Porn for porn’s sake

OK, so I know that the title to this piece is VERY interesting, and a lot of you want to know what it means. That’s good! It grabbed your attention. That’s what a title is supposed to do. But before I get into the down and dirty bits, I want to tell you a little bit about my favorite movie.

John Carpenter’s "The Thing" came out in 1982. It follows a group of scientists who are trapped in Antarctica with a parasitic alien life-form that can assimilate and imitate any living thing it touches. When discovered, it mutates into terrifying creatures. One man’s head drops off, sprouts spider legs and tries to crawl away. A stomach tears open to reveal a massive set of jaws, which it promptly uses to bite its victim’s arms off.

The Thing is one of my favorite movie monsters. It’s almost beautiful, in a grotesque way. I love the Thing about as much as a person can love a fictional monster from another world.

I don’t want to have sex with it.

I don’t think that that’s a weird thing to say. In fact, I’m willing to bet that just based on my brief description of the Thing, you don’t want to have sex with it either. Most people probably don’t want to have sex with the Thing. But if I were to log onto my computer right now and google “The Thing Rule 34,” I’d get a response. Not a big response, but a response nonetheless. In fact, let me try it right now. Give me a second…

Five. At my time of writing this, I was able to track down five separate pornographic images of the Thing. That’s five images that people took the time to make, scan and post online. Mr. Spider head that I mentioned earlier is the subject of one of them.

For those of you less familiar with the rules of the internet: Rule 34 states that if something exists, no matter how obscure it may be, you can find a pornographic version of it online. It sounds stupid. It sounds silly. It sounds like a joke. Most of you are probably thinking “Everything in existence? That’s ridiculous!” That’s OK. The internet likes a challenge.

You know Rosebud? The sled from "Citizen Kane" (1941)? Found a pornographic image based on it.

The ducks from the 1984 NES classic game "Duck Hunt?" Found it.

Xbox One, the Microsoft video game console? FOUND IT.

The elements Arsenic and Astatine from the periodic table? FOUN -- you get the idea.

You see, over the last few decades a rather large community of pornographic artists has cropped up online. Some of them make fairly simple stuff, like naughty pencil doodles on loose-leaf paper. Some of them produce playable versions of Super Mario where you hump the goombas instead of stomping them.

Now I’m not one of the artists producing this stuff, so I can’t say with any certainty why they create it. Well, I mean besides the obvious reason that people make porn. Some of this stuff is just meant to arouse people. I’m not going to pretend that there aren’t people who enjoy watching some of my favorite cartoon characters engage in some “non-canon activities” (for the love of GOD don’t google “Renamon” without safe search on).

But I think there’s another level to this. Part of me is reminded of George Mallory's words about his ascent of Mount Everest. They’re not making porn to get people riled up, they’re doing it “because it’s there.”

People make porn for the sake of making porn. It’s almost poetic, in a way. After all, isn't that what art is all about?