Porn vs. Science Fiction

The author of “The Pornographic Imagination” made some really thought provoking comparisons between pornography and science fiction that would have never crossed my mind without his guidance. If a viable comparison between the two genres was discussed in conversation, without the help of “The Pornographic Imagination,“ I would imagine that most people, myself included, would scoff at the idea. However, after reading this essay, I think it would be difficult for most to refute the interesting similarities between the two.

First off, the author (I have no idea who that may be) points out that both porn and science fiction have a fantastic, surreal quality to them. “The ahistorical dreamlike landscape where action is situated, the peculiarly congealed time in which acts are performed- these occur almost as often in science fiction as they do in pornography…The fact that the site of the narrative is an ideal topos disqualifies neither pornography nor science fiction from being literature.” I’m not a huge reader of science fiction, but I have read a few sci-fi books and I think this is a very valid comparison. The illusory settings for both genres are just tangible enough to be somewhat real, yet still have a mystical, not- quite- reality sense about them. “Pornography is one of the branches of literature-science fiction is another-aiming at disorientation, at psychic dislocation.” Although we’ve been instructed time after time in this course not to project ourselves into the text with literature, porn and science fiction are two sorts of fiction in which the reader or viewer is supposed to put himself into the equation, making both bizarre fantasy worlds all the more appealing. Neither genre is well revered in the literary world, but this essay has at least inspired me to think a little differently and more deeply about the two overlooked fields.