straight pornography is male gay in sensibility

I don't, actually, find it useful trying to draw a big line between 'erotica' and 'pornography' because everyone really just brings it down to 'what I like is erotic, what the horrible smelly evil pervert over there likes is pornographic'.
WHich is why when I talk about 'ethical' porn I mean material made without physically hurting, exploiting, underpaying, coercing or abusing the performers as that seems a reasonably objective definition.

So (instead of carrying on an increasingly circular argument), is 'male sexuality' something that requires women to be beaten up and have their heads stuffed in toilet bowls? I don't think it is. I don't think that all the men I have ever had sex with would have preferred to shit on my head and invite their mates round to ram monster dildoes up my arse but were too scared or hadn't watched enough porn yet to be able to do that. Most of the men I have shagged who like porn like stuff which shows people fucking in a variety of ways. I've heard it said that one of the things men, in particular, like in porn is a depiction of enthusiasm on the part of the woman because, as far as most men are concerned, most women are not immediately enthusiastic about sex within 5 minutes of being introduced to the man, and in the real world, not everyone you are attracted to is either attracted to you in return, or free of prior commitments which mean that even if they fancied having sex with you, they would decide against it. The idea of a willing and enthusiastic partner is at the core of most people's sexual fantasies.
SO why is this bad stuff, which most people would not immediately think of as a depiction of their own favourite fantasies and indeed may actively dislike and be appalled by, being made so widely and selling so (allegedly) well. I wonder if it's the same human impulse as that which makes so many people watch stuff like Jeremy Kyle (see the poor morons have their lives destroyed and be publicly humiliated) or those reality shows where people get thrown into cold lakes or covered with insects despite their screams of terror and pain.
I think the Hustler reviewer Dittany quoted made an interesting point when he said he considered it 'cruel slapstick' rather than masturbatory material; someone else, I forget who, described the likes of Max Hardcore and the even more disgusting Rob Black (who I think is dead now) as men who were social failures in school, turned down by all the girls, and who went into making this particular kind of unpleasant material as a kind of revenge. They are not representative of everyone in the industry. Nor are their nasty films representative of all porn films - I have reviewed hundreds of porn films, rarely seen much of this stuff and much of what I have seen has been goodhumoured fucking and sucking.

Exactly dittany.

I was having a conversation about this with a friend the other day - she doesn't understand why I am anti-porn and confuses my position with being anti-sex/pro-censorship/jealous of the women's bodies

I asked her why almost all porn films contain images of men ejaculating on women's faces and asked her why she thought people wanted to watch/film that and if she thought such images were 'erotic'.

She floundered around for a while and then could only come up with 'well probably some women like to have men come on their faces - and why shouldn't they?'. She refused to see this as in any way degrading/humiliating/all about worshipping the mighty penis.

I just despair of women (and men) who think that porn is in any way a depiction of normal healthy sex.

Jesus even just on the grounds of how racist porn is I would have thought most decent people would be repelled by it. Add on the violence, aggression, misogynistic insults, gang bang, constant female availability, 'no' meaning 'yes', obsession with seeing how many penises can be inserted into one women at a time, brutal anal sex, etc. I'm amazed any women cannot see this disgusting crap for what it is. There is nothing empowering or erotic about porn just as there is nothing empowering or erotic about rape and sexual abuse.

People who defend porn never seem to have an answer for why so many of the women who 'choose' to participate have been sexually abused as children.

One of the problems with attempting to change pornography through consumer power is that we don't all consume pornography.

In the food industry there is some power to the consumer because everyone has to eat, and as a consequence enough people can come together to demand that products that are ethically produced are available.

But even that makes me quite angry. Why should I have to go around researching every food item, and have to attempt to find out whether or not a chocolate bar has been made from cocoa harvested by actual slaves? A liberal and democratic government should be stepping in over an issue that important and insisting that every company demonstrates that at no point in its supply chain has slavery been involved; companies that cannot prove this should not be allowed to sell products.

