I have not really seen a post on Feministing that discusses pornography straight on, porn is usually mentioned tangentially or comes up in the comments.
So I am wondering what the view of porn are here. How it affects men, women, society. Good affects, bad affects, all that stuff.
For dudes, I think porn creates skewed and unrealistic desires. Not really expectations, but desires, if that makes sense. I think most guys know that porn is unrealistic, so I think some of the affects are mitigated if men where more gullible. I think many Feministing readers would disagree, and I am curious to see the response.
In regards to women, if I knew I would not be asking Feministing . I suspect that some resent the skewed desires porn men get after watching porn. Others may enjoy porn, others may detest the influence the social effects.
For the LGBT community... No idea...
For society... I think porn makes some sex acts more socially acceptable than they where in the past. There always seem to be some 'new' thing popularized by porn, oral sex, threesomes and so forth. In regards to objectification, I am uncertain...
I don't want to go too in-depth in the original post because I want to see the responses develop, if I have not covered something hopefully it it is because I wan to avoid a tl ;dr response and not because I am oblivious.
Thoughts?
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Oh man. You just dropped a BOMB on the feministing community. Porn is probably the most hotly debated issue in feminism. Explosion in:
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lol, Sabriel. True that.
We are about 20 comments in and the conversation looks like it is Armageddon free... I think if the OP was a little more porn is this, or porn is that, then the responses would have been a bit more bomb-ish.
Also, it looks like some are deferring from commenting because they want to avoid a flame war...
That's true. We also haven't seen any trolls. Maybe they all exhausted their energy on the orgasm gap post?
I love talking about this subject...I'll write a longer post when I get home from class (I have to leave now)...But in the meantime...Both I and Nettlesyrup made a post about this a little while back. Both posts were related to the Media Education Foundation and a documentary that you can see at their site called "The Price of Pleasure" (which I highly recommend you and anyone else interested in pornography watch).
Check out the previous posts here and here
Also NattlesThing did a post about the conviction of MaxHardcore (for obscenity charges). So, that post/thread has a lot of discussion about obscenity laws. You can view that thread here.
I got to go to work and then class, so for the first, say... 15 hours of this I won't be part of the conversation.
But there is porn generally, and porn specifically. Not all porn is Max Hardcore, who really is just an asshole.
But then the conversation is what is mainstream porn, and what is fringe. If you perception is that Max Hardcore represents mainstream porn then yes, porn sucks.
I think Max Hardcore is fringe. Otherwise why would he call himself hardcore and go out of his way to be an asshole?
I wasn't trying to say that Max Hardcore is the embodiment of porn. Nor does the original post about MH imply that...I was merely trying to highlight some of the past posts that have been made to the feministing community that in any way relate to pornography, whether general or specific...The MH post just happens to be one of them...
To stay away from the big debate... I'll just say that I think porn is an issue that can't really be cut-and-dry, black-and-white. I know some people believe that ALL porn is bad, but my opinion is that there is good porn, there is bad porn, and then there is porn that has good and bad elements.
-Lilith
Porn makes me uncomfortable. I don't look like a porn star, and I certainly won't act like one, so I feel uncomfortable getting into a relationship with a guy because I assume that he expects me to do... crazy things.
Funny story, there was this guy I asked out last year who told me he wasn't interested because he "goes for more the porn star type." hah..
At the risk of being wishy-washy, I really think it just depends on the type of porn and on the audience. A lot of people express a concern that many men will want their sex lives to look like the porn they watch, but it's not always the case. I've had two boyfriends serious enough to know their porn habits. One watched a lot of porn from and early age and the other would look at it every so often. Neither seemed to have unrealistic expectations of what their real-life sex should be like. I know it's only anecdotal, but it has made me feel pretty neutral about porn.
Also, while some porn is obviously degrading to women, either due to the content or the practices of the company producing it, I don't think it's too hard to find erotic material that is fairly inoffensive. I like amature porn for that reason.
Sorry for the long post, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that porn isn't inherrently sexist, but sexist people in society produce media (raunchy and otherwise) that turn a type of entertainment into something that can be harmful. That's why I think it's best to judge on a case-by-case basis.
I concur. I hate porn for the way it kind of stereotypes women in a way and creates unrealistic desires for guys and then flat chested girls like me feel unwanted by the opposite sex and get called frigid when we won't do the things porn stars do.
Klarise: I'm sorry for exboyfriends who made you feel bad about yourself. But porn includes fetishism of all body types, including "flat-chested" women. Please don't blame porn, blame your ex-boyfriends for using porn to beat down your body image.
jj: I'm sorry he said that to you, baby. You are a precious and beautiful woman worthy of all the good that sex can bring. Your boyfriend is dumb if he was talking about your looks, because there are pornstars of every size shape and color.
I'm curious to hear from folks under 30 because I've heard there is a big difference in the attitudes and expectations below and under this cutoff.
I'm pushing 40 so I grew up in the pre-internet era. I didn't see a full blown porno (pun intended) until well into my 20's and after already having some sexual experiences under my belt.
It's bad enough as it is trying to navigate one's own sexuality especially as a woman with interference from the regular media. I can't imagine having started watching at 12 or 13 or whatever kids say they are doing these days...
spike: the real problem is not porn or Hollywood or any one thing. The problem is that kids get information (and misinformation) in a vacuum. Parents are just too chickenshit to deal with teaching their kids about sex, and too hypocritical to let school districts do it properly. Kids need age appropriate sexual information from their parents at every age from 3 on up.
eh, Alright. I'm 22. I've had a friend raped by a guy who got his "moves" from porn. I've heard lots of stories from girls about boyfriends who got their ideas from porn, and didn't realize women's bodies don't really work like that.
I certainly think big boobs and big butts are very "in" as maybe the number one things that men are attracted to... my mom claims that's a new thing that wasn't true a couple of decades ago, but I have no idea if that's accurate.
The first guy I dated kept pushing my head down (suggestively, not forcefully) to give him a bj... not sure if that was porn-related or not.
Another definite porn experience was in 9th grade when kids would always get together around a computer and watch it after class... it was a group activity, and I think it frequently is for curious teens these days. The guys kept making negative comments about the womens' bodies.
Porn is a difficult issue, because there are so many different types and aspects. Obviously you have the 'degrading women' porn, which is the most popular, but I've got a playgirl that has images of a man and a woman's adventure in sex that includes little to no photo-shopping, both people in sub/dom positions during foreplay, and sitting up, smiling, and kissing while actually having sex. I find it more cute and heart-warming than arousing, but still get turned on by the fact that they are having sex, and imagine myself doing that with my boyfriend. But not everyone is in a relationship, and I had to fantasize about imaginary people when I was single (I've never actually used porn to get off, I've always made up images in my mind.)
I may bring criticism, but I am reading and doing a presentation of Andrea Dworkin's view of porn, and I agree with her definition that porn is the bad stuff, because I really hate to lump torture porn in the same category as the sex-capade in my Playgirl. Men may not all expect to act out porn, but the idea that humiliating a woman and dominating her is a good thing doesn't always stay in the mind, doesn't always only apply to sex. If a man thinks other men are weird for not enjoying watching a money shot, it's a signal that there are some men who think what is considered enjoyable and titillating is universal, and that some people may not have control over their fantasies; they simply believe what they are told and follow it.
And if anyone feels I have attacked them, I did not intend to. But I've expressed my view on youtube only to receive hateful replies saying that porn is just a fantasy and I need to STFU. It's very rude, and I do not intend to attack anyone, and tell anyone what they get off to is wrong. I myself take part in handcuffing, mild spanking and pullin my boyfriend around with a leash, so I understand the dom/sub fantasy. I am simply opposed to porn being 99% male dom, and turning torture, excrement, vomit, name-calling, and what have you into fantasy, practiced on anyone, women or men.
I also have a question: Could it be seen as hypocritical to practice any BDSM and be opposed to the more extreme forms or porn I mentioned?
What counts as degrading women to you? I just want to make sure we are on the same page...
After that, if you had to slap a percentage value on porn that is degrading, what would it be?
Well, the abundance of money shots is degrading to me, which some might consider not bad at all. I don't think the money shot itself has to be degrading, but the abundance of it is ridiculous and the intention is most likely usually degradation. Name-calling, rape, choking, duct tape, repeated slapping, etc.
I hate to say it, but... "I know it when I see it."
I once read an article that tried to explore why the cum-shot has become so prevalent in porn.
One of the ideas they explored was it provides some closure. Most guys, when they cum, their done (hey that kinda rhymes...) and without a visual cue that ejaculation takes place then the male viewers are left unsatisfied. And apparently the dude making some grunting sounds and exclaiming "I'm cumming" is generally unconvincing.
So with guys requiring convincing evidence of ejaculation the question becomes how to handle the ejaculate.
Thoughts?
Steven: I disagree with the "needing evidence of male orgasm" idea. Because men get off on plenty of porn that has no semen in it. If I remember correctly my 90's childhood, magazines used to not be allowed to show cumshots. But men still got off.
Men like to see cumshots for the same reason they like to see boobs: it's sexual. Seeing someone ejaculate is highly sexually arousing because you are watching a real orgasm happen. Women don't have a cumshot, so they yell "I'm coming!" or scream to create a similar sexual arousal. In fact, cumshots are the most effective way to male viewers to ejaculate to your scene. Monkey see, monkey cum. Make a viewer cum, you've got a repeat customer.
Actually, women do have "cum shots" it's just not shown. Women are capable of producing about 3tsp of fluid. Again the reason for this is the male-centric ways in which pornography is produced, it's male-centric which means the biggest concern is that the male received pleasure and the female is just a tool/receptacle for this pleasure. There the way in which male-centric pornography is produced in order to show male dominance of females...this explains the "cum-shot" esp. on the face (in the eyes even though it's painful) and the extremely popular "bukkake" variety (usually 50 or so men waiting in line to wank off and ejaculate on the sole female).
There is little to no focus on female pleasure, which explains why there are so few female "cum-shots" in pornography. In fact, your comment is pretty telling; you imply that women aren't capable of producing ejaculate fluid despite the fact that women most certainly are capable of ejaculating...it's evidence of the influence that pornography and a male-centric focus on sex has had on our society.
Thank you so very much for replying meenee. I KNEW someone would say that. I know that women produce ejaculate. I know that some women can "shoot" cum. But if I had talked about female ejac videos, then someone else would've gone off on THAT, saying "those female ejac squirting videos are fake! They're shooting PEE across the room in an attempt to make women's sexuality and ejaculations look male!"
My ejaculations are not the same as men's. They are clear instead of white. They don't "shoot" as far, and often "shoot" interiorly. And, most importantly for the movie aspect of it, my ejaculations are not as controllable and aim-able as men's. Don't respond saying "some women can shoot a foot-high arc!" because I know this. I've seen it. I've caused it. But that's the exception, not the rule. The rule for men is that their cum either shoots or drools out of the tip of their penis and is not blocked by a bunch of vulva meat.
Give me this, though, meenee: Porn *does* replace "proof" of female ejaculation with "expression" of it, am I right? All those screams and "I'm cumming"'s are there to express that the woman is enjoying and orgasming (from the director's point of view). If you were a director, meeneecat, how would you film a "real" female orgasm?
Simply say that you *just knew* all us feminists would react that way if you mentioned female ejaculation, followed by a bunch of hypothetical sentences of what all us feminists would say...and release yourself from any and all responsibility for what you previously said. Great!
Love how you refer to it as "vulva meat" and claim that female ejaculation is the "exception" rather than the rule. I love the whole hypothetical dialogue going on there.
I'm sure you are thinking from a totally unbiased pov. anyway. So having the director explicitly telling the woman to scream "I'm cumming" and make a "face" on queue, is a perfectly fine replacement for her actually cumming and actually enjoying herself. But I guess most of us realize that the guys watching these videos wouldn't be able to tell the difference between "fake cumming" and "real cumming" anyway, so does it even matter? Oh yeah, except the fact that most of "us feminists" would have a lot of hypothetical things to say about the lack of reciprocity and lack of female pleasure in most hetero male porn. (I'll wait for you to reply back with the obligatory "but they really ARE enjoying themselves, otherwise they wouldn't be screaming "I'm cumming", or my favorite "if they didn't like it, they wouldn't be doing it".)
