KAIST and porn

There's nothing more iconic in the Culture Wars than the rise of porn and the effort to curb the rise of porn (well, other than abortion, prayer in school, acceptance of Muslims by the mainstream, gay marriage, gays in the military, gay-themed television shows, pretty much gays doing anything).

For those who wish to block children from accidentally coming across sexual content when they, say, misspell milk, it's important to screen tens of millions of pictures and videos for boobs, butts, vajayjays, penises, etc., being displayed, inserted, slathered, or otherwise polished.

And according to XBiz Newswire, which is where I go for all my adult entertainment industry news, the good people of KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, the MIT of the ROK), have developed a way to more accurately distinguish porn from non-porn using audio files:

Researchers Hoirin Kim and MungJon Kim created spectograms of audio clips using a radon transform to represent the voice, music and sound effects along a parallel path.

Results proved a clear distinction between porn audio, which is high-pitched, quick changing and repetitive, and that found in other forms of media, including music.

When tested across multiple soundtracks, the Kims achieved a 93 percent success rate and believe they have found a way to increase detection rates and lower false positives.

The Kims noted that by using sound, they avoid the problem of visual porn-identifiers (pornifiers) that can get tricked by any expanse of skin, like closeups of the face or other not-inappropriate body parts.

Boy, that must have been a fun research assignment. I'd love a job where I got paid to analyze porn.

This is what you get when you search for
naked+black+woman+pussy with
SafeSearch on. The system works.

I actually applaud this kind of thing, as I am horrified that my young nieces, nephews, and cousins might encounter something way too adult for their impressionable little eyes, especially as society — especially American but increasingly Korean as well — becomes so inured to seeing porn that we forget about the firewall between private activities and public displays or references (what I call the pornification of America).

Anyway, I wonder what gets caught up in the seven percent failure rate. My guess is YouTube videos of pigs snorting or long distance runners, plus church sermons that include a lot of divine praise ("Oh, God!").

I suppose that the next project for "the Kims" (wasn't that just special?) is trying to identify Korean people in porn so they'll know who to arrest.

Spirit of 76

First there was Too Young To Die, and now this:

For years, a Tokyo grandfather kept a dirty little secret from his family. Longtime travel agent Shigeo Tokuda, who resembles countless older men who ride the Tokyo subway each day, admitted to his wife and daughter that he sometimes performed cameos in small-budget films.

But what this [76-year-old] senior citizen didn't say was that those scenes, often staged in would-be retirement homes, involved getting naked with actresses young enough to be his granddaughter. Since he was "discovered" in 1996, Tokuda has emerged as a major player in Japan's emerging adult movie genre known as "elder porn." He says he has appeared in more than 350 films such as "Prohibited Nursing" and "Maniac Training of Lolitas." In these scripts, Tokuda always gets the girl.

The films play upon well-documented Japanese male fantasies. In each, Tokuda plays a gray-haired master of sex who teaches his ways to an assortment of young nurses and secretaries. Whips and sex aides often factor in the plotlines.

"I'm a role model for a lot of men," he says. "I do my best."

Gotta love the Japanese work ethic.

The week in video

They say bad news comes in threes, and it may be true for bad videos. (I would warn you that some of this stuff may be NSFW, but the fact is, I have no idea if this is okay where you work. Maybe your boss likes this kind of thing and you having it on your monitor will make you more popular and more likely to get that promotion. So in lieu of "NSFW," I will offer the Kushibo Warning: One of the links contains video of a pop star practically falling out of her top while chasing a muppet, but it's up to you to decide if that's something you are able to view at work. I ain't your mommy or your nanny.)

Okay. Now that Legal is happy, let's begin [kushibo turns on echo voice effect] The Week in Video!

First there's the apparently fake GI who pounded a drunk ajŏshi harabŏji in the face.



Oh, my. Apparently, as best as objective sources could piece together JJ, the Otis of Itaewon, accidentally hit Fake GI with a pool stick and Fake GI got irate and it went outside where JJ refused to apologize (he's an old guy, and this is Korea, where things are still Confucianist to a high degree) and that just made Fake GI even more irate, to the point that he punched the decrepit old man in the head a couple times.

He then followed this with a tirade about how, "I fought in Iraq for six years to put up with your bullshit... I killed more men than you ever met." And while that looks bad for the GI community, a lot of people were quick to point out this guy was not a GI. So what gives about some jackass running around punching people and claiming some Iraq War bravado? A pre-emptive and impromptu PTSD defense just in case the cops do come and arrest your ass?

And they did. But here's the thing, JJ didn't press charges. He pulled a Reginald Denny: he got his apology and that was it. And yeah, as mucked up as that may be, that's the way it works in Korea (and yes, it even works for foreigners).