So I think that consumer power is in many ways a very weak form of power, and that often the most ethical response is simply not to consume things that you don't need in the first place, particularly with consumer goods like fashion.

In pornography, the consumers are mainly men. I don't hold much hope that men who watch pornography are going to form a consumer group to deal with the exploitation in the sex industry.

To come back to the point of feminist writers claiming that women don't like XYZ, I don't think that is the case. Robert Jensen has said that he would never claim to know what the authentic sexuality of a specific individual woman is, but the sex in porn is physically punishing for women and so does not express the sexual desire of most women. The constant portrayal of that in porn is making an interest of a minority of women into a false depiction of what the sexuality of most women is about.

This is what I mean;

"Differences between pornography and erotica:

"[E]rotica" is rooted in "eros" or passionate love, and thus in the idea of positive choice, free will, the yearning for a particular person. (Interestingly, the definition of erotica leaves open the question of gender.)....[The] erotic: a mutually pleasurable sexual expression between two people who have enough power to be there by positive choice. It may or may not strike a sense-memory in the viewer, or be creative enough to make the unknown seem real; but it doesn't require us to identify with a conqueror or a victim. It is truly sensuous, and may give us a contagion of pleasure."
-- Gloria Steinem in Take back the Night: Women on Pornography (1980).

"Pornography" begins with a root "porno", meaning "prostitution" or "female captives", thus letting us know that the subject is not mutual love, or love at all, but domination and violence against women. (Though, of course, homosexual pornography may imitate this violence by putting a man in the "feminine" role of victim.)....[The] pornographic: its message is violence, dominance, and conquest. It is sex being used to reinforce some inequality, or to create one, or to tell us that pain and humiliation (ours or someone else's) are really the same as pleasure. If we are to feel anything, we must identify with conqueror or victim."
-- Gloria Steinem in Take back the Night: Women on Pornography (1980).

"I define "pornography" as "material that combines sex and/or the exposure of genitals with abuse or degradation in a manner that appears to endorse, condone, or encourage such behavior"...."Erotica" refers to "sexually suggestive or arousing material that is free of sexism, racism and homophobia, and respectful of all the human beings and animals portrayed".
-- Diana Russell in Against Pornography: The Evidence of Harm (1993).

Erotica is typically defined as "literature or art dealing with sexual love" (Dictionary.com Unabridged). One website, NoPornNorthampton.org, quotes some distinctions between pornography and erotica as such:

"-- [S]ome characteristics we associate with porn: mechanical, mindless, uncaring, exploitative, imbalance of power, lack of consent, taking without permission, selfish, careless, heedless, simplistic, shallow, objectifying, deceptive, cheating, violating, rough, harsh, inflicting pain, degrading, humiliating, unloving.

-- [S]ome characteristics we associate with erotica: humane, mindful, caring, respectful, communicative, listening, consensual, balance of power, mutual pleasure, integrity, wholeness, sharing, thoughtful, deep feelings, loving."

Unfortunately, the clear difference between pornography and erotica has become blurred for most people and, although erotica still exists, commercial erotica has been increasingly invaded by some of the objectifying conventions of pornography."

www.againstpornography.org/definition.html

I think what Dworkin is saying is quite complicated - I don't read it as all depiction of sexual behaviour as pornography per se but that depiction of sexual behaviour in the patriarchy is by nature pornographic.

I think she is saying that (some) feminists distinguish between erotica and pornography in terms of equality of position/status/power/decision making. She then goes on to say that in male dominated society/language the distinction between the two doesn't exist and erotica is based on the same power inequality with 'erotica' just being a bit less hardcore than porn.

I don't know whether 'erotica' can really exist (this kind of comes back to what we were saying earlier about lesbian erotica) in a patriarchal society or if it is just a concept that has been hijacked in order to dress up porn as something less misogynistic.

