The Grand Tetons and the Grand Canyon, both stereotyped objects of idealized, romanticized desire in our cultural psyche, are in fact living environments more vital than any single human being. The glamorization of these particular protrusions and cleavages, primarily by landscape photographers, into erogenous zones of our collective imagination has damaged both them and us. They have been damaged by our cumulative attention. We make pilgrimage to the objects we have admired on calendars and trample the habitats of other species or exterminate them for their inconvenience to our viewing pleasure. In the process, our perceptions have been blunted and perverted, just like those of the readers of Playboy.
Knighton, Jose. “Ecoporn and the Manipulation of Desire.” 169.
