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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

straight pornography is male gay in sensibility

291 replies

Heathcliffscathy · 22/07/2010 13:09

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?

OP posts:
MillyR · 22/07/2010 22:19

The other problem is that women's views of what they want in a sex scene are massively varied, so the extra detail after the white shirt might not be profitable. That is the point of fan fiction, it is huge in number and massively variable, so that stories can appeal to a small audience.

If porn could be sold to women, it would be. The market is everything, but we don't form a solid market - we vary too much.

ISNT · 22/07/2010 22:18

Night Dittany.

You are completely right about the porn industry. I don't think anyone here thinks otherwise.

dittany · 22/07/2010 22:17

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MillyR · 22/07/2010 22:17

Lenin, that was to your 22.10 post about literary adaptations.

Original poster
Heathcliffscathy · 22/07/2010 22:16

they are two differnt things lenin...

erotic depictions of consenual mutually enjoyable sex of all kinds should exist in mainstream porn but don't in the main, and i wonder why not and i wonder if they did whether women would be heavier porn consumers.

OP posts:
ISNT · 22/07/2010 22:16

Real sex or mr bloody wotsit wandering out of that lake in a wet tshirt?

MillyR · 22/07/2010 22:16

Leningrad, I'm not sure of your meaning. Are you saying that, for example, if I enjoyed The Road to Wigan Pier and had built up an emotional response to the emotions of people in the book, someone might film a sex scene where they pretended to be in The Road to Wigan Pier?

I could possibly understand that. But I'd still prefer it as a written book of the sex so that I could hear the people's internal thoughts.

Original poster
Heathcliffscathy · 22/07/2010 22:14

i was making a point about the human capacity to ignore what's in front of their noses if there is a get out clause, and in porn is the moaning and groaning and smiles (with dead eyes) and arching etc etc

OP posts:
LeninGrad · 22/07/2010 22:14

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ISNT · 22/07/2010 22:13

Dittany loads of people are sexual exhibitionists - I have happened across plenty of people having sex over the years, who weren't upset about being "caught", and also live near a dogging spot, have seen people randomly having sex on holiday, all sorts.

milly re the happy sex thing. There are loads of TV progs etc where the leads are attractive and when they get together the audience can become rather flustered. mainstream films contain sex scenes which I'm sure people get aroused watching. Especially if they fancy the actors/characters. it's an extension of that I guess.

MillyR · 22/07/2010 22:13

Sophable, I think if your clothes came with a video of the child who made your clothes collapsing with exhaustion at the sewing machine and the absolute evidence of exhaustion was right in front of you, you might be less likely to buy the clothes than in just your current state, where you think maybe a child made this.

And if there was such a video, I doubt you would enjoy masturbating to it.

Original poster
Heathcliffscathy · 22/07/2010 22:12

aha! why doesn't the market want it? isn't it what women want but don't get???

OP posts:
dittany · 22/07/2010 22:12

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smallorange · 22/07/2010 22:12

MillyR you have articulated what i was struggling to say. I don't think two people having happy sex is what porn is about or what the market wants.

rosieposey · 22/07/2010 22:11

I read the OP to my DH just now as well and he has agrees, as a matter of fact when we first met he told me he doesnt like straight porn (or much porn at all tbh) because he isnt into looking at other mens dicks (his words not mine).

There are some really interesting points on this thread and i cant really contribute much except to say that porn culture seems to have pervaded many areas of society and i worry for my teen DD's and baby DS, its impossible to shield them from it short of cutting out all media and keeping them really sheltered (different topic sorry!) But that was a really good point OP and an interesting discussion.

LeninGrad · 22/07/2010 22:10

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Original poster
Heathcliffscathy · 22/07/2010 22:07

you see dittany i don't agree with you.

you're going to hate this, but just as I know that buying 5 pairs of pants in asda for 1.50 almost inevitably involves the abuse of at the very least the worlds resources and at worst adult or god forbid child labour, but can bring myself to ignore it, so I think that most male viewers of pornography deny the abuse to themselves.

so i'm back to my original argument: it's all about the anus in favour of the vagina, it's all about the blow job in favour of breast worship, it's penis worship, it's penetration fetishism and maybe it stems in some part from a repression of a natural homosexuality that exists in many many more men then can begin to acknowledge it.

OP posts:
LeninGrad · 22/07/2010 22:06

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MillyR · 22/07/2010 22:05

ISNT, I am interested in you wanting a film of happy people having happy sex.

This is not condemnation, but interest in your perspective. I am not interested in watching such a film, because I believe that the basis of entertaining sex is the personality of the people involved. As Jensen said, there are only so many ways you can put body parts together, but human emotion about sex is infinite.

So I can see the appeal of written fiction - you can create characters with personality and emotion (not always love) and the sex can be used to covey both sexual and non-sexual meaning.

I am not sure what the purpose is in watching two strangers having sex on film.

dittany · 22/07/2010 22:04

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Original poster
Heathcliffscathy · 22/07/2010 22:02

I think that's right. there is complexity here.

isn't vamp literature a kind of hyperfeminine woman porn?

OP posts:
ISNT · 22/07/2010 22:01

Oh I meant to delete that last line.

dittany · 22/07/2010 22:00

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ISNT · 22/07/2010 22:00

I think people would want to watch that, yes, smallorange.

Dittany a lot of people are exhibitionists, are not private about these things. People have different boundaries, different things they enjoy. Some people get off on being watched, sexuality is a complicated and wildly varying thing.

Note to all DH and I are not going to film ourselves having sex

Are there two conversations here

MillyR · 22/07/2010 22:00

I think that the ethics of sex are informed by how well you know the person. How is sophable to know whether Isnt can make an informed, consensual choice unless she is very close to her?

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