Meenee: you canNOT look at porn and say the focus is not on female pleasure. As much as women viewers complain about the screaming and wailing in pleasure that porn women make, you just can't get away with saying that. You *can* make a strong case that porn's message is that women get pleasure from that which pleases men. But you can't say that porn is not in any way showing women expressing pleasure or orgasm. And porn women themselves, outside of the context of porn, often say that they orgasm during scenes.
And how about this for an explanation of the facial cumshot. Taking his cum in my face is the ultimate expression of my acceptance of him. My love of him. Letting him cum inside my vagina sends that same message, but is fraught with the "danger" of pregnancy. I'm going to look him in the eye while he orgasms all over me because I desire him without reservation. I personally don't find ejaculation on my face physically uncomfortable, but I know many do. That's for us to work out individually with out partner.
You think the men in porn are always comfortable lifting women this way or that, or having women atop them pounding away and bending their penis backwards? Just like sexual discomfort in real life, in porn all that is negotiated. Just because they don't show the breaks and rests in the final video doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Shooting a 20-minute porn scene takes 2-4 hours. They can't show everything. They show the fantasy. Porn is theatre, not documentary.
"you canNOT look at porn and say the focus is not on female pleasure."
Oh, I "canNOT" can I? How about this, RuPaula, instead of calling it a "lack of female pleasure" lets just call it a "construction" of female pleasure based on what men view pleasure to be...Oh wait, RuPaula, you already outlined that for me below:
"porn's message is that women get pleasure from that which pleases men."
And I can't leave out this gem, RuPaula:
"Taking his cum in my face is the ultimate expression of my acceptance of him. My love of him." (I'll leave out the next six sentences of male fantasy here, cause we get the idea, RuPaula)
I just know hetero girls love having their eyes burned out so they can show their man how much they "love" him...(cause the best way a woman can show "love for her man" is via male cum worship)
"porn women themselves, outside of the context of porn, often say that they orgasm during scenes."
Right, RuPaula, because I'm sure when those "porn woman", as you call them, say they DON'T enjoy it and DON'T cum during porno, that they will be the first ones to get the job offer for the next installation of "ass avengers 34". (seriously, RuPaula, I just LOVE "logic" here; just as much as every woman "loves" having her eyes burned out by male cum.)
"You think the men in porn are always comfortable lifting women this way or that"
ZOMG! Oh NOOOES, RuPaula, The MENZ! What about THE MENZ! The poor menz having to lift all those fat slobs this way and that!
Porn is theatre, not documentary. AwwwNoooo! And I thought it was the real thing, RuPaula. I thought those girls were actually having orgasms...I guess they were just faking it. WAhhhh!!!
[as a side note, I'm really frustrated with how often criticism of hetero-male pornography is labeled as "anti-sex" or "anti-porn"...it does a great job of making sure the debate is framed as an either/or conversation: either "anti-sex=anti-porn" or "pro-sex=pro-porn". Many feminists/critiques, no matter how legitimate often instantly gets labeled with the whole "anti-sex, sex=rape, all porn is bad, frigid feminist" stereotype...in these instances conversation never really seems to advance past a pro-porn/anti-porn dialogue.]
(feminism101:sex-pos/anti-sex)
Some people get off on that. Usually, those who engage or like degradation aren't actually degraded anymore than they ask to be. It has to do with the idea of reciprocity - it might seem to you that being duct taped would be degrading, but it might be pleasurable to someone else. As long as there's a back and forth, it's mutual pleasure and desire.
I'm just trying to point out that not everyone likes the same thing, so it's not really fair to condemn one type of sex play. I'm not sure if that's what you were trying to do, but I just thought I'd throw in my two cents.
Lilith: dang girl, what kind of porn are you watching that has duct tape and rape in it? Maybe you need to stop buying porn that has people tied up on the cover. =)
I know this wasn't directed at me, but I'd like to chime in. To me a big clue about what is degrading is fantasy that is generally one-sided in nature and lacks reciprocity or the possibility of reciprocity.
So of course it's going to be relative 'cause everybody is different...
There are still clues though (for me). Gross lack of reciprocity (both men and women have asses, right?) playing on racist themes and stereotypes (big black dicks, savage black woman, ghetto whores, me so horny type shit), themes about women being desperate or stupid (i.e., Bang Bus (very popular) where they "pretend" to trick the women into having sex and then throw her clothes out the window, etc), very one-sided name calling often disturbingly on the outside of the box or in the description...
just my opinion though...and it's not referring to bdsm genre but mainstream stuff...
I am still curious on what the prevalence of that is.
I perceive most porn made now thusly:
they present the female actor, maybe some questions on the plan of the day, the male actor walks in, and 20-30 minutes there may be some sort of debriefing.
So basically porn with-out plot... developing a plot like bang-bus or the pizza delivery dude that gets lucky is becoming less prevalent.
I would have to say the vast bulk of new porn is along those lines.
spike: you are right on about the open sinning going on in porn. But before porn existed, we sexualized sin. "Being bad" in a controlled situation, or in a fantasy, can give a sexual charge to many people. That's why you see so many things like "My wife cuckolded me!" "My daughter's fucking a N***a!" "I've been kidnapped and tied up!"
Some things are intentional fetishism of "I'm being bad." Some things, like the constant shallow stereotypical portrayal of Asian women, are wrong, stupid and, most importantly, hackeneyed as shit and need to be rooted out of the industry. "Me so horny"? Really? Is it 2009 or 1969? At least move it up to the 80's and make all the Asian women wear school uniforms and giggle and be good in school.
I also have a question: Could it be seen as hypocritical to practice any BDSM and be opposed to the more extreme forms or porn I mentioned?
I don't think so. One thing about BDSM is that the community is extremely progressive in terms of defining consent, because it has to be. Done right, everybody sits down before hand and discusses boundaries and agrees on what is and is not acceptable. People make sure that there is a safe word/ gesture and that word is respected.
I don't see that respect in the kinds of porn you're talking about.
Another important difference is that people who practice healthy BDSM value the enjoyment of everybody involved. The sub helps set the scenario and is enjoying themselves. If the sub isn't happy, the dom failed.
When that sense of the woman (lets face it, it's usually a woman) enjoying herself and being valued is absent from domination/humiliation porn, it crosses the line for me. And that sense is absent from a lot of porn.
If the BDSM you practice is consentual, and if the pleasure of everybody involved is considered important, then I don't see your stance as being hypocritical in the slightest.
Sabriel: I'm wit' ya and agin' ya =)
You can say that BDSM is pro-feminist, and I will agree with you. But many feminists will have valid disagreements with you. (And you know this, man!) They will say that you are making light of the real degradation that you're copying. They will say that you are sexualizing domination and in turn allowing social acceptance of people who get a sexual charge out of real-life domination (rapists, Presidents). They will say that by allowing yourself to generate sexuality around pain, you are mocking the battered wife and the rape survivor.
Moving on....When it comes to porn, you're way off. In BDSM you are fantasizing about domination and submission. SO TOO IN PORN. You just don't get to see the rulemaking and consent-giving. It happens offscreen. Don't you ever watch those "inside the porn industry" shows on HBO? Pornstars have rule after rule about their personal limits on set. Do you really think porn performers are surprised when somebody puts a cock in their ass? It's all pre-planned. Remember, porn is theater, not documentary.
BDSM in porn is not about fetishizing pain or dominance in a traditional, buncha-50-year-olds-in-leather-suits-with-whips kinda way (because that is legally risky). It's about fetishizing dominance in a leather-less, clothespin-less "fuck-me-like-you-don't-give-a-fuck-about-anything-but-your-own-pleasure" kinda way. Sometimes the male is the top (Rocco Siffreddi movies), sometimes the female is the top (female ejaculation movies).
Lillith: yes you are hypocritical. =) Well, you asked, honey. Dworkin too would most assuredly call you a hypocrite. But I think it's your labels that are hypocritical, not your feelings. Your feelings of liking some porn but not others is understandable and normal. But to give them different labels, calling one porn and the other not, is to engage in the old "erotica is what I like, porn is what YOU like" double standard.
The only thing that all porn has in common is that it shows nudity or sex acts. Just like sex itself, all the permutations of porn are too varied to judge with with one negative or positive label. Hollywood movies have done just as much to maintain the patriarchal status quo, yet no one advocating "End Hollywood Movies Now!" would be taken seriously.
Actually, I find Hollywood MORE offensive than porn.
With porn, individuals seek to satisfy a specific sexual desire. That desire might indeed be politically incorrect, ie misogynistic, violent, etc., but it is a fantasy. Pornography is specific. A person chooses what to view.
Mainstream Hollywood films choose the sexuality of the audience. Major grossing films have elements that attract a diverse crowd, yet they show a very narrow display of sexuality. Film makers cater sex exclusively to heterosexual males, ignoring the sexuality of others in the audience. Nudity is almost always female, males always taking the dominant sexual role.
It's true that most pornography is catered to hetero men, but there is a great variety of material if you look for it. On the other hand, it is very difficult to discover mainstream movies without the exclusive "male gaze."
Side note: I didn't want male gaze to ruin my love of film, so I researched titles that feature frontal male nudity and "female gaze." If anyone wants the list (about 50 movies/television programs) just reply.
Ah, there are two separate issues here.
1. Content.
2. Conditions in the industry.
Currently, both are pretty anti-woman (not across the board, but generally).
But that doesn't mean it HAS to be that way. I don't think it is inherently awful.
I also haven't experienced much in the way of the content influencing real-life expectations. In fact, I've had more than one boyfriend who didn't understand why certain things that are celebrated in movies were supposed to be exciting.
I could say a lot more, but I'm trying to stay benign for the work filters. :) I'll try to drop in later at home to expand on this.
I agree that torture porn is pretty bad. No way around it.
But a lot of porn actually spends a lot of time focusing on women getting off. Not that it gives any realistic impression of how to do that. But there's no (or at least very little) porn that shows a guy just ramming it into a girl and her just taking it while he gets off. The focus is on the women enjoying herself.
It'd be nice if it showed how real women actually enjoy sex, rather than just assuming that sticking a penis inside of her is going to get her off. but at least it emphasizes to guys that the girl should be getting something, too.
You bring up a good point, but I just wonder, and I really do mean wonder cause I don't know, how much of it is for showing guys that women deserve to get off, and how much is showing that a woman getting off is pleasurable for men? In other words, is the sexuality and pleasure of women celebrated for women, or is taken away by implying that it's good for her to get off because men enjoy it?
I honestly don't know how men perceive this in porn, I know personally that between my SO and me, the other person getting off is good because it means they are being pleasured, but I'm curious to know if women having orgasms is like women having boobs: women may have them but it's the men who enjoy them.
I also agree that more realistic ways should be shown of women getting off. The same goes for men, I hear that prostate loves to be rubbed. I just hate the idea that culture defines our sexuality and what we find pleasurable, and tells us who does what and who enjoys what.
Its always seem to me that her getting off is because of HIS accomplishments. So HE can feel validated, not for her.
I agree that it seems this way in porn. Also, often the woman is saying very flattering things to the man, etc -- the focus is on the man, and he is getting off on the accomplishment, even though he hasn't actually done any of the work to get it there. I think that this DOES give men very unrealistic standards for how to be "good in bed" and for what it means for a woman to be "good in bed".
Lilith asks a great question:
"how much of it is for showing guys that women deserve to get off, and how much is showing that a woman getting off is pleasurable for men?"
The answer to this is complicated. Yes, a lot of porn is about the woman character getting off, but getting off on the things that give the penis pleasure. But at the same time, the performers are not normal people. We are watching sexual athletes when we watch porn. Yes, the "average woman" does not orgasm from penetration. But some of these pornstars can orgasm if they think hard for 30 seconds. Not touching anything. So, the performers often actually do orgasm, or at least get sexual pleasure, from these penis-centered activities.
Apart from the abnormal sexual skill of the performers, another reality is that a video showing someone licking a clit for 20 minutes is BORING and hard to see from the outside. But getting licked while you're in one position is how a lot of real women orgasm. You'd have to be a highly skilled director to express the emotions, slight noises and miniscule movements that takes us inside the pleasure of that 20 minutes. But if you're that skilled, you're not making thousands per movie doing porn, you're off making millions making "real" movies (in which you can't show explicit sexuality).
My example is not limited to women. Many men are the same way. Once they're in the groove they want you to keep your ass in the air for 10 minutes until they pop. In porn, directors make up for their lack of filmaking skill by constantly changing positions. Even all-women scenes, no penis in sight, they constantly change positions.