I, for one, agree with The Marmot.

Even if he should have apologized, and granting — judged from everything I’ve read or heard — that the old guy seems to be rather well-known in Itaewon, there’s no excuse for what I saw on that video. And to be frank, I live in Itaewon, and don’t want someone like that roaming the streets.

Exactly. I don't care if the old guy didn't press charges against this punk: This hot head is a danger to the community and he ought to have to pay a fine if not get jail time. Heck, I wouldn't shed a tear if the guy got deported. The guy needs something to teach him a lesson; he can't just get away with it.

In fact, this really underscores a problem with crime and punishment in Korea today: While the effort by the cops to get wrongdoers to apologize and make amends (often financially) to the wronged party, this also serves to allow violent offenders to get off scot-free. It may work fine with traffic accidents, but apply this to child molestation, sexual assault, physical assault such as this, and you could have a serial offender basically never seeing the inside of a courtroom or jail where he (or she) belongs.

And what's the deal with everyone standing around watching this happen? (Well, not everyone.)

And on to our next vid, there's the rude girl who "yelled" in panmal to an elderly woman after being scolded by her a few too many times, only to have the nana go Rambo on her ass in a crowded subway.




If you have trouble viewing that, go to Roboseyo's for the YouTube version, which has the audio off from the video, making it all the more bewildering.

Now this halmŏni opening a can of whup-ass has opened a can of worms as well. In still-Confucian society, just how Confucian are we? Can the elderly get away with anything simply because of their age-based position? What is the appropriate response for the egregious offense of speaking to an elderly person in panmal? (The Korean thinks a slap to the face is not inappropriate, and I'm not so sure I disagree, though what we see in the video is clearly crossing the line.)

[As a side note, I think it's interesting that Darth Babaganoosh has actually encountered this halmŏni, to the point that she may be something of a fixture. Kinda cool that even in a city of 10 million souls, it's "small town" enough that we can have our resident Otis the Drunk and That Old Bat on the Subway.]

And what's the deal with everyone standing around watching this happen? (Well, not everyone.)

This video went viral and everyone was talking about it, but just when you thought there would be a national discussion on these very topics, along comes Evil English Teacher of the Month. That's right, water cooler talk cha•p'an•gi coffee machine discussion about the subway struggle may have been displaced by news of the English teacher — an English instructor for preschoolers — who was apparently taping himself having sex with various Korean women he went out with, which he then tried to sell as porn. Or something like that.

Oh, my. Did I mention he was Black? Well, it's not important to me, because any English teacher doing something like that would bring a lot of unwanted attention on the English-teaching community, but some of the Korean media did mention his race (흑퀸시). Well, I guess they sorta had to since "Black" was in his porn name, Quincy Black. Kushibo's porn name, by the way, is Panther Artesia.

I wait in anticipation for Metropolitician to brush this off as merely a young man just making home videos of his time in Korea.

All right, time to finish this on a less oh-fu¢k-we're-s¢rewed note, so the last video is Katy Perry's famous appearance non-appearance on Sesame Street.

Or should we say Sexame Street? Oh, that's not very original. How about Sees-all-o'-me Street? Anyway, this was spoofed on Saturday Night Live by Ms Perry herself.

Oh, my. I'll bet the producers of Sesame Street were shocked... shocked!... that someone as wholesome as Katy Perry, a pastor's daughter and former gospel singer, would attract so much controversy.

That's not the pornification of America at all.

UPDATE:
In light of the Quincy Black story, this is as good a time as any to recap for readers how to label their homemade videos, and remind them that the only safe way to avoid your nekkid body ending up online is by having sex just with the Amish.

The pornification of Korea

We already have the pornification of America, but the pornification of Korea (YouTube video at 3:00) is well underway. (See The Grand Narrative for further examples; no specific post, just the blog in general.)

Geez, I'm not that old and I remember when Korean TV networks wouldn't even show people kissing.

"Whopper Virgins": Offensive on so many levels

You know, Fox turned into a hardcore sex channel 

so gradually, I didn't even notice. Yeesh!

— Marge Simpson, "Lisa's Wedding"

In pop sociology there is a term called "McDonaldization," referring to the trend toward homogeneity and sameness brought about by factors such as globalization, mass production, or even cultural hegemony. Hey, cut that out! I can hear your eyes rolling!

The thing is, you don't need a McDonald's to have McDonaldization. It can be brought about by other global corporations, like Coke™ and Pepsi™, General Motors and Toyota, Apple™ and Microsoft™, or even Burger King.

So I'm noticing on television lately these BK commercials where they go into some remote part of the world where the villagers there have supposedly never ever seen a burger, much less eaten one, and they have those beef patty neophytes do a taste test between a McDonald's Big Mac™ and a BK Whopper™. 

