Commercial porno films are made to exploit the misery of the deprived and the perverted at minimal cost, badly shot, worse played by the unhappy actors blackmailed by force or lack of money, dingy, murky, spotty, choppy films, sex without dialogue or soul or body. The effect of such films is a calculated turnoff, throwing the viewer back into himself, isolating us all from each other. Removal of restraints in Denmark produced glossier porn, better lit, better shot, but the flesh was still meaty, lit up all pink like a butcher's shop, and the plots were vestigial, the characters depersonalized. But at least the commercial porno films were aimed at a sexual response, however desolate and specific. The underground films were not even genital: either they celebrated sex in narcissistic and “artistic” ways or they offered a sort of commentary on decadent social mores. The hypocrisy of getting kicks out of the depiction of depraved sex while retaining the right to disapprove of it or satirize it was the worst turnoff of all.

Confrontation is political awareness. What we discovered at the Wet Dream Festival is that we will have to generate enough energy in ourselves to create a pornography which will eradicate the traditional porn by sheer erotic power... We must commission films, make films, write, act, cooperate for life's sake. The battle against sadism and impotence is more desperate than we ever believed. We must begin the struggle within ourselves, carry it into our relationships and beyond that into the political sphere. It is mere hypocrisy to suppose that we are more liberated than others, and sheer Puritanism to feel guilty that we are not...

Greer 1973