You can't expect porn to look like your life. It is theater, not reality.
jak:
1. porn is theatre, not documentary. Meaning that you can't expect "reality" just like you can't expect "reality" from a Hollywood movie.
2. I believe that porn is "more real" than Hollywood when it comes to sex. Just for the simple fact that the people are having real sex, and porn producers don't have the money to take their scenes as far away from "reality" as Hollywood does.
3. Most importantly: female porn performers consistently report that they often have real orgasms during scenes. These women got into porn because they *like* sex. If all they wanted to do was make $1000 a day, they coulda stayed in their hometown selling drugs. But they came all the way to California because they are sexual exhibitionists at heart.
4. There is an idea "out there" in the ether that "real orgasms" don't involve all the screaming and whatever that porn stars do. BUZZ - wrong, try again. Orgasms come in all shapes, sizes and volumes. Take it from a screamer. I mean, during a 20-orgasm run it physically feels fucking fantastic to freak the fuck out. We can't all be silent Susies, sitting still, slackjawed like The Scream while our tensed necks grow redder and redder holding it all in so the neighbors and kids don't hear.
I mean...imagine the POWER of a woman who is doing the NUMBER 1 thing women are not supposed to do, and she's doing it to the extreme. Flaunting her sexuality with the pride of a Queen in front of, literally, the entire world. Powerful women take. Powerful women command. Powerful women FUCK. Powerful women DON'T GIVE A FUCK about anything but their own pleasure.
No matter how feminist you are, you can't deny the power of the shameless slut. You can criticize her power as being less Queen and more Diva. A narcissistic power. But somewhere inside, everyone wishes they could love their body and their own lusts that selfishly.
Okay. I'm under 30, and I posted first so I might as well add something substantive.
I'm 22, and I grew up with computers. I learned to type my name at the same age I learned to write my name with a pencil, and I was navigating DOS before Windows was the next big thing. So yeah, I am part of the internet generation, and I have to say that MUST influence the way I see porn.
I think I may have become aware of some of the weirder types of porn earlier than somebody whose first exposure was magazines. I avoided porn for a long time, but when my curiosity got the best of me, I googled everything I could think of and wandered away from the computer severely shocked. (But then, I am the kind of person who tends to purposefully overdose on shock every once in a while, for the thrill of it.)
You know what they say. If you can think of it, somebody has made a porno about it, somewhere on the internet. Because of this, when I talk to guys about porn, there is a part of me who is wondering, "Is he into ______?!?"
Another way the internet has had a generational impact on me is that when I was having body confidence issues, I looked at porn on the internet. What did you guys do? When you were curious about boobs and vaginas? When you ran into the question "am I normal down there?" I googled "Labia" (and came to the conclusion that I was a freak because there is only one type of labia featured in porn).
Another generational issues is that I became self-aware as a feminist in the era of sex-positivity. As a feminist, I am very conflicted about porn. I want to be pro-porn. However, it seems like 90% of the porn that I've seen is really the kind of thing I can't get behind. It's exploitative and misogynistic, as well as frequently being racist. Does it have to be? Of course not. Is it? YES. Yes. Yes.
I think that volunteering in domestic violence prevention, coupled with embracing sex-positivity, has had a bigger influence on me, but the internet does make a difference.
I tend to stay away from the porn debate because I had a debate on feminism v. sex positivity that nearly shattered one of my friendships. So I'm going to read what other people have to say, and if I can articulate how I feel in a way that I think works and is different from what others have said, I might comment again.
I think I have to add that my first relationship was with a boy who was very influenced by porn. He was out to reproduce what he saw on TV. Was oral reciprocal? Ha ha ha ha ha ha. You kid.
It took me a while to sort out my expectations and raise my standards. The relationship I'm in right now is with a guy who was never into porn. His attitude towards women and sex is so healthy. I have to say... just based on my experiences dating... the more porn a guy views the more rigid his expectations are. This may not be universal, but it is my personal experience. And yeah, it may not be quantity so much as age at first viewing that is important.
not always true. My boyfriend watched and watches porn. Does he ask if we can try something he's seen? sometimes. Does he, however, know that what I want and what I say matters? and respect me enough not to push boundaries, and not to try and "get me" to do anything I don't absolutely already want to do(which is plenty, but not necessarily everything) yes, and yes. so, it really depends on the person. and is oral recipriocal? heck yeah. everyone who watches porn is not the same, just as not all porn is the same.
Thank you for pointing out a counterexample, KB. You're right. "It depends on the person" is a very important point. People will react very differently to porn based on a whole multitude of factors, such as personality and relationship history and intrinsic attitudes towards sex and women.
Hey Sabriel:
I have to say this about the labia thing...I just googled "labia" and a bunch of different photos and drawings of different kinds of labia came up. 2 diagrams, 1 medical photo of labiaplasty, 3 celebrity labia and a bunch of porn labia. The porn labia were varied too: old lady, black lady with bright pink, enclosed labia, bushy labia, wide open labia, multiple labia with extra big labia minora. What exactly did you see that fateful day?
Regarding the non-reciprocal bf...We pick and choose what we see when we watch media. You imply there's no m2f cunnilingus in porn...while right now on a porn site somewhere some guy is complaining about having to fast forward all of the cunnilingus.
And your wonderful current bf. Nice that you have a good bf. But what if he had never seen porn because he grew up a Fundie who thought those porn women were pariahs who were going to hell? Would that non-porn-watching bf had been just as awesome as this non-porn-watching one?
Personally, I don't have a problem with most porn. I don't like to watch it myself, but it doesn't bother me if my boyfriend does. To me its a turn off to see all those closeups on genitals and intercourse, but I do like some porn-ish sites that are a little more subtle. I'll admit the thought of it made me uncomfortable when I was a teenager and first started thinking about this stuff, but now I don't think there's anything wrong with it.
I think porn is awesome.
Confession time: I first saw porn when I was nine or so. Someone had told me about a dictionary of swear words online, so being nine, of course I had to check it out. I think I typed in swear.com or something like that and it took me to a foreign porn site. I watched & read porn throughout my entire childhood.
And you know what? It didn't screw me up in the least. I didn't feel like I had to look or act like every woman I saw. (I did later develop an eating disorder, but that was a different matter entirely.) Most women in porn are not gorgeous, flawless Amazons. Most women in porn have stretch marks, moles, pimples in weird places, body hair, tan lines, roots, wrinkles, bellies, and--best of all--breasts that don't look like the airbrushed, expanded, perfectly tanned, pushed-up-to-their-chin breasts that you see in magazines. More often than not I'll see a woman that I think is beautiful and I'll see that she, too, is real and has flaws and that the person having sex with her and all the people watching have absolutely no problem with them. And you know what? That makes me feel infinitely better about all of my flaws.
I've never had someone compare me to a porn actress, and I've never compared anyone to a porn actor. In fact, while most men in porn are fairly attractive, none of the men I've ever been attracted to in real life look like the Ken dolls you see in porn. I don't expect people to act like they're in a porno. Anyone who does is a total asshat and would exhibit asshattish behavior with or without the aid of pornography. In fact, if you look in the comments at porn sites, one of the main complaints is that a video isn't realistic. People don't want to see a blonde bobblehead in some weird, intricate position making fake moaning noises. No one wants to imagine being in that sexual scenario. You look and sound indescribably awkward. "Amateur" (read: girl next door) videos are the most popular. Videos of girls that they could meet on the train or at work doing things that normal people do (hand jobs, oral, PIV, occasionally anal, etc.)
As for pornography being particularly exploitative of women, on some level it is. There are an awful lot of straight men watching porn and you can bet they're focusing on the hot girl. However, gay (male) porn is a huge industry now, and it's still growing. For some reason it's not only popular among gay men, but seems to be a favorite among straight women.
Does it suck that sometimes women who wouldn't normally do this have to resort to it to make ends meet? Definitely. But I'd say the same if it were any other job which she didn't enjoy.
I'm a rarity in that I'm a feminist who fully supports sex work. I don't think it's naturally exploitative, though it can be corrupted (think streetwalkers and their pimps, or sex slavery.) It's completely acceptable and commendable to try to give women every opportunity, but in the end, we have to make our own choices. And when someone avoids eviction or can pay for day care because they made more in a few hours than they do in a week at their day job, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
This isn't to say that there aren't things I don't like about the porn industry. I think things like Girls Gone Wild (if you consider that porn) are unethical and I don't like how ridiculously unrealistic lesbian porn is (that, I will admit, is generally filled with over-made-up anorexics with boob jobs poking each other awkwardly and not quite concealing their distaste), and I especially hate how lesbian porn is lumped into the 'straight' category on a popular site. But overall, I think porn just gets a bad rap.
So there you go. Now everyone knows all my porny secrets. :P
I wonder what kind of porn you find and watch.
The most popular websites I know of that people are looking at, are streaming videos of free porn. (spankwire, redtube, youporn etc. they get more hits than you would even imagine)
The women that are most watched and masturbated to are not 'flawed' they are airbrushed, insanely thin and have huge boobs. Jenna Haze, Jesse Jane, all those women are NOT 'typical' they do not have moles or pimples or whatever else, they are mdern day Jenna Jamesons and they rule the porn world.
The most popular porn video I can think of is "Pirates" which is the porn version of Pirates of the Caribbean. There's actually a scene of two women beating each other up, and it is supposed to be considered 'hot'.
I'm sorry but that is not normal to me, and it does not depict normal sexuality.
Define "normal" - what is "normal sexuality"?
That sounds like a very puritanical view of sex to me - who gets to define what "normal" is, and what's the punishment for not being "normal"?
That's true, women beating each other up is perfectly normal, shame on me.
The "catfight" has been considered sexy for a very long time, by a whole lot of people. Sex can be violent, and that's why there are so many movies and TV shows with the fight scene that turns into the sex scene. Debate all you like about whether this is sexist, but many, many people see two women fighting and think it's hot.
Generally, in order to be considered normal, something has to NOT be incredibly common.
On this website, I think a lot of people would take exception to using "normal" and "abnormal" to mean "good" and "bad."
Fuck. I meantthat in order to be considered ABnormal, something has to NOT be incredibly common.
What I mean by "normal" is realistic. And even though "catfights that end in fucking" are (sort of)common in porn, they aren't realistic.
Realistically, women don't beat each other up and have orgasms while doing so. The poster that I replied to originally was saying that people want to see realistic porn, and that nobody in porn is perfect and airbrushed and blonde and stuff.
And I was saying, you're not watching the most mainstream of porn and that might have something to do with all the awesome-ness that you are coming across in porn.
Because if good porn is realistic, then bad porn is fake, but fake is the most popular kind.
Whew.
Porn is fantasy. Fantasies aren't realistic. Think about your sexual fantasies. If they're all super-realistic scenarios that are likely to happen to you, you're unusual.
Have you ever tried to read a romance novel? Totally unrealistic, and not just when it comes to sex. And believe me, the sex in romance novels is every bit as fake as porn.
People get turned on by things that don't happen in real life. Furries, tentacle monsters, giant women, vampires. A lot of men fantasize about being with two women at once, and for most of them this will never happen. Just because a scenario is unrealistic doesn't mean it can't be shown or is somehow wrong.
So if I have realistic fantasies than that means that I'm not normal? didn't you just get done talking about how you don't like when people label sexuality as normal and not normal?
You're a little unusual. That's not a good or bad thing. I'm not going to judge you for having realistic fantasies any more than I'd judge you for having unrealistic or weird fantasies.
Normal does not equal bad or good. You're projecting your beliefs about "normalcy" onto what I'm saying.
You're using the word, not me. When I'm talking about sexuality I prefer to use common and uncommon, because they don't come with all the judgmental baggage.
No, you are the one that said "On this website, I think a lot of people would take exception to using "normal" and "abnormal" to mean "good" and "bad."
What exactly is your point?
I'm NOT using "normal" or "abnormal" to mean good and bad. That's a value-judgement. Saying that one particular fantasy happens more frequently than another is stating a fact.
I'm sorry you can't comprehend the difference.
I believe the word was "unusual". That might or might not be relevant for the honest reading and communication, but in this case I think it might.
What he said. I don't agree with defining sexuality as "normal" or "abnormal" according to what you like and don't like.
I think the worst thing about porn - and sex work in general - is the labor conditions of sex workers.
And that's a unionization question - if those workers were organized, it would be a better job.
Part of the problem is, the film and TV unions - Screen Actors Guild, AFTRA, IATSE - discriminate against workers who make porn...not just the actors and actresses, but even the grips and the wardrobe people! You can actually get kicked out of the Hollywood guilds for being in a porno!