The neophytes are called "Whopper virgins," which is also the name of the website to which the viewer is directed. If you go there, you are shown a Discovery Channel-style documentary showing how they ran the taste test (objectively, apparently, since some of the "virgins" chose the Big Mac over the Whopper or they had no preference; the majority of those with a preference chose the Whopper. Surprise! D'uh).

Above is a Mickey D's in Thailand, which is close to a Burger King. They brought the villagers to a taste test site that was within fifteen minutes of both a McDonald's and a Burger King so the burgers would be fresh. (I like how Ronald McDonald is doing a Thai greeting... that's "localization of globalization," kiddies!)

The villagers featured in the commercial (from which these scenes were captured with EyeTV) are all from a remote Thai village, but the faux National Geographic special shows the same effort in Romania and in Greenland. 

Frankly, I am troubled by this. First, it's bad enough that American corporate hegemony has eroded the cultural and dietary practices of people all over the globe, but do we really need to find some of the last no-burger holdouts and force them to participate in a corporate-sponsored taste test designed to boost consumerism among a largely overweight customer base back home? [Burger King, I hate you for making me sound like a freakin' leftist!]

I mean, do we really need to contaminate the palate of the few that are left who have never let a bleached flour bun cross their lips? Sure, there's something to be said for trying new things. I'm a resident of Seoul, where gutsy visitors try to steel themselves to try kaegogi [also gaegogi; 개고기, dog meat] or pŏndegi [beondegi; 번데기, silkworm larvae, a favorite of kids for God only knows what reason], but with hegemonic fast-food it's not the same.

I mean, it's not like pŏndegi is taking over the world. It's not like Big Beondegi is producing silkworm larvae en masse with hormones and excessive antibiotics all the while polluting the local water supply with manure runoff (or are they?) and you consuming one is just one more nail in the coffin of some ecosystem somewhere. 

I love me a good burger. I'm thankful to be living in a place where I can go to Carl's Jr anytime I want, and I don't mind getting a double cheeseburger every now and then. But do we need to push it on the locals in Thailand, Romania, and Greenland? Sheesh.

Now, call me a prude, but I'm also not terribly happy with their word choice. I realize "virgin" lately been used in place of words like neophyte, novice, rookie, or even newbie, but I see this as creative laziness. By using a word that clearly has a meaning intrinsically related to sexual activity, they're subliminally trying to give their campaign a bit of an edge.

"Whopper Newbies." Couldn't they have gone for cute over edgy? Sheesh. [Anyone back in Korea able to tell me if there is a similar advertising campaign going on over there and, if so, what term they're using in lieu of "Whopper virgins"?]

This is part of a disturbing trend of pornification of mainstream culture. Raise your hand if you heard Alaska Governor Sarah Palin referred to as a "M.I.L.F." Now, when did you first hear that term? Better yet, where did you first hear it? I first encountered it in porn spam. Then I noticed people were starting to use it in everyday conversation. 

Okay, fine. We're adults. But then I started hearing people use it in conversation in front of children. In other words, it has become so engrained in our heads that we easily forget (temporarily) that it means "Mothers I'd like to fuck." (I'm assuming cyber nannies are blocking kids from reading this blog due to the profanity; if so, kudos on their mom and dad for their mad parenting skills.)

Mothers I'd like to fuck... said in code in front of kids. Sheesh. 

BK's contribution is to introduce the term "Whopper virgins" on cartoons watched by millions of kids (these stills were lifted from a recording of The Simpsons). Great. I don't have any kids of my own yet, but I have nephews and nieces and young cousins from infants to very early teens. Their parents fear letting them have email addresses in part because of unsolicited spam mail talking about MILFs and links to "Nailin' Palin" or bukkake or all kinds of other crap that I'd never heard of just a few years ago (nor cared to see). 

It's pervasive. On the radio here in Honolulu, 101.9 was telling listeners in evening drive-time to go to their website to see "Nailin' Palin" pictures. Drive-time is when some parents might actually be taking their kids somewhere. Good way to show corporate responsibility, Star 101.9. 

BK is a willing player in all this. They have chosen to further perpetuate this pornification of culture solely for the purpose of making a profit. It's just too much. Burger King, you've lost a customer. [And I hate you for making me sound like a leftist prude.]

UPDATE: 

More weird or borderline offensiveness from Burger King. How about a paper placemat depicting a de-pantsed onion about to get probed very uncomfortably. 

Or an ad (frankly, I have no idea where this one is from) depicting the Burger KreepKing obviously trying to prove he's a red-blooded male, after some obvious questioning (including this disturbing parody):