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Notes -
I think this focus on (the possibility of) self-inserting while reading literature, the idea that literature primarily exists to represent pleasant states of affairs, is misguided. It ignores whole genres that represent states of affairs that no one would want to experience: horror, true crime, surrealism, etc. It also ignores wide swaths of poetry and other types of non-representational writing. What would it mean to self-insert while reading Pound's Cantos or Eliot's The Waste Land?
I wouldn't phrase it in these terms, but I would suggest a concept of general aesthetic experience that goes beyond mere self-inserting or mere delight in mimesis. And I contend that this sort of general aesthetic experience can be applied to at least some works of pornography as well. Some porn is wildly imaginative (mainly in the sphere of written erotica, indie comics, and the like - not your average studio production) and shares the sorts of salutary properties and features that you find in other quality works of art.
Those miserable genres of media are known as Misery Porn. The reader wants to experience something about those cases (the desirability of the victim?) and can experience those thrills second hand, through the victim getting fucked by the world, much like a cuck watching someone experience what he is too insecure to experience himself. Hmm it's a stretch.
The boundary between art and porn is going to be complicated because neither concept is well defined. My view is that a few things are true:
there is porn (explicit video) that has artistic aesthetic value alongside the titillation. (eg through camerawork)
there is an art of making porn: where various representations of titillation are practiced.
there is a porn-like nature to all art: where it is trying to invoke a feeling in you without involving you in reality.
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