If they had the same wages, benefits and workrules as the Hollywood workers do, things would be a lot better for them.
In general, sex work is necessary, and we live in a better society because we have sex work.
Therefore the rights of all sex workers (porn actresses, strippers, dominatrixes, prostitutes ect) need to be protected.
We shouldn't go down the Dworkinite road of trying to ban commercial sex - that only leads to Tallibanism, and I know none of us want that!
"We shouldn't go down the Dworkinite road of trying to ban commercial sex - that only leads to Tallibanism, and I know none of us want that!"
Heaven forbid that men wouldn't be able to purchase women on demand! Depriving them of convenient ways of victimising women -- ie porn -- is practically like forcing them out of the public sphere, denying them education, and raping them like the Taliban does to women!
Besides the utterly ridiculous comparison of anti-porn feminism to the Taliban, I take issue with how you've lept to the conclusion that those who criticise pornography want to ban it. It is, in fact, possible to say that something is wrong without wanting to get the law involved.
And why, exactly, is sex work necessary and how does it improve society?
As off and extrapolated as the comparing "banning porn" with "the Taleban" might be, your equating "viewing porn" with "slavery" is way more off (and offending). Except in the cases where we are actually talking about non-consentual, involuntary, forced sex and ownership/control of the person with the right to sell the PERSON (not the person selling an act) you have no justification for calling it "purchasing women on demand". Sex-workers own themselves - or at least they should. They sell an act (sometimes under conditions that should be improved). Whatever you (and I) think and feel about their choice, they are not "sold" as persons.
The "slavery" analogy could be taken very far and also into a lot of other professions, but lets just drop it here and now and reserve it for when it is actually necessary.
"Sex-workers own themselves..."
That's debatable. I assume we're not talking about magical post-patriarchy-land, but the real world, right? Aside from the theoretical question of whether any woman truly owns herself, you seem to overlook the coercive conditions present in a great deal of pornography production. And if you're including prostitution in your discussion of sex-work, then slavery seem to be a perfect comparison.
By the way, when you use quotation marks, it generally means that you're quoting someone. I never used the words and phrases that you tried to quote from my post, making yours very difficult to parse.
In the sense that everything is debatable and that there is no such thing as absolute freedom or self-ownership - yes of course. But that goes for everyone affected and restrained by this society in different ways: do any workers own themselves? Do any women? Etc etc etc. But if you meant it in this deeper and more philosophical way, then why did you imply that people with one specific job are slaves? You did not indicate that you meant "slaves in the sense that we are all trapped in an oppressive and exploitative system", you stated that when someone buys ONE SPECIFIC service from one specific group of workers then one is in fact not buying their service but their whole person.
This is a wrong and dangerous view, I am sad to see you repeat it by saying that prostitution per definitions is comparable to slavery. That is not only offending to real slaves who were - and are - owned and sold, but offending and condescending to the women and men who are prostitutes whether by choice or necessity. Also it is not helpful to any (feminist) analysis and solidarity.
Are sex-workers (in porn) then "more slave-like" than others? Yes, and no. Not in general. But yes! There certainly are some who work under awful conditions (which should be improved not by stigmatization but with more rights, organizing and solidarity), and there are also a few (?) who live under what could be called slave-like conditions. But ... that was not the context you put it in! You compared any watching (or buying) "commercial sex" to "purchasing women on demand" - with no mention of context or working conditions. That is wrong!
Horrible working conditions and work-by-necessity is tragic no matter what the specifics of the job are. The same could be said about the textile industry (horrible work conditions bordering slavery) but are you also saying that buying clothes by definition is participating in slave-trade? I hope not! That would be a total lack of analysis and not helpful to the people who need solidarity. The conditions are wrong, the system that forces people to accept horrible conditions in order to survive is wrong. There are many things that are wrong, but to say that all expressions of a certain activity is wrong because some of them are done under horrible conditions is frankly unintelligent. That was also not what you did. You made no mention of the conditions but simply equated commercial sexual activities with slavery. I strongly disagree and I think that view is dangerous besides obviously false.
This is becoming a long post, I apologize. I also apologize for my misuse of quotation marks. Oh - and I want to slap myself for writing that anybody "own themselves"... the philosophical concept of "self-ownership" is one that I dislike a lot, but there I used it. Sorry for that too.
In patriarchy, women are equated with their bodies. If the use of their bodies can be bought and sold, then it is their selves -- as constructed in the patriarchy -- that are being bought and sold. So yes, it is considerably more like slavery than, say, working retail.
You are transferring a psychological statement about some to all. Clearly you have not talked to a sex-worker (prostitute, porn, dominatrix, (fashion) model etc) ever (?)... because you are certainly misrepresenting how (some of them) feel about their bodies and what they do with them.
Now, we may both have our own feelings about whether we would like to do what they do, but do not pretend that your feelings represent everybody else's. I too, feel uncomfortable with the choice some people make to make using other's sexuality as their way to make money. But lets leave the passing of judgment and extrapolation of our own feelings to others to the right-wing. Because whatever we feel about it, for some people it is indeed a job.
Oh, and in the textile industry there are ACTUAL slavery, so it is indeed a worthy comparison. And it is not like that has nothing to do with patriarchy!
Forget the personal moral (psychological) indignation. Start making social (and economical) analysis. Poverty and power are in my opionion better things to focus on to find roots to patriarchal exploitation than sex and nudity (not that they are not part of it).
Okay, so well. Um. This might be TMI, but my boyfriend and I are into BDSM, which means that any porn I watch is geared towards that subject. (And probably the porn he watches too, but he won't tell me, which is totally his choice.*) And I'm afraid that I'm not even into the cool, somewhat "feminist" stuff either with dominatrices abounding, but the kind where the woman is submissive. I don't even know how this kind of information is going to go over (whether people just don't want to know so much or whether they'll think I'm/my boyfriend is sexist) but I felt like it's important to know what exactly I'm talking about when I talk about my personal experience with porn.
There's really only one site I visit and it's called kink.com. I've read their list of rules and regulations, which is important when one is engaging in BDSM - there has to be a lot of trust when someone's getting tied up and gagged that their vulnerability won't be abused past the line of consent. This particular company has many standards, including safety words/signals, tapes proving consent, after-tapes proving that it was enjoyed, rules that state the filming must be completely stopped for the day if a model starts crying, that there are no rape fantasies, and so on and so on. So basically, while the content doesn't necessarily promote the idea of "strong women", this company definitely puts control in the women's hands, definitely respects their boundaries (which just happen to be a little bit larger than some) and it's definitely a company I can respect, even while I'm not running over there to be tied up in a dungeon.
As for the image-issue presented by porn, I don't think it's given me unrealistic ideas of sex. If anything, I think those romance novels I read when I was fifteen gave me unrealistic ideas of sex. :) But there is definitely a pressure out on BOTH gender, in my opinion. It's not just women who could be looking at porn, wondering why their breasts aren't as perky as the models'. Men are held up to some pretty high standards too: penis size, staying power, basic body image, to name a few.
Despite this, however, I definitely think that porn presents more body/sex image issues for women and that too much porn is geared towards a male heterosexual audience.
*Despite his refusing to tell me his pornographic preferences, we're pretty open about what works and what doesn't. I'm not afraid he watches anything horrible like child porn, just to clarify. I just respect that he might have some fetishes he'd like to keep just in his mind.
I like the rules your community has about how actresses are treated in porn - that's really great that women are so respected in that space.
Of course, it's the BDSM folks who introduced the concept of the "safe word" - and it would be good if everybody practiced that concept and that "yes means yes" vision of consent in their sex lives!
But, as far as most porn being oriented towards straight men - that's market driven! Most of the porn audience is heterosexual males - in particular, straight guys who either don't have a partner (like me) or straight guys who's partner will no longer have sex with them.
Since they're the guys who buy most of the product, most of the product is going to be oriented towards their desires.
ummm, there are women who like porn too. Even straight ones *waves hand*
I'm really glad I didn't have to be the first lady on here to say I'm a feminist and also into BDSM porn where the woman is submissive. Eresbel, thank you for your spot-on and timely comments.
Whilst I would never disregard the discomfort and distaste that more violent, domination-themed porn causes to many women and feminists (as viewers I mean), we do need to examine how we can reconcile our views as feminists who support a woman's right to express her sexuality freely, with writing off a section of women as 'victims of oppression' simply because we like a type of porn that some unsavoury woman-haters might also get off on.
As Eresbel points out, in the BDSM community a lot more care is taken to ensure the comfort of the submissive, there is a lot of emphasis on safety rules and regulations, and a lot of sites make a point of showing the actors and actresses before and after in normal clothes and poses, to show how what you are seeing is not 'real' in any way, but acting done by actors. One of my preferred sites is www.fuckedandbound.com where women off all appearances are used (white, black, asian, redheads, blondes, brunettes, goths, plus-size, small-breasted, skinny, medium-szied and so on) and I also find this a satisfying solution to the problem most women find with mainstream porn, in that you find yourself 'competing' with the ridiculous body image of the women in the video, and hence getting no enjoyment out of it.
I recognise that the sites I visit aren't reflective of most porn, and that there is a lot of badly acted, unconvincing porn that seems solely to cater to the male need to believe that you don't have to really go to any lengths to respect, understand or pleasure a woman. However, that's precisely why I like the BDSM community - it caters to my tastes without ever making me feel ashamed or freakish, and it spells out that fantasy is just that - a temporary disconnection from reality that's not reflective of the rest of your life.
>>>>I think that what people get off on is the complete difference in the time spent pretending to be either dom or sub and their day-to-day personality. I guarantee that if you asked BDSMers what they are like in their everyday life, most of them would be different from their assumed sex roles.
Couldn't agree more Eresbel! I'm a total control freak in real life, strong, independent (sometimes accused of being 'bossy') and rarely trust others to do things for me which I'm convinced I can do better myself. It seems to make sense that my bedroom self wants to let got and let my partner (who is a very quiet, gentle, easy-going man) take 'control' (I use quote marks because the 'control' is fictional to a degree - I know I can stop the action with a word any time I want). Personally I find BDSM a helpful and healthy outlet.
>>>>As for the image-issue presented by porn, I don't think it's given me unrealistic ideas of sex. If anything, I think those romance novels I read when I was fifteen gave me unrealistic ideas of sex. :)
YES! Thank you! Very good point. I've often thought the same. Let's take Dawson's Creek to task first for giving girls an unrealistic take on sex and relationships, if we're going to have a go at the porn industry!
I also find a lot of 'soft porn' of the type that is peddled over here in the UK (Lad's mags, page 3 etc) a lot more offensive than violent fetish porn. 1) because lad's mags and page 3 are shoved in my face every time I go into a newsagents to buy a chocolate bar, and I resent how they impinge on my daily freedom not to have pictures of plastic tits shoved at me. On the other hand, no one has to look at BDSM porn unless they make the fully informed decision to click on the 'I am over 18 and I accept' form on the website, or buy the DVD or whatever. Also worth mentioning that lad's mags are sometimes placed at the eyeline of about a 7 year old in some UK newsagents, and there's no law to stop them doing this.
2) again because the vision of the female body and female sexuality in these mags are so disconnected from any real woman, and so obviously catering to men, that I feel they do women far more of a disservice by implying we're all blonde, cellulite-free, fake-tanned 22 year-olds in lacy thongs just dying to please you! And unlike in BDSM porn, there's no disclaimer afterwards to let us know that this woman is just acting and obviously is nothing like that in real life.
I think soft porn damages men's view of women and sex much more than BDSM. I also think it's a fiction that all men want to see women degraded and want to be the dominant one; I've actually been the one who has had to talk my partner into acting out certain fantasies, as he is not naturally dominant and was concerned that he might upset me through certain acts (we got past it and now both enjoy many of those acts!). He also does not look at any porn - I'm the one interested in it.
Ultimately I know there are feminists who will never think my standpoint is defensible, who will see me as a 'victim of my own oppression'. I know there's not a lot I can say to disabuse them of that, as you can never escape from the argument 'well you're just a product of your culture'. But I feel much freer than any woman who engages in a sex act 'because my boyfriend likes it', and have only ever experienced men who like my body and sexuality for what they are. It's sad that there exists ANY man who would turn down a woman because 'she doesn't look enough like a porn star', but I think that hints at a) the man being a dickwad and b)the effect of a ridiculously superficial society as a whole rather than a reason that porn is harmful.
