I’ll the first to admit that Permanent Obscurity steals from both tabloid sleaze and sexploitation. But since the central plot involves the making of a fetishy “dirty” movie—I’ll say it tips more heavily toward sexploitation.

So, what is sexploitation?

Generally, sexploitation has been associated with bland T&A or softcore movies (and books), which is one side of it.

The other side of sexploitation is dark.

That form of sexploitation, taking its cue (as the name suggests) from more feral subcurrents, is devious and subversive. It’s primal. Even cruel.

I associate this form of sexploitation with filmmakers and writers who use gratuitous (and “deviant”) sexuality in ways that challenge audiences and defy the norm. That’s right, fuck the squares. This makes them—these books and films—art, in my opinion. Not just decorative “product,” existing as audience pleasers.

To quote William S. Burroughs: “Any honest account of human experience must be shocking. For it is the function of art to make the reader or viewer aware of what he knows and in most cases doesn’t know that he knows and doesn’t want to know.”

So, let’s just say that a function of art is to jolt the audience out of its “comfortably numb” state.

Like the best performance art, these works exist to make you uncomfortable or uneasy. As a member of the audience, it drags you in as a participant, an accomplice—so, yes, indulging in this fare implies in part that you are a deviant. A sinner. A perv.

Welcome to the human race.