­a­supporting­role­as­three­other­actors­get­to-
use­her­like­a­well­designed­prop­on­the­floor­of­a-
therapists­office.

I know, insane but real. And although admittedly mind-numbingly sexist they do have a certain charm. Now who can say poetry is dead? Notice the use of assonance and sibilance in 'lusty hussy' and 'obnoxious sexpots' or the obvious debt to Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll in phrases like 'trickling grumble' and 'fingerstink frig'. Not to mention the sheer giggling joy of them. If nowadays we take the pornification of art for granted, do these titles suggest art is trickling into porn? Will pubic hair soon become an effective canvas for total self­ expression?

Here are a few more:

Category 5 Orgasms can cause Brain Damage

Chanel Loves Teasing A Stiff Skin Flute

Sensually Smashed up her Piddle Flaps

I mean seriously, who's writing these? It would be a damning indictment of the graduate job market if this is what English Lit graduates are doing with their time. Starving hysterical naked typing into laptops all purple prose and purple tips. Or maybe it's the committed amateur, a carnal Coleridge in a Chingford bedsit.

This amateur spirit can be seen in the videos themselves too of course, which (after a quick survey of friends female and male) we all seem to prefer to the pro, despite the fact that they leave some of the participants (in contrast to those misleading professionals) looking a little anatomically short-changed, and also possessing – as Woody Allen would say – a face like Louis Armstrong's voice. Soon we will all be posting the feral shit that goes on in our bedrooms online, willingly or not, and The Fappening was the first instance of my half­baked vision of this terrifying future.

It could be yet another tragic success of the late capitalist era that we consume porn like we do our technology made from Asian suffering, but to be fair our former options don't sound all that appealing. I honestly can't imagine how horrifying it must have been having to rent porn in the pre- internet days. Avoiding the gaze of the video shop guy as he rings up the smut (along with some seminal German Expressionist masterpiece you've added to the pile just to look less despicable) while knowing you'll have to crawl back the next day to return it as he silently judges you.

As it happens, 10% of all photographs ever taken since it's invention in the early nineteenth century have been in the last 12 months. With a similar proliferation of dedicated amateurs, the same might be true of pornography. I for one salute these bestial Byrons because, as Robert Graves said,

"There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money". That's true Bob, but it seems there is in porn…

Words : The Mysterous, Furry Handed S. Wilson