Also, I'd like to offer my theory on the whole dom/sub thing: I think that what people get off on is the complete difference in the time spent pretending to be either dom or sub and their day-to-day personality. I guarantee that if you asked BDSMers what they are like in their everyday life, most of them would be different from their assumed sex roles. Basically, what I'm saying is that guy you see at a BDSM convention who's being trotted around like a pony and licking some dominatrix's boots is probably somewhat of a control freak otherwise. And vice versa.
But again, this is just a theory.
I agree. In fact, I think this is the case with most kinks. Many people are aroused by things that are contrary with their true personality--often by things that are strange or even disgusting to them when they think about it objectively.
I can definitely agree with this theory. Many of the BDSM relationships I know have very egalitarian relationships outside of the bedroom. At its heart, sub/dom relationships are essentially fantasy role play, in order to reverse the 'norm' of your regular life. For instance, a person who has a great amount of control and authority in their regular life might enjoy a space in which to relinquish that control in a setting filled with absolute trust.
Anyway, in terms of BDSM porn imagery, I feel that it needs to be separated into two categories. 1) Fetish images, aimed specifically of BDSM participants, and for people of all genders and sexual orientations. (For example, if it is of a women being dominated, the images should be equally appealing to a sub female as well as a dom male). 2) 'Torture porn': images of attacks and degradations upon the female body, aimed exclusively at men. This type is extremely disturbing and problematic.
The main difference between the two categories (in my mind) is respect. The first category of images contains respect for the subject, and respect for the audience.
Short answer )since I'm trying to get out of work before it rains): Yup, I like porn. I watch it but I'm also a savvy consumer that picks and chooses according to my own likes and dislikes and my ethical concerns. Someone mentioned kink.com which has a great code of conduct/ethics and a good reputation. I don't like a lot of mainstream porn geared towards immature hetero guys and I don't like porn that is degrading to women (if it makes me uncomfortable instead of hot, it's not for me), but there are so many different flavors of porn out there that it's easy to find something that agrees with your tastes and your politics. I especially like gay porn...the guys are super hot, much more so than in straight porn and I like amateur stuff made by people who are realistic-looking AND seem like they are really enjoying each other as well as the performance. Yes, there are problems with a lot of the porn/sex industry, but it's more complex than porn or no-porn. Incidentally, I think there will always be porn of some sort, so we just have to keep asking what kind of porn we'd like to encourage and what we need to discourage.
It's pretty hard to make a judgement about porn in general, given the range involved. But I have become more critical of mainstream porn than I used to be because I think the attitudes about men and women that it conveys are pretty harmful.
For one thing, mainstream porn is completely male-centric. I know a lot of people will now chime in and tell me that not all porn is male-centric. But I maintain that mainstream porn is, because men are the target audience and we live in a culture that privileges the male experience. Male pleasure and male desire are central. The females say and do the things that they're supposed to do to maximize the male turn-on factor, like moaning at the right times, saying the right things, and faking orgasm on cue.
In reality this has nothing to do with female desire, and in the long run it gives men a very fucked up idea of female sexuality (that it's male-centric, that it's the same for all women, etc). It also makes women feel bad about themselves if they don't come from the same (total lack of) stimulation. It sets some ridiculously imbalanced expectations concerning oral sex (don't even get me started). And it increases the insecurity of both men and women when their sexual experiences don't end up looking like the same old porn scenario that they've seen 18 million times. If she can't come merely from sucking him off and then PIV intercourse, then she feels like there's something wrong with her, and he feels that he hasn't performed. If she would like some manual or oral stimulation, but it doesn't occur to him to do it on his own, she won't ask, because when do you see a woman ask for something in porn (other than the fake-moaning "fuck me" mantra)? No, she is there as an object to be used by him and to fulfill his fantasy. If she has any fantasies or desires, we'll never know, as reciprocality is not really a value in mainstream porn.
Porn is male-centric because men, by and large, are the consumers of porn. Neuropsychological studies have shown that men react more to a visual sexual image than women, and that backs up who's buying the porn and then who studios are going to target to.
"Porn is male-centric because men, by and large, are the consumers of porn. Neuropsychological studies have shown that men react more to a visual sexual image than women, and that backs up who's buying the porn and then who studios are going to target to."
This is really becoming less and less true in practice and as verified in recent neurological and physiological studies (as reported in the NY times, BBC, books such as Sperm Wars) I'm not saying men and women are 50-50 on this, but certainly I think they are a tad closer than most people seem to realize.
This line of men-are-visual reasoning to explain the discrepancy in porn is like arguing that Virgin Airlines and Carls Jr use sex to sell their products because only men fly and eat fast food. Um, no.
Women may have different consumption habits, yes. Women may have different tastes and fantasies, probably, with some overlap. And porn and erotic purveyors are starting to take note.
Interesting, I read online that porn producers are actually looking to make more stuff for women and couples because these groups apparently are more likely to purchase a title then men. Their claim not mine. No bashing please. I think their point was that the level of file sharing and people with 20G of porn on their drive has reached proportions only rivaled by the music industry, lol.
And actually I also read (wiki, I believe) that gay male porn is a disproportionate share of the total market and I think part of the reason if because straight women are watching it too. Frankly, if I do start watching again, it will be gay porn or some of the bi stuff (MMF).
Fair points. You've educated me and I want to thank you for that. (no sarcasm, in case the troll trigger got pulled.)
I actually rescind my arguments. Those were all excellent. Thank you, again.
Porn is male-centric because men, by and large, are the consumers of porn
I did mention that. But I don't believe the old men-are-more-visual-than-women shtick. As Spike pointed out, recent studies have challenged this, and historically there were a number of patriarchal reasons scientists and EPs had for making this claim.
I'm not getting the men are more visual thing either. In studies they find that women react sexually to erotic images of hetero and gay men and women. But the men are turned on by what's expected-if they're straight, then hetero, etc. So that argument is totally bullshit from what I understand.
The research is a little more nuanced than all that. In a nut (heh) shell male physical and emotional arousal occurs at basically the same time, while female arousal physical arousal can occor separately.
So men being visually stimulated at porn is physical as well as emotional, while for women it could be physical and the woman would feel no emotional arousal or perhaps not even know physical arousal had occured.
There was a whole other thread a while back arguing for/against the findings. Like all science, wait on the test, retest by other independents before you can start accepting it as sooth.
so which is it, Rachel? Is porn not realistic enough, or is it so real that people look to it for real life modelling?
I believe the center of the problem is the vacuum of real sex information. Sure, a kid can google anything nowadays. But can a 12-year-old solitarily navigate the Wild Wild Web and effectively dodge all misinformation? The way to fight the misinformation a young man may get from porn is for a trusted source, like his parent or his school, to give him all the information he wants. Give him a solid base of correct information and respectful values toward sex partners. This way when he watches porn, with its verisimilitude, he will be able to enjoy the sexual arousal of it while knowing that this is all theatre, not reality. Just like regular TV.
My stance on porn is a live-and-let-live one. While I can understand the degradation involved in some of the porn industry, I don't necessarily believe it completely reflects everything.
For instance, if someone feels that their only option is to enter into the Adult Industry as a model, it's their responsibility to do the accompanying research about what kind of porn they want to do. BDSM, vanilla, gay, lesbian, bisexual, on and on and on. If it's something they feel uncomfortable doing, even being paid, it's not something which you're forced into a "casting call" for. A man or woman has the complete right to choose what kind of porn they want to do.
As for its societal implications, I think porn can be a healthy outlet to help with sexual fantasies. Anyone who's actually had sex will know that 3/4 of the positions are meant to get a good shot and are really awkward/tiresome/painful to be in for a long enough period of time. People will try various things they've seen and sometimes they'll work, sometimes they won't. But that's experimenting with a partner to begin with -- so I don't think porn is detrimental in that sense.
I'm also skeptical of arguments that, en masse, any form of media directly pushes a group of people to do any sort of negative or positive behaviors. It can reinforce pre-existing patterns, sure, but I don't think it necessarily makes someone do something or not based solely on "I saw it on TV" unless you have a pre-existing disconnect from reality. While there's an interplay between media and society, I'm very skeptical of the idea that media necessarily makes people do things (thus my avoidance of all those threads on here to not be a troll).
Personally, I like a pretty narrow kind of porn, but I'm not about to denounce one kind over another because, let's face it, the models have a right to end their contracts if their studios are abusive. They can sue for endangerment and any number of other things about their work environment.
While there's an interplay between media and society, I'm very skeptical of the idea that media necessarily makes people do things
Yeah, I'm not sure the claim is that porn makes people do things so much as that it shapes their attitudes. I think it's easy to underestimate the power that images can have when you view them over and over. It's been proven time and again in the advertising industry, and you can take a basic marketing class to learn about the stats on repetitive attitudes and societal attitudes.
I wouldn't say it's in this particular entry or has been said in this particular discussion, but it tends to come out at some point so I thought I'd address it.
I agree with the comment about the age when you first view porn being significant for some people. My first bf was very rigid in his preferences, and it bothered me without me being able to put a finger on why.
Later, after we had broken up, I was describing my discomfort in the relationship to a guy friend. "I felt like with him, every little thing I might do went on either the 'hot' or the 'not-hot' list," I explained, and I gave a couple of specific examples.
"Oh, I see, he watches too much porn," the guy friend answered.
So apparently the effect was that obvious even secondhand. I had never watched porn, so I didn't recognize myself that that was where the problem came from.
Ex-bf had told me, however, that he had been viewing porn from age 2, because his irresponsible parents would leave it running.
Quite a bit later on, I again mentioned the situation in passing to a guy friend. "Naw, that doesn't just come from watching porn," the guy said. "He must have been watching REALLY BORING porn."
Oh, and on the day I was horrified by an NPR interview with Robert Jensen linking pornography, prostitution, and violence against women!
I'll just reiterate some points already mentioned. Porn is not a black and white issue. Something like Bangbros is vastly different than something like Crash Pad. In terms of content, portrayal of women, enactments of gender, and the conditions for the performers involved.
This is a hot button issue for me. I'll just put it this way...
I don't have a problem with porn in theory. I have a problem with porn in practice. Then again, a lot of the things I hate about (current) porn is due to a very anti-woman society.
See: Gail Dines and Robert Jensen
You summed up my thoughts very easily and in a little package.
I feel about porn as I do about a lot of things. There are problems with some porn obviously but people can do what they want. However, I'm personally not very interested and I'm glad to have a boyfriend who's not very interested. I do hate this belief that ALL men want to watch porn regularly.
I strongly feel that our focus on porn needs to significantly shift. Yes, we can keep talking about how unrealistic traditional porn is. However, this does not take into consideration the fact that the traditional porn industry is struggling-- this is partly due to the huge amounts of amateur porn, available for free, online. Amateur porn, while portraying real women with real bodies, raises a whole new set of troubling issues. We're in a society where any women can take a naked picture of herself, and have it posted online for many men to view. However, this raises many different problems of exploitation-- amateur porn involves pictures of 'upskirts' (shots taken of random women on the street.. the name speaks for itself). Or, amateur porn can also involve 'ex' material-- a relationship ends, and any sexual images/videos made during that relationship risk getting posted online. Anyone else have thoughts on the problems of amateur porn, or the future of mainstream porn?
I've read that there are an increasing amount of men who find it more difficult to be turned on by 'normal' sex with their partners (what is normal is anyone's guess!) because of their exposure to more hardcore types of porn.
The argument was that after being immersed in images of hardcore sexuality some men were experiencing a disconnect from the reality of their everyday sex lives.
Thoughts? Experiences?
Porn's a complex issue- as far as I'm concerned, pornography is another form of entertainment, and as with all my other entertainment I have to be careful about what I consume. Misogynistic attitudes are endemic in our patriarchal society- look at advertisements, tv shows, movies and porn to see this. But there is always entertainment made by more enlightened, more aware people, that is a direct response to mainstream entertainment.
I think porn as an industry is exactly as sexist as the rest of the world- it's just more blatant, more obvious in its appropriation of women. I think as attitudes change to reflect a more feminist worldview, porn will change with it.
I find it interesting that, in a feminist discussion of porn, we've focused on the effect of porn on men and their ability to use regular women as wank material.
I think one factor in this is that no one wants to speculate about women in porn films, just as people are hesitant to judge other sex workers.
In terms of women as porn consumers... I really don't think there's anything available that appeals to a large contingent of women - certainly, there's nothing that's easy to find. If it's out there, let me know!
