The Real Dope on Osama Bin Laden's Porn Stash

Many people have written me to ask what I think of Ben Laden's porn stash.

I'll tell you what would be a real surprise:

"NO Porn Found at Scene of Crime! NONE!

"NO Porn found in barracks!

"NO porn found at home of powerful despot!"

Send me into any dwelling in the world and I will emerge a few minutes later with objects of sexual fascination from the inhabitants' stash, be they books, drawings, movies, sketches.

There is no such thing as scouring through the bunk of a human inhabitant and NOT finding their sexual yearnings, taboos, and dreams.

Was Bin Laden a hypocrite, defying his pious claims? Why yes! -- along with every other religious fanatic in the world, he was two-faced. You don't need a leak from the Pentagon to find that out. He belongs to the same esteemed club as Protestant televangelists, Mormon missionary crusaders, Hindu fundamentalists -- all wanking away as they condemn the rest of the earth.

There is not a single organized religion in the world that is not full of shit when it comes to sex. Do you need an unverified Reuters' press release to tell you that?

As a critic and connoisseur of sexual representation on film (which I believe is what "porn" refers to in this media blitz), I do have aesthetic interests in the disclosure, were it to contain any relevant detail. If I was given titles, directors, genres, clips, etc, from the Osama porn library, I would analyze it.

I doubt that will be forthcoming, because this is all a publicity stunt.

I can, however, make qualified speculations. As Andrea Dworkin, Carl Jung, and myself have pointed out many times, one's most coveted "secret material" is sure to portray the subject's most unspeakable tragedies and regrets, their historical legacy. Sexual fantasies are the lemonade we make out of the most bitter fruit.

Osama, a baby boomer, came from an aristocratic, inheritance-based, father-tyrant family, defined by 19th century colonialism and its discontents. His porn stash might include fetishization of "poor hot trash," incest, mondo-homosexuality, Victorian-era British S/M, male submission, pegging, female dominants, and the ever popular "she-male action." Am I getting close?

I'm afraid we're not going to see the true catalog of the Bin Laden secret museum. This boffo press release was designed to shame Osama in the eyes of his followers, people who grew up without his wealth, entitlement, or classical education. They're turned on, too... by other things.

Susie Bright is the author of Big Sex Little Death.

 

 

 

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Comments

[Nina Trimbath]

11:20 AM on 05/22/2011

First of all, we do not know what kind of Pornography was found at the Bin Laden compound but let us assume it was the "Macho" porn made for and by men with out reference to the sexuality (according to Kinsey) of most women. Now comparing Pornography and all "bjects of sexual fascination from the inhabitants' stash, be they books, drawings, movies, sketches" is ridiculous and a fallacy in logic for sure. I appreciate pointing out the obvious publicity stunt and defamation factor, but it should really bother everyone to read universal statements, especially about a subject that is hotly contested.

[Bob Cloninger]

10:33 PM on 05/16/2011

Churches (and apparently Mosques) have always been reform schools for sinners; not warehouses for saints. Hypocrisy is part of the human condition, something we all have in common, albeit one of our less attractive traits.

Are you surprised that Bin Laden was, in the end, human? All our enemies and heroes have feet of clay, and while exposing their particular sins may entertain us, it only proves what we should have already known.

[James Newmark]

08:09 PM on 05/16/2011

Is any of you a smoker who can't quit? Probably. Do you know it's bad for you? YES. Do you want your children or loved ones to also be a smoker? I assume NO. That's exactly how religion and porn is. You like to shout "hypocrit!" any chance you've got, but the thing is, religious people don't have to be role models. God is the role model, and he made the rules. If you care about someone and you try to get him not to make the same mistakes you made, you're not a hypocrite. If you preach God's rules, that's great; if you don't actually follow them, that's you personal problem. It doesn't mean that God doesn't exist or that the rules are fake. If you Iike watching porn it doesn't mean you shouldn't tell others that porn is not good for them. I don't understand why it's so difficult for some people to understand that.

[RodrigoBivar]

08:02 PM on 05/16/2011

Why Ms. Bright, how dare you infer that a respectable gentleman such as myself has a "porn stash". I am highly offended! In fact, I'm so offended that I am leaving this website to cruise for "more interesting" websites....

[amesgilbert]

07:41 PM on 05/16/2011

All this may be true, but you should also consider the fact that images (especially when they are, as you say, so universally distributed) are quite a good way to send coded information from one place to another. A program that changes pixels subtly to incorporate messages very difficult to pick up without powerful computer analysis is not that hard to write if one can't find one ready to go. A mild example is the 'watermarking' that is available to Photoshop users to establish ownership of their images; one goes on from there. So, I personally surmise that was the central purpose of the collection of images. Other uses might have been 'icing on the cake'.

[HedCase]

11:51 AM on 05/17/2011

perhaps. but considering that he had been holed up 24/7 for half a decade, i personally surmise that material served far more prosaic purposes

[HedCase]

04:14 PM on 05/16/2011

i can see why you get the big bucks—and continue to be one of my favorite authors. your observations are spot on—you know men well :)

[C Margery Kempe]

03:51 PM on 05/16/2011

"Sexual fantasies are the lemonade we make out of the most bitter fruit." Just brilliant! I think a lot people are drawing the same conclusion about these revelations, but that's a terrific observation about the nature of our fantasies.