straight pornography is male gay in sensibility

[Heathcliffscathy]

This came to me in a wave of inspiration...straight porn is a hypermasculinised view of sex. Hypermasculinity has it's place in the pantheon of what it means to be a gay male (not all, not every, by any means).

straight porn is totally phallocentric: penetrative to the exclusion of all else and the builds up to an inevitable anal sex finale, or blowjob come shot/facial.

the vagina plays second (third?) fiddle to anus and mouth and size is all. breast stimulation gets barely a look in.

bear with this as I know it's treading a dodgy generalisation line, but it does strike me that if you were to argue that male gay sexuality (as a generalisation, i know that there is a vast continuum out there that we are all on male and female) is the zenith of hypermasculanised male sexuality, then mainstream straight porn is pretty gay?

Do you think it's possible that the homoerotic is so repressed in 'straight' man that it has to find it's outlet in porn, which leaves women utterly hard done by porn wise?

i know there is a strong argument to suggest that straight porn is just about degrading women and undoubtedly that's in there a lot of the time but could there be another basis to it?

[Heathcliffscathy]

dittany read my post: the vagina is just not of great interest, neither are the breasts...it's all about anal sex and blow jobs.

totally penis-centric penetration centric and revolving around the orifices that men have and sidelining female ones.

does that make more sense?

[Heathcliffscathy]

and i don't agree that necessarily fucking in every orifice is degrading.

although the way it is portrayed in most porn undoubtedly is.

[Heathcliffscathy]

not at all, but that there might be another element to it and i think that the repression (total and massively fear driven) in 'straight' males of their desire for other males might be a relevant factor. it somehow makes sense to me...i know my argument isn't very cogent!

you know, doesn't abuse come from a place of fear? and might that fear not just be fear of woman's intrinsic creative puissance but fear of man's own desire...for other men?

[Heathcliffscathy]

ok now for the really controversial bit...

if, as the psychoanalysts argue, a part of the emergence of a male gay sexuality (the psychosocial part, as opposed to the possible role of genes etc, all of which play a role in all of our sexualities) is difficulty, making the transition to same sex identification which can result from a man-hating mother (dominant mother who for whatever reason unconscious or not trashes the father, who may or may not be absent) then that very lack of identification with the male might well be underpinned by a rage against the female.

puissance is poncey french word for power. i'm sure you did know that!!!

[MillyR]

I don't believe that psychoanalysts are arguing that anymore, are they? Surely there aren't still professionals around who believe homosexuality is some kind of mental health problem?

[ISNT]

Interesting.

I have a few random thoughts

Mainly that pornography is mainy made by men, for men, and so the anal sex/penis/penetration/come shots are presumably what turns on the people who are making the films. So I would say that teh prevalence of these practices isn't to do with homosexuality but just to do with male sexuality, and specifically the male sexuality of the men making these films. There is also the drive for everything to get more and more extreme - porn has changed enormously over the last 30 years or however long, in the same way that everything on television/film has got more extreme. And people watch it because it's what they're presented with, and get used to it, and desensitised and so on.

Having said that, reading the coke/porn thread, and the one where someone said that leg models for tights were usually male legs (don't know if that's true) and the trans threads. Anyway, it occured to me that the women in porn often resemble a male physique with breasts stuck on rather than an actual woman IYSWIM. Apart from the vagina, obviously! But the typical porny style physique is very thin, fairly straight, with pneumatic plastic immovable breasts stuck on the front. OTOH (as men I know never tire of pointing out) the women they actually want to see with no clothes on are curvier and with natural breasts. The women on page 3 often look much more "normal" and softer and more natural than the women in porn (thinking mainly american porn TBH).

I don't know if there is a point in there somewhere. But it does seem odd. Who are these very thin plastic women aimed at? Men watch it because it's what's given to them, but in fact most men don't even seem to fancy women who look like that IYSWIM.

It's all very odd.

[ISNT]

Do the women look so strange to create a sense of distance between them and what they are doing/having done to them and real actual women that men know? As they would feel really uncomfortable watching it if the women looked like normal real women that they might actually know in real life and fancy?

Don't know.

Also my viewing of porn is not very extensive, and so it's possible that what I have seen is one "type" and in fact there are lots of others around, rendering my point nonsense!