So, women as participants, women as viewers, women as affected members of society. If we don't feel we should discuss the first, and there's not much to discuss about the second, that leaves the third. And, therefore, we end up talking about men!
I don't agree with this at all. Even just reading the comments in this very thread we see many women saying they enjoy forms, or at least forms of it.
Personally I like porn. Not all porn. But I do like it. I watch it. I look at it the on internet. I've masterbated to it many times. So have millions of other women.
HOwever I am very selective about what I watch, both in terms of movies, scenes, etc. If you put a bit of effort into it, you can find alot of really hot stuff out there.
Steven, I can't find your exact post right now, but I remember you had some questions about the violence in porn. I'll try to answer as best I can...The only source I can really think of was the documentary, The Price of Pleasure, that I recently watched. I realize some people might find it biased, But I would still recommend you or anyone else interested watch or read the transcript if you have time, because it does at least try to offer perspectives from all sides - (there's a link at the end of this post)...And again, I'm sorry if my post comes of a little bit biased as a result of me referencing the film, actually I'm not trying to present too much of my opinion here, but rather I just wanted to relay some information that the documentary gives about violence & porn.
The documentary mentions a study that was done by researchers at NYU, UMASS, and Rhode Island University about the various sex acts, specifically acts of aggression in pornography. Here's some excerpts from the transcript:
"Defenders often state that critics hold up the worst case examples, the most degrading, most violent pornography, and talk about why this is harmful. But in fact pornography is very diverse. Our research team is interested in what people are actually viewing. So we randomly selected videos from a list of best renting videos, and that way we were not responsible for choosing which videos to content analyze. Rather the viewers are choosing which videos to watch and we are sampling from their choice.
The research team analyzed 305 scenes from the most popular videos released in 2005. They found that 89.8% of the scenes contained either verbal or physical aggression. 48% contained verbal aggression, mostly name calling and insults, while 82.2% contained physical aggression. 94.4% of the aggressive acts were targeted at women.
The research team reported that spanking and gagging were the most frequently depicted acts of aggression."
The documentary then continues with a researcher describing what a typical "gagging" scene looks like. The documentary the continues to explain more research findings:
"41% of the scenes that were content analyzed contained ATM...'ass to mouth' a sequence commonly seen in pornography in which the male inserts his penis in the woman anus, and after removing it, puts it in the woman's mouth.
Some of the films make jokes that she literally has to eat shit."
The documentary then cuts to a scene where a pornographer is producing a video which contains an ATM scene. It shows the woman visibly upset about the scene, she says that she doesn't want to do it, but eventually ends up doing the scene. After it finished, it shows her throwing up as she runs to the bathroom.
The next part I find the most disturbing. The documentary cuts to an shot of an "extreme" (violent) pornography scene. The narrator then starts talking about how the army/navy manual defines torture...the narrator continues to read about various methods of torture while the video shows various torture techniques being played out in various pornography scenes.
The documentary then cuts to an interview with a producer at a major studio.
"God, have you been watching these movies lately? There's a lot of hard stuff, that's where people are going with it."
"I hate to say, but I think the future of American porn is violence."
Apart from the violent direction that porn seems to be heading, the documentary offers other conclusions/questions/criticisms as well...Including how difficult it often is for critics to question the and ever expanding and hyper-commodification of the "sex" in general:
"Pornography...is a reflection of the failure to question an economic system that rewards enterprises for profit maximizing, endlessly market expanding."
It also notes that rather than pornography (and extreme pornography in particular) being enjoyed by the "fringe" as was maybe the perception decades ago...porn has now been "normalized" and "mainstreamed". Thus pornography doesn't represent a "deviant" sexuality, but rather a very conventional sexuality. [Of course that conclusion is also juxtaposed with the conclusion about how pornography is trending more towards the "extreme" and "violent" so the two conclusions seem almost irreconcilable next to each other...I think the questions are posed to elicit further questioning from the audience.
Well, I have a million questions regarding pornography. After seeing the doc. I ended up coming away with a lot more questions than I had started with. So, I'd be interested to know what anyone else thinks (if you happened to read the Transcript or see the Documentary)...Or have any other comments about what I mentioned.
Also, Robert Jensen was featured in the documentary, obviously he is very critical of pornography. But you might find some of his articles helpful if you want further information on violence in pornography...he also has articles on masculinity and porno among other topics some related and some not related to porn: Here
I haven't seen PoP myself, but I've read a number of criticisms of it, including from some of the porn performers and producers whose interviews were used in the documentary. Joanna Angel claims she was misled. I find the definition of spanking and gagging to be suspect.
I was unable to attend the screenings in my city, which is unfortunate, because I would like to form my own opinion of the documentary.
I do find these kind of documentaries problematic when the creators are not observing 2257 laws themselves. I guess I just wonder what the producers are doing for the women whose images they are using in their documentary to make their points.
I'm not going to argue than porn doesn't present problematic depictions of sex (institutionalized heterosexuality?) or that many porn producers are terrible to their performers. I guess I just want a more nuanced discussion of porn.
I'm not going to try and claim that any documentary is going to be totally free of bias...and I certainly don't think this one was...and I purposely didn't include much of my opinion because I wanted to know what other thought. Some documentaries are better than others, I've seen several on pornography. Comparing this to others, I would say it's one of the better ones out there, just my opinion. Also, with any documentary on a controversial subject, there's always going to be some criticisms. However, that doesn't necessarily invalidate the research that was done or the legitimacy of some of the issues brought up in the film.
One other thing that I wanted to mention, is the seeming unwillingness of many consumers of pornography to question and critique the industry as well as the media form itself. Too often I hear perfectly legitimate critiques or discussions dismissed as "it's way too biased" or "it's anti-sex" (not that I'm saying that was the intent of your post, not at all, it just reminded me of this dynamic).
Pornography is a form of media, and much like we would, for example, critique superbowl commercials, Bratz dolls, or a particular TV series, there also needs to be a critical discussion around the subject of pornography as well. It's perfectly reasonable to want to understand the effects of certain media on our society and culture. I'm not advocating a culture war or an obscenity witch hunt. Yes, there are plenty of these culture war/obscenity type criticisms that come from the Fundamental-Right-Wing perspective, but there are also criticisms that come from a more progressive/feminist perspective. I think a lot of times when the issue or porn is brought up, particularly around consumers and in mainstream liberal and progressive circles, and particularly when looked at through a critical lens, often the conversation, even before it gets started, is dismissed as "biased" and/or"anti-sex". I think we as a society and as feminists have not been been very successful in advancing the conversation past "Dworkin"...again, almost immediately feminists get accused of being "anti-sex", and the conversation dies before it even began.
I really don't care about what others do in their own lives regarding porn, but I feel porn is not right, and that includes cartoon porn, hentai, or even smut fiction. Mostly because it comes down to treating the submissive partner in the story or image as an object rather than a human being that has rights. I understand the women and men may or may not go willing into the industry to work, but it's the mind of the viewer that make me cringe. A female porn star might see herself as a sexually open and powerful woman, but the viewer will likely see her an an object to be dominated.
I don't think porn becomes an issue really until you enter into cartoon, drawn, or animated pornography where things can go from something really vanilla to "oh dear monkey-chips, why are there tentacles?" or "no.... no human being can possibly do that". It's fine if people can distinguish the drawn up fantasy from reality but is problematic when that fantasy becomes in their mind a sexual reality and they expect their partner to comply with it. Sometimes they have difficulty being aroused by things other than those fantasies.
I feel as if porn promotes the patriarchal ideals that only men's pleasure is important and it's a man's right to sex of any form he wishes even to the cost of a woman's rights and/or health. Even with porn, it perpetuates the myth that women are creatures who have to be forced to have sex.
I believe what bothered me the most was the excuses I got from my fiance's friends after I decided to ban porn within the relationship. Common responses were "He's a man, he deserves it!" and "Stop being a controlling bitch/feminazi. You probably don't put out enough for him anyways!"
In response to Sunset_winds' comment about her first boyfriend and the "hot or not" list:
I think it is more than just the age they start looking, it's also if they even interact people of the opposite sex in the first place.This was pretty much the problem with my fiance. I'm his first and only girlfriend. He was in his early twenties when he started dating me. He never really interacted with other girls and he admitted he would spend several hours a day looking at pornography and it was the only reason he said he bothered even paying for the internet. Rather than opening up about trying things for the first time, he already had a warped idea of he would and wouldn't do or would or wouldn't be interested in.
How do you feel about yaoi then, which is for the most part, drawn and written for and by women?
Porn is awesome.
Okay, maybe not quite. I don't have a problem with it. I believe people can separate fantasy from reality, and the few who can't shouldn't be able to ruin the fun for the rest of us. I'm even fine with fairly violent porn -- I'm sexually submissive, and it turns me on, and I sure as hell know it's not okay in the real world unless both people have talked about it and have a safeword.
I do care about working conditions. There's a very wide range. From what I've heard S&M porn companies tend to treat their workers much better than mainstream, but I can't remember where I heard that and I can't verify.
The way a lot of companies treat their performers is reprehensible, and there really should be a way for the performers to get help and make sure other performers aren't mistreated. Unfortunately, we don't live in a sex-positive culture, and many people assume a woman working as a porn star deserves and should expect terrible working conditions. That's a problem.
This is basically what I said when I wrote the article about Max Hardcore, which someone linked to way upthread. He deserves jail time, but not for "obscenity." He would have been convicted even if all his actresses had been volunteers.
I believe people can separate fantasy from reality
I don't think anybody is trying to refute this claim. In porn where they're acting out things that are clearly supposed to be a fantasy I have no doubt that most viewers get it. But in most mainstream porn it looks like something that would happen to a normal person on a normal day. And when you're exposed to the images over and over again they become normalized to you and you internalize the attitudes and values they embody. So I actually think that mainstream porn can be worse than niche porn in that it's so male-centric and non-reciprocal. And that, together with the male-centric version of female sexuality that's presented in most mainstream media, is clearly reflected in the sexual attitudes of most people in our culture.
I agree with what you are saying with the internalization of certain attitudes and beliefs, especially male-centric views on sexuality but actually, I think what you are saying seems to suggest, at least to me, that there is more of a gray area between fantasy and reality. Especially when you become desensitized and start needing to have more extreme sex acts and in some cases even act out what is performed in pornography in order to be turned on in your real-life sex. So, I think the whole thing about separating fantasy from reality is a little more complicated.
There's also the question of young males being exposed to pornography before they are exposed to real-life sex and realistic depictions of female sexuality and sex, and thus their views and beliefs about what constitutes sex is drawn (mostly) directly from pornography rather than reality. I've heard plenty of women and teenage girls complaining about how their partners had expected them to do X, Y, and Z...and when they did't want to, their partners have held up examples of pornography as "evidence" of what women are "supposed" to do and of course followed by "why won't you do X, Y, Z?".
Obviously I realized that this isn't every male whose views are being influence by pornography. But when a significant number of men are watching pornography, especially younger males who don't have any other sexual experience otherwise...I think it's only right that we would want to know the effect that certain media (in this case pornography) is having on our culture. Just like our views, beliefs, trends, culture is influenced and sometimes shaped by certain TV shows, music, pop-culture and other media, it only makes sense that pornography would also have an effect on our society. This is what I mean when I say that the line between fantasy and reality is a little more complicated. Not necessarily that viewers become unable to tell the difference between the two, but that viewers naturally become influenced by this fantasy which then in turn can carry over and have an effect on reality.
I love porn. I've watched porn since I was probably 11. There isn't enough porn for women though. And I mean hardcore porn for women. I usually end up watching gay porn because of this. I mean guy on guy.
I've never liked porn. My mom actually left my step-dad because he was addicted to it. However, I know some women/men think that porn is acceptable. When in fact porn not only exposes a side of you that shouldn't be shown, but it is also degrading to women.
The whole issue of LGBT's..my best friend is a "stud" and she seems to think the same. She has told me before that not under any circumstances would she ever watch any kind of LGBT porn.
"It exposes a side of you that shouldn't be shown"
Can you please elaborate? It sounds like you're saying that sexuality shouldn't be shown, which is a puritanical and sex-negative viewpoint.
Interesting find, from a link I followed on facebook -- http://www.everystudent.com/wires/toxic.html; ad read "Pornography: I thought it was okay, until she found out", site subtitle is "Exploring questions about life & God".