I think in a fair and equal society erotica could perhaps exist and porn consumption would be seen only as deviant behaviour.

When I hear people argue for porn I tend to find that they are actually arguing the case for the concept of erotica but have confused (real) porn and (hypothetical) erotica (just as they have been encouraged to by the porn industry and the patriarchy).

Sorry, that is probably as clear as mud!

You support porn, which is acting, mostly. Members are casted, so the woman doesn't choose. I haven't seen a pic of Max Hardcore, but from his description he doesn't sound too photogenic
Can you give me evidence about this ethical porn, I'd be interested to see how much power the women have over choosing their partners.

Sakura, at what point did I say that 'women' don't care what a partner looks like?
And I have answered your questions. The fact that you don;t like the answers doesn;t mean the questions haven;t been answered.

or male sexuality...
Actually, with the proliferation of porn and other encounters in the media, who knows what's what anyone's natural expression of sexuality is anymore.
That's why I look back on my teenage days with such nostalgia: because in those days we (my friends and I and our boys) could be expressive, without being constrained by the media and porn.

"and any women who say actually they do like these things are dismissed as liars, mentally ill, victims who don;t know they are victims etc."

YOu calling me a liar?

I enjoy BDSM, but even I have the insight to understand that my sexual tastes have most definitely been influenced by media and society . BDSM turns me on, but that doesn't mean that it's a natural part of female sexuality.

And WTF has this got to do with porn?

sorry, you can't answer a question by asking the same question back. I'm not the one defending porn here. I'm wondering, really curious, what it is about porn that is so damn brilliant for women that you are defending it so much.

You haven't answered any of my questions:

1. How does condemning porn encourage the myth that women don't enjoy sex?
2. Evidence to show that women get to choose their partners in 'ethical porn'.

In fact, SBG, so far you have offered up a lot of male stereotypes about what female sexuality is, such as "women don't mind what their partner looks like, they'll have sex for the money, and that's ok". Erm, nope, the idea that women don't care what their partner looks like is a male fantasy. The idea that women prefer money over a sexy body of their own choosing is a male fantasy, perpetuated by porn.

Beachcomber: But Dworking is saying that there is no such thing as erotica - that all depiction of sexual behaviour is pornography and unacceptable.
Sakura - what do you think spontaneity means, then WRT sex?
DIttany: Sorry, those links are not porn at all, they are links to etymology sites.
Sakura (again) The feminist anti-porn campaign always ends up saying (along with the rightwing nutjobs who are happy to jump on the 'feinist' bandwagon) that there are various sexual acts that women hate/won't do unless forced, and any women who say actually they do like these things are dismissed as liars, mentally ill, victims who don;t know they are victims etc.

And the reason why I keep defending sexually explicit entertainment media (not defending abuse and exploitation) is that a world without it is not a good one for women, or women's sexual pleasure for that matter. When all discussion and depiction of sex is surpressed, no one has much fun and people have nothing to compare their experiences (good or bad) with.

SGB I think you confuse (as do many people) erotica and pornography.

""Feminists have made honourable efforts to define the difference [between pornography and erotica], in general asserting that erotica involves mutuality and reciprocity, whereas pornography involves dominance and violence. But in the male lexicon, which is the vocabulary of power, erotica is simply high-class pornography; better produced, better conceived, better executed, better packaged, designed for a better class of consumer."
-- Andrea Dworkin in Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1981).

www.againstpornography.org/definition.html

(From the bottom of the page but the whole page is interesting)

Milly, sorry I didn't mean to imply you were an expert. I meant that if you have an academic background, you are better able that others to identify whether research is biased or poor.

And are you still avoiding the question...

How does feminists condemning porn contribute to the notion that women don't enjoy sex?

SGB please tell me you understand that sheduling sex (which we all have to do with our busy lives) and spontaneity in sex are completely different things.
Tell me you understand the concept.