[TheCrackFox]

Pornography is all about worshipping the penis. I have noticed, however, that the male stars are all completely fugly.

[vesuvia]

ISNT wrote - "Do the women look so strange to create a sense of distance between them and what they are doing"

Wouldn't that suggest that porn "actresses" were dictating the terms of their appearance? I think they are picked by the producers for their look rather than the other way around. I suspect the producers are unlikely to care about the distance a porn actress feels from her "work".

[ISNT]

No you misunderstood me completely!

I mean that the demand is for women who look very different, in order to make the viewer feel more comfortable. I mean that maybe men like porn with these very strange looking women, because when porn is made with normal looking women, men don't like it as it makes them feel uncomfortable.

Just a thought

It is definitely true though that the typical look of a porn star is a look that men claim not to find very attractive (and in fact many seem to say they find that "look" quite scary), so it does beg the question, why is that the look which is in these films?

[vesuvia]

Oh sorry for misundertanding

[sethstarkaddersmum]

what an interesting discussion.

with discussions about misogyny in fashion it often comes back to the fact that lots of designers and other men in the fashion industry are gay. Can a similar thing be said about the porn industry?

[ISNT]

I had that thought earlier but I'm not sure it's the same.

The catwalk models are the shape they are because that's the shape that flatters the clothes most?

Would most men making porn films be gay? I have no idea. There is obviously a huge gay porn industry - I have no idea whether people usually are gay and start making gay porn and then move to making straight porn. No idea at all. I do know that straight men often act in gay porn films, which doesn't sound like much fun.

[ReasonableDoubt]

Porn is homo-erotic in some ways, yes. It's all about dicks and cum shots. But I don't think the porn industry is dominated by gay men in the same way that the fashion industry is. There is too much emphasis on big breasts and big bottoms for that .

I think it is dominated by the repressed (or just plain inexperienced) teenage boy's idea of sex that lurks inside every man. The memory of being a powerless young man, scared of rejection, scared of sex, scared of women. Many men never really get over that.

Porn is designed to allay every fear that young / inadequate men have about 'scary' females. So - women will say 'yes' to whatever you want, they 'won't' ever say 'no' or laugh at the size of your dick or be repulsed by your body or your sexual fantasies...oh, and of course thet will all be as young, thin, have enormous knockers and shaven havens and take it up the arse willingly. You, the man, will never be knocked back or belittled or made to feel weak.

Pathetic, really.

[ISNT]

Sorry didn't follow that fashion thought through. Haven't been on any of the threads on here. I would say that some of the images presented on teh catwalk and by the fashion industry do not exactly resonate with a love for the female models. But the clothes - I don't know. We are as a society attuned to thinking thin looks great - the models represent an extreme - is it a vicious circle? As the public's eye gets more used to emaciated women, the models get thinner, and so it goes on?

As for the "boyishness" of the models - if you're young and over 6' and very thin then that's the way your body will be naturally I think?

I don't think we should go off on one about fashion though as this conversation is interesting enough - but there may be parallels there. Or just the fashion for how women look - models, actresses, porn stars, it all feeds off each other.

[ISNT]

reasonabledoubt is that why the women are scary? As to pander to that male need, the women engaging in all these acts have to be teh sort of woman that a teenage boy would be shit=scared of, and that completes the fantasy?

[ReasonableDoubt]

I think so, yes. I think the women have to be uber-attractive so as to almost be intimidating to inadequate males - too hot for them - but then the 'beauty' of it in the eyes of the men who enjoy the porn is that the women are almost always portrayed as powerless, accommodating, easy, compliant. Every base covered.

It depresses me, really.

[sethstarkaddersmum]

good theory ReasonableDoubt. And the women getting hurt in the film as punishment for all the women who have ever rejected you....

[blinder]

What about actual gay porn? I haven't seen any but I'd be interested to know if gay men are objectified and damaged in the same way.

I think there was someone arguing fairly recently that homosexuality can result from oppressive mothering/weak fathering. There was understandably a furore about the prejudice(s) underpinning that view.

[blinder]

I mean 'damaged' as in 'deliberately harmed/hurt'.

[ISNT]

I've never seen any gay porn. For gay men or gay women.

What is porn made for gay women like? Now there's a question. there must be some.