Beginning talks about how porn is like taking a sex fire out of a marriage fireplace (hmmmmm).
But, I think that the later points are actually spot-on. "Porn's Image of Sex... All that matters is my satisfaction. It doesn't matter whose body I'm using, as long as I get it."
"The Lies of Porn"
*Women are less than human (...often refers to women as animals, playthings, or body parts); Women are a 'sport'(swimsuit magazines, conquests, scoring)
*Women are property (porn tells us that women can be bought
*A woman's value depends on the attractiveness of her body (porn doesn't care about a woman's mind or personality, only her body)
*Women like rape
*Women should be degraded
*Little kids should have sex
*Illegal sex is fun
*Prostitution is glamorous
Replace "women" with "people" to allow for gay porn, and I'd have to agree with all of these, although they don't necessarily show that porn is *definitively* bad. I hate to assume that default porn viewers are male, but I actually made an effort to find some fem-friendly porn recently and failed. Even websites claiming to be feminist didn't feature anything designed to appeal to a female.
As for the definitive nature of porn, I do think I'll always have issues with objectification. Aside from well-done sex scenes in movies with fully developed characters, I always find myself wondering about the family members of the actors and feeling awful. Couples porn doesn't seem like it has to be so skeevy to me, though. Haven't seen any, but I would be open to trying it.
The majority of porn makes me feel sick - I have rarely seen porn that is woman centric or that really seems to show female pleasure. It seems like they are either faking it or trying like hell not to scream or look particularly grossed out (see Robert Jensen for detailed descriptions).
And i do think that a constant intake of porn negatively affects relationships (I am part of the under 30 crowd). Lets just put it this way - when someone chooses to masturbate to porn over having sex with an actual person... there is a serious problem. Again, Robert Jensen discusses this phenomenon. It was nice to know, in a horrible sort of way, that I was not the only one to experience this.
You're definitely not the only one. I've had a shitton of problems in my life because of porn, so maybe I'm biased.
I really can't stand the terms "sex positive" and "sex negative." What defines the two? I can understand someone thinking no one should ever have sex and it's disgusting and evil as sex negative, but even then...I'd rather find out why they feel that way then label. Anyway, those two lables are completely ridiculous to me.
I remember my now ex, after learning my distatse for porn, saying "it's not objectifying, she's getting paid!" And then trying to show me porn he thought I'd like. Oh, and I just loved how porn with a couple is supposed to appeal to me as a woman. "It's made for women!" It just reminds me of my human sexuality textbook from last year saying how women have sex for many reasons, and not one fucking one of them was beacause she's turned on and she wants to. NO, it was because she wants to nurture her partner. My bad, off topic.
I define sex-positive as understanding that sexuality is not bad, and that sexuality includes things you personally might not be into. Sex-positive means that you don't judge people by what turns them on, and you understand that sexualization isn't necessarily demeaning.
Sex-negative covers Conservative Christians who believe that premarital sex is the worst thing ever and that sex education is the same thing as pornography. It also covers those feminists who start caterwauling about objectification when even a little skin is showing, without any thought to context.
It can also cover people who politicize their sex lives too much. There's a certain set of people who believe that a man who likes his female partner to wear lingerie does so because he only cares that she's attractive and because he wants her to support the patriarchy with her uncomfortable underwear. (A women in lingerie gives him a boner. That's why he likes it. Not that complicated.)
Then maybe I'd fall under sex negative. I don't see how sexualization is good...ever. And I'm totally fine with people doing consensual things that I wouldn't, but taking a look at why people may want and do certain things isn't "sex negative" to me, it's meaningful discussion. And that includes things I like and do. It's like you try and discuss and analize something, and the defenses come up. In the end, I think these two terms are harmful and not in the least helpful, as I'm sure many people wouldn't fully categorize themselves as fully either one.
I don't have a problem with discussing WHY people fantasize about certain things. I find that fascinating. I do have a problem with "Your fantasy is caused by rape culture, and that means it's bad and you shouldn't think about it or be turned on by it, and if you attempt to act it out you are promoting inequality." I've come across this too many times, and this attitude is a large part of the reason why people get so defensive.
I also hate the idea of "Okay, I disapprove of this fantasy but it's fine to think about or even act out with your partner, but anyone who puts it on film is a TERRIBLE HUMAN BEING." That just doesn't make sense.
And that's why I'll generally come out in support of porn. People have fantasies. If it's okay to think about them or try them out, then it should be okay to watch other people doing the same thing.
But others may say that certain feelings/fantasies may be fostered and or created by the patriarchal culture, but it doesn't make you a bad person. Maybe not even that, but encouraging people to look at their desires/wants in the context of our society.
And I don't see most people saying IT'S NOT OK, but bringing up what the negatives/positives of certain things are. Not saying don't fantasize or act it out, but asking people to take a second look at it from another perspective. Just because it's fantasized about, watched, and acted out doesn't mean it's free from discussion and criticism.
I'm certain some fantasies are created by the patriarchal culture. Most sexual desire has something to do with culture, even ones we think of as universal. (In some cultures, breasts aren't considered sexual at all.) I don't think there's anything wrong with pointing out where a fantasy might have come from, but I do think there's a lot wrong with treating the fantasy itself as something negative.
I do think that's it's pointless and unfair to criticize someone just for having a certain fantasy, and blaming said fantasies on porn is vastly oversimplifying things. Fantasies come from a lot of places, and sometimes people like things just because they're taboo. If we lived in a society where rape was nearly stamped out, there would still be people with rape fantasies.
I don't think anyone's criticising someone for having a fantasy. But when people aren't willing to look at why someone may have that fantasy, or what might be nagative about it for others, that doesn't mean other people can't discuss and analyze it in a non offensive way. Or saying that no, culture has nothing at all to do with a type of fantasy, and that because it's a fantasy it shouldn't be discussed is not for everyone.
And I was just wondering, in societies where rape is uncommon/non existant (according to some there are societies that do exist) if rape fantasies exist or are common.
Hi
This is Rosie's boyfriend. This was a great thread, by the way, and I've really enjoyed reading it.
I guess the problem there is, if a desire is the product of a patriarchal culture, what do you do? I agree that is unfair to stigmatise people who have rape fantasies, because it is not really their fault that they have them.
But participating in a fantasy doesn't just reflect patriarchy, it reproduces it. I prefer large breasts to small breasts, and I am likely to consume porn which shows large-breasted women. I might look down on the tastes of people who like tanned skin, shaven bodies and tiny waists, but I am not really very different from them- only by degree, not by quality. In my own way, I am doing my little bit to propagate conventional expectations of body shape.
So what am I to do? It is not my fault that I feel the way I do, and there is little or nothing I can do to change my own preferences. Or they theirs. And so through nobody's fault patriarchy grows stronger and stronger.
And what is the alternative? Robert Jensen (in "The End of Masculinity') suggests that in order to "beat" pornography we should redefine sex to include cuddles and headscratching, which seems ridiculously wowserish.
Not just wowserish. It suggests that you are either a saint - totally outside the corrupting influence of patriarchal sexuality - or you're fucked. Which sounds both irretrievably silly and undeniably true.
Hmm.
Alternative? Well my biggest dream is to completely do away with patriarchy. I think that if things in the culture changed, even little things, they could add up and make a big difference. Like more realistic portrayals of women in the media. Teaching children to respect each other regardless of sex. Making sure everyone understands consent.
Anyway, what you can do is acknowledge why you like what you do, if it's influenced by the patriarchy. That's a huge step. And redifining sex would be amazing.
Me too! Apparently, feminists who don't give blanket approval to things like prostitution and porn are "sex-negative." In fact, if you don't explicitly identify yourself as sex-positive then the assumption is that you're sex-negative, since feminism is now by default sex-negative. I still maintain that this is a label that mainstream media and opponents of feminism have hit us with, but apparently we're ok with it. I personally would like to be able to have a more nuanced view, since sexuality is a very complex thing in this culture, and I think many aspects of it require a little more analysis. More here.
And fuck that textbook. Please.
It's like...if we dare look at the meanings behind things, it's SEX NEGATIVE. I remember one post where the rape fantasy was discussed, and I think I remember you bringing up a discussion about WHY women would have that fantasy. But if you take a look at why certain people fantasize about certain things, it's dismissed.
I mean, I very much believe that sex workers need and deserve good working conditions, but what about all the women who'd like to get out of such work?
Some have already mentioned-once "fantasy" is applied, it's as if a discussion/analysis is no longer merited. Thanks for the link!
And yeah, It sucks that a 2008 textbook was saying such garbage. You know women only want sex if they're in a good relationship. Which is why women never, ever have casual sex. EVER.
When it comes to porn, I find that I usually like text better than video. The random videos I find online are often so... boring. It's just staring at the same naked bodies moving around a bit. Watching someone else get a blowjob doesn't turn me on at all. Nobody ever smiles.
On the other hand, there's some really horrible stuff out there in text form...
I don't know if you have found this site yet, but http://www.literotica.com/stories/index.php is a damn gold mine of amateur written smut, organized by category and voted on by readers.
Yes, I know about that site. I'm also fond of www.asstr.org.
A poll:
If you were to video YOU and YOUR partner having sex...what would it look like? How would it differ from porn?
I think the basic argument comes down to this:
Does porn cause certain desires, or is porn made to cater to desires that already exist?
Well for me I generally seek out porn and try to find porn that depicts acts that I enjoy - and not the other way around. I am turned on by some very specific things, some of which I don't usually get in my relationship, and so I look at porn depicting these things (btw nothing overly offensive) as a way to satisfy that craving that I have and I just can't seem to scratch any other way.
So for it's often an outlet, that I believe enhances my relationship, because now I'm not trying to force my partner to do things he may not want to do, yet I'm still getting the sexual satisfaction that I require. Everything is a balance though, the real thing is always still the best!
both and more. Porn also shows things that already exist. As the explosion of the internet has shown in the past 20 years, the thrust of individual fetishes is far more diverse than the porn industry's. I've seen dozens of websites dedicated to fetishes that the mainstream DVD/magazine porn industry has never tackled.
Again I ask: if *your* last lovemaking session was recorded, how would it look different than "porn"?
Rosie's boyfriend again (I really ought to bite the bullet and get my own account).
The two biggest things for me wouLd be less penis-in-orifice shots - which only serves to remind people how mechanical sex is - and more concentration on sounds. In most positions, your head is quite close to your partner's, and there are a lot of murmurs and whispers and little sounds that are really sexy.
The thing about pornography that many people fail to realize is that it is progressive; or, to be more accurate, one should say it is regressive.
Pornography used to be softcore semi-nude pictures of women, as in old time postcards, pin-ups, and early magazines. However, in order for pornographers to make names for themselves, they have to do something no one else has done. This leads to hardcore pornography, scenes of violence and rape (not all of which are staged), and the tendency to display child-like images of women.
As pornography becomes incresingly hardcore, imagery which was once associated with softer-core pornography becomes mainstreamed. The tendency to move towards more shocking images, as well as the increasing acceptance of pornographic imagery into everyday life is one of the main factors which leads to increased availability and severity of both adult and child pornography.
I believe that pornography is one of the chief weapons patriarchy uses to perpetuate its hatred of women. Someone once wrote that pornography is the theory, rape is the practice. I have seen this statement criticized many times. However, one has to ask, in a society in which womens' lives and experiences are deemed to be less valuable than those of men, what is the function of violent imagery against women?
Wiccaman, I'd say that as porn becomes more mainstream, pornographers don't necessarily invent more, but they show more of what's already happening in our sexual underground. I don't mean the sexual underground of swingers or what not, but a more individual underground. What we do not just behind closed doors, but what we do with our spouses when we're on vacation in isolated cabins and know that no one can hear us or interrupt us. Porn's not getting more inventive, it's getting more intimate. Revealing more of the secret stuff that couples in reality do.
Somehow, I just don't think that many women in isolated cabins are getting DPed by their partners.
"Porn's not getting more inventive, it's getting more intimate. Revealing more of the secret stuff that couples in reality do." (RuPaula)
"Somehow, I just don't think that many women in isolated cabins are getting DPed by their partners." (Sarah)
OMG, That cracked me up...DP in isolated cabins (actually it's kinda scary too) I don't know any real people that think "porn is getting more intimate, revealing more of the secret stuff that couples in reality do.". Sarah's right, you aren't going to find any real-life women getting DPed in their isolated cabins, or having their heads flushed down a toilet, or having 50 men wanking off on their face in a locker room...the only women doing that type of stuff are porno actresses.
