In June of this year, the citizens of Seattle’s sister city Reykjavik, tired of their government’s lackluster response to Iceland’s economic collapse, elected a comedian named Jon Gnarr as their mayor. Gnarr was the head of a new political party, The Best Party, that ran on a joke platform whose only serious plank involved acquiring a polar bear for the Reykjavik Zoo.
Last week, in an interview with foreign press, Gnarr commented that he used his computer for “mostly porn.” The outrage was swift and brutal: A city council representative named Sóley Tómasdóttir led the charge, saying, “Jokes like this don’t do anything but normalize porn. Humor is a powerful weapon, as Jón knows well.” Reykjavik has a human rights platform that pledges to “work against the spread of pornography.”
Hrannar Björn Arnarsson, assistant to the Prime Minister, agrees with Sóley, as does Björk Vilhelmsdóttir, chairman of the city social welfare committee. “Porn is violence,” she writes on her Facebook page. “Don’t understand why the mayor was saying this, seeing how he’s a sincere spokesman against violence.”
Gnarr’s response was at least delightfully self-deprecating:
“I was kidding. I find [porn] tragic. It’s a loveless world and unattractive. This is sex without love.”
“Icelandic politics is at such a low plane that an inappropriate man can become mayor,” he continued. “Politics is in many ways an act, and I haven’t learned all the rules yet. But I’m getting it.”
If you were planning on relocating your porn business to Iceland, you should probably reconsider.
“Porn is violence” is a phrase that makes about as much sense as “food is murder”. I understand what they’re trying to say, but they paint with such a broad brush that it comes out sounding inane.
nice
“Porn is violence” says a person whose surname invokes being a daughter of a certain man. Yes, yes, down with patriarchy….I think Jennifer Abel’s commentary on the banning of strip clubs in Iceland is pertinent.
That entire story is astoundingly bizarre.
fucking ginger.
Being male in Iceland is a terrible condition.
And you say their economy collapsed? Go figure.
There are still those “island” data nations off the UK shore to consider, that used to be oil wells.
Their economy wasn’t great before, but it really went to shit when the large military bases we had there closed a few years back.
Does Iceporn only star frigid womyn?
Actually, most of my Icelandic women friends are very hot, @10.
I feel so conflicted by porn. On one level, I’ve enjoyed it in the past on many occasions. On another, every now and then you run across some that is nothing short of sad, very sad.
Look, if you’re the kind of person who enjoys (and makes some dough) fucking before a camera and enjoys having other people watch it, or if you’re a person who enjoys watching that kind of porn, I’ll fight to the death for your right…etc. But when you run across the type that looks like maybe it was compelled, or the type where the participants clearly aren’t enjoying it (because maybe they’re too hungry to enjoy it), well…is there a bigger turn-off?
Can there be a former type without the latter type? I dunno.
Sometimes I think Iceland must be very cool, and at other times I think it must be pretty darn boring.
He has the best tavern on the Ave.
Sounds like a bunch of papist morons.
I should point out a lot of Icelandic movies are fairly … explicit. Nudity, sex, various things that Americans would be shocked at.
So it depends on your definitions.
Yeah…but did he get the polar bear for the zoo yet?
@9 when they closed the base, it didnt have that much impact on the economy
Enlightened peoples, even liberal Scandinavians, recognize that porn is destructive.
18 dyou have to bring satan into this?
@18: Tell that to the incredibly successful porn actresses that regularly defend the industry. They will leave your logic in tatters.
The Nordic nations seem like such a strange mix of enlightenment (nationalized medicine, low economic inequality) and mind-numbing joylessness. I’d be healthy and safe there, right up until the day I finally killed myself.
@20,
Aren’t the majority of people who perform in porn not successful? It’s a lot easier to defend something when it makes you rich.
@21,
I can’t speak to Iceland, but I’m half Danish, and it doesn’t take much more than good food, drink, and friends to make Danes content, no matter what that asshole Lars von Trier might claim. And all the Scandinavians (Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes) I’ve ever known were way less uptight and inhibited about nudity and sex than Americans.
[marking him for further “research”]
this guy makes me want to run for congress to replace mcdermott.
20
Tell it to the millions in relationships destroyed by porn.
We realize Dan assigns zero value to those people’s feelings nevertheless the damage is real and massive.
Or the tens of thousands of people exploited and abused by the industry. For every porn actress who got rich there are thousands who just wound up with stds and drug addictions.
Well, #25, I don’t know about the holocaust of relationships that porn has allegedly caused. Back in the 80’s and 90’s when women were generally indoctrinated by anti-porn feminist crap, I found it prudent to hide any porn from my girlfriends, but occasional discoveries of stashes did not destroy my relationships. Now in more enlightened times, my wife (former womens’ studies major that she is) and I have a healthy sex life that includes porn, viewed both as a couple and by each of us alone.
But it does surprise me that a Scandinavian country is so backwards. Scandinavians are generally a lot less uptight about sex than Americans. But it seems that Iceland has not evolved politically past the Catherine McKinnon stage.
As for #1, the statement “food is murder” is a lot MORE accurate (as the bumper sticker goes, tasty, tasty murder) than the statement “porn is violence.” You could just as well say “exercise is fascism” or “gardening is slavery.”
@25 you’re a little out of date. nowadays the majority of porn is being created at home by individuals and people in relationships. porn itself is not a problem. there may be circumstances in porn that are unfortunate, but that is the same in any part of life involving money. you are just afraid of boobies and penises and vaginas. and are generally just afraid, superstitious, and possibly paranoid.
@26 – genius.
“exercise is fascism”
ive never heard it stated so succinctly.