The vast majority of porno is NOT a reflection of the sex that real couples actually have (amateur pornography, in some cases, would be an exception), rather the porn industry is inventing more and more extreme sex acts in order to differentiate itself in a ginormous, competitive billion dollar market...it's not stuff that couples normally do...nor is it something that 99.9999999999999999% of women would find pleasurable (although female pleasure was never really a factor in hetero-male pornography to begin with)...Acts like being gagged/choked by a penis, having your head flushed down a toilet bowl, having racial slurs screamed at you by a guy dressed as a nazi/kkk, having a soda bottle shoved up your butt/vag (with the soda still in it), being jizzed on by 50 men in a locker room, ass to mouth/coprophagia (eating feces), and millions of other "extreme" acts, are NOT things that are done by couples in reality. These are sex acts invented by the porn industry for the purpose of selling more and more increasingly sensationalized & extreme videos.
RuPaula, My question is, how is it that you would be under the impression that these types of acts are evidence that pornography is "getting more intimate and showing the secret stuff that real couples do."???? I hope your coming to this conclusion is not evidence that other men are also increasingly coming to the same conclusion: that the type of sex acts performed in "extreme pornography" is the type of "secret stuff" that real women would find enjoyable?!
Again, I already asked this, but I wonder if there have been any studies done on pornography's effect on men/society. I've heard plenty of anecdotal stories, both from men and from women, but I haven't seen or read any larger scale studies. It would be interesting to see though.
Un-american person here (me) - and you're using code words, so I'm not quite sure I understand. But if "DPed" means what I think it means then I really don't understand. The thing that I thought it meant is certainly not something "extreme" or unusual. It's perfectly normal and I can assure you that couples all over the world do it in isolated cabins and elsewhere.
So... there must be something in this discussion that I have misunderstood. Probably the meaning of that code word.
argh!
Okay, now I looked it up. The code word does NOT mean what I thought it meant. So forget everything I said... except remember that those code words do make it hard for us who are not into the same cultural jargon :)
Actually, one of my friends was assaulted, and her assailant was saying what he was going to do to her as he was raping her. It was something he was describing from a scene in a porno...being choked/gagged by a penis. The reason we knew is because he was also an acquaintance of ours, and we had seen his (extremely large) porn collection before at his apartment, he had tons of this particular type of porno (penis gagging), apparently he had a fetish for this particular act.
Obviously the vast majority of men don't go out and rape women due to the influence of porn...But it just reminded me of my friend when you said "pornography is the theory...rape is the practice" because it was so eerily similar to her experience. I wonder if there's every been any studies done on the influence of pornography on men...certainly I've heard anecdotal stories before...but I've never seen a larger survey before. Maybe someone here knows of one?
So, there was a big deal a few years ago about a study (a quick google search should pull it up) suggesting that internet porn consumption decreases reported rapes--or at least that's how the study gets presented.
If you read the actual study (which is correlational) it says that there is a NET decrease in reported rapes. So that little mathematical detail "net" seems to suggest two things:
1) For most people porn is acting as a catharsis. Now a lot of people might think this is a good point for porn. But think about the reverse. The reverse means that without porn, many individuals essentially have difficulty adhering to a minimum standard of what our society expects as civilized behavior. I know that's not what I had in mind when I think about true gender equality.
2) The second detail is the word "net". The net gives you a big picture but it doesn't tell you about the crazy people that might be using porn to fuel their crimes, like the guy who assaulted your friend. It's just the number of these guys gets lost amidst the other guys who supposedly are staying home to wank instead of raping women. These are also the crazies that get interviewed in jail after having raped and killed someone, and wind up as data points for studies suggesting that porn can cause harm.
Obviously there are problems with both types of studies, but even if you accept the basic premise (net reduction of rape), it's still problematic. The scary thing is that we have no way of knowing which people are using violent porn for catharsis and which people are using it as a blueprint for some sick deed. And then society's utter refusal to place any responsibility of preventing violence on the people most likely to commit violent crimes also makes the situation scary for women.
Your problems with the study are problems with society rather than problems with porn. Yes, it's fucking depressing to think that the only reason some guys aren't out raping women is because they have porn. But in the end, I'd much rather have them at home jerking off than slipping roofies into drinks. I think most people would agree.
And yes, there may be some crazies who will be inspired to commit crimes, but crazies are, by definition, kind of unusual and if porn stops ten rapes from happening and causes an eleventh, that's still ten women who didn't get raped. Also, if all it takes to turn a man (even a batshit insane man) into a rapist is some dirty photos then he would probably have gone that way eventually.
A critique of porn is a critique of society. I don't see how the two can really be separated. My point is this:
If many people would agree that porn keeps some men from raping, then reasoning should follow that many do indeed believe that men are indeed capable of and culpable for sexual assault. End stop. That should then put an end to the nonsense about rape prevention being targeted only toward women. It should also effectively end victim blaming. But that's not how things are going down.
What I'm saying is that the analysis of data is problematic because it doesn't reflect how we treat rape in real life. When people accept the data as is, it's like they are setting aside a special exception for porn. It's basically saying,
"Men need porn to not rape. But men really don't rape anyway, put the burden on the victim"
Either way, it's all kind of bleak and depressing.
I don't think you can complain at a study for NOT blaming the victim. I don't think the study was ever that widely publicized -- hence the thing where some people still blame porn for rape -- and unfortunately society hasn't quite caught up.
(And unfortunately there are those asshats who argue that if we KNOW men are all secret rapists we should know better than to go out and get drunk while wearing short skirts. Actually, this argument makes up almost all of victim-blaming I've seen. So that's no help.)
The point here is that porn doesn't cause rape, and apparently helps prevent it. Fewer rapes are a good thing, no matter how you look at it.
Watching porn is the same as watching Hollywood movies. You allow yourself to feel and react, knowing full well that it is theater, not documentary. You can enjoy the arousal and the fantasies knowing full well that the actors and crew have created a final product for you that took 100 times as long to make as the 2-hour length of the DVD. Porn should not be treated as separate from TV shows and movies, but as part of the spectrum of entertainments put on by actors.
Movies like The General's Daughter or The Accused portray verisimilar scenes of rape, but no one will ever submit a bill to shut down Hollywood. When it comes to mainstream movies, people pick and choose individual movies to protest against for feminist reasons. Porn just seems to get hit with one swipe, as if it were all the same. There are about 500 mainstream movie releases a year. There are about 10,000 porn releases a year.
The only thing that connects all porn is that it is real nudity and real sex (as opposed to Hollywood's faked sex). The only thing that separates porn movies and mainstream movies is that Hollywood is not allowed to show real sex. If they were...frankly I think "porn" as we know it would disappear. I mean...what Porn Valley director could compete with an explicit sex scene shot by Spielberg?
Technically Hollywood is allowed to do so, but they'd usually get an NC-17 rating and make less money because of it. A typical pornographic film has both a much smaller budget and a much smaller audience than your typical Hollywood film.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mainstream_films_with_unsimulated_sex
of course "technically" Hollywood can make NC17 movies. But they don't. It's defacto censorship: "you can make it, but we will not distribute it."
And Hollywood movies has a huge (many would say negative) impact on our culture...
My cousin showed me porn when I was six years old. I still feel really fucked up inside because of it.
How?
My post (above) asks an open question as to whether or not anyone knew of any studies on the effects of pornography...Anyway, I did a search and found a some interesting articles on a variety of critiques relating to pornography (from effects on both men & women, to racism, to feminist theory, and so on). I posted the links below in case anyone is interested.
Please note: by me posting the links, I'm not in any way saying that I either agree or disagree with anything written in the articles. I'm simply posting them for people's own information. I realize that they are largely critiques, so please don't anyone post accusations of me being an "anti-sex, man-hating, prudish, unfunny, feminist" stereotype...It's really frustrating that whenever a person who criticizes anything having to do with pornography/porn industry that they are automatically labeled as "anti-sex" or "prudish" (so please, none of that) when I get around to it I will try to post some counterarguments for some of these articles as well. Other than that, any thoughts-reactions? (warning some of these articles may be triggering, as some do have references to torture, violence, abuse, etc.)
ARTICLES:
The Porn Myth (Naomi Wolf)
The Image of Men in Pornography (Shere Hite)
The Cruel Boredom of Pornography (Robert Jensen)
Sex and Feminism: Who is Being Silenced? (Adriene Sere)
Men and Pornography (Edward Marriott)
Torture, or 'Good Old American Pornography? (Susan Brison)
Contemporary Feminism in a Porn Culture (Rebecca Whisnant) [Note: This was originally a lecture presented at the same conference reviewed by Britta/Women's Space blog.]
Revisiting the Porn Debate (Chyng Sun)
BOOKS:
Pornified (Pamela Paul) [Note: This is a preview of the book presented in "google books"...some chapters may be incomplete]
Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality (Gail Dines) [Note: This is a preview of the book presented in "google books"...some chapters may be incomplete]
BLOG POSTS:
Black Women and Porn (Vednita Carter)
Not a Fantasy: Racial Hatred and Misogyny in Pornography (Joyce Wu)
Feminist/Pornography Conference Summary (Women's Space/Britta) [Note: A blog post in response to a feminist / anti-pornography conference.]
VIDEO:
Pornography and Pop Culture: Putting the Text in Context (Gail Dines) [Note: This is from the same conference reviewed by Britta/Women's Space Blog.]
And here are some articles and blog post that I found dealing more with "pro-porn feminism" (again, I'm not saying I agree or disagree with anything here, I'm just posting what I found through a simple google search and sharing it with others in case there's any interest.) I'm just trying to post a range of articles that I found...I am in no way agreeing with or disagreeing with a particular point of view...I'm just offering some links to information. (There's a few more links here, if I come across anything else interesting, I will post it)
ARTICLES:
A Feminist Defense of Pornography (Wendy McElroy/Secular Humanist) [Note: This also contains critiques of some of the other feminist perspectives/schools of thought on pornography. There are also two other articles following the main one that relate to but not necessarily in agreement upon, pornography.]
Strange Bedfellows: Can Feminism and Porn Coexist? (Nikko Snyder/Bitch Magazine)
Pornography is a Feminist Issue (Andrew Gumbel/Independent)
BLOG POSTS
Across the Porn Divide (Debi Crow/The F Word)
MISC
Reading List recommended by "Feminists For Free Expression" whose board of directors and advisors include women such as Candida Royalle, Dorothy Allison, Joan Nestle, Erica Jong, among others. The group's position statement on pornography can be read HERE
I find it hilarious and hypocritical that the same women who rally against porn are the same target audience reading romance novels and watching romantic movies that give them unrealistic expectations that some may hold their boyfriends and husbands up to.
Porn is directed at men just like most romantic movies are directed at women.
See how, in romance movies and novels, men are in full anxiety and go to tremendous lengths for a woman (where as she hardly goes to much lengths at all).
Numerous women believe that we live in a patriarchal society in America. If that were the case then why do women get the kids the majority of the time in event of separation. If this were truly a pure patriarchal society kinship would be established through the father's line.
This cannot be so if men do not keep the children in the event of divorce or separation, in the so-called Patriarchal American society.
At best it can be called a quasi-patriarchy and with the Violence Against Women Act and no Violence Against Men Act. Men in a relationship with a woman in America are in effect
second -class citizens.
Anti-male laws making it more palatable to be a womanizer than a loyal husband are not exactly helping women in their search for a suitable husband either.
http://fisheaters.com/garbagegeneration.html
The Garbage Generation
And I find it hilarious that you decided to come on in here and post on this topic when clearly you haven't bothered to read the comments.
The opinions posted here on this topic have been quite diverse. And speaking of violence against men, congratulation on the steady decline in the number of women killing their male partners since 1975. I wish I could say the same for women being murdered by their male partners.
Of course you wouldn't know that because you didn't bother to read anything around here. So why don't you hike on back to 1950 and give it a rest.
huh?
Laws against beating your wife makes it harder for women to "find a suitable husband"?
... because... if a guy is not allowed to beat his wife/girlfriend then he won't marry her? Or is it because the suitability of a guy is his violent and abusive tendencies? Maybe a wife-beating SOB is not actually a "suitable" husband. Did that never cross your mind? And maybe, if wife-beaters are the only thing around, women do not need to have it as their only goal in life to "find a suitable husband". And maybe... maybe feminism is actually about destroying the holy institution of marriage - I don't know, you've got me all confused now.