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?

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.

"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?

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

good point about racism beachcomber. Porn is extremely racist, where women of a number of races worship at the altar of the white penis

SGB, every time you fail to answer a question, you come out with the "circular argument" comment. IT's very transparent.

WHy are you pretending we are saying things we are not saying. Are you arguing (in your head) with a right-wing crazy or something?
I have given lots of details of healthy male sexuality.
I am that you think adults have a healthier sex life than teenagers, or that adult men who watch porn are better at pleasing a woman than a teenage boy who has never seen a porno.

I believe porn corrupts healthy men.

SGB, for me the 'big line' between the concepts of erotica and pornography is not so much about the actual acts themselves as about the power framework within which they are happening. Erotica is a depiction of sexual love, porn is a depiction of sexual abuse.

Straightforward vaginal sex can be tender and loving just as it can be violent and full of hate - it is not the act that makes the difference, it is the relationship between the people involved.

I think it is very important to draw these lines as, for me, it is the difference between freedom of expression and protection of the vulnerable from abuse (and the illegality of others making money from selling images of that abuse). Few people would argue that it is important to have child porn be legal in order to protect free speech yet many people will argue that it is vital to protect the legality of images of young looking women dressed up as school girls and cheerleaders and made to look under-age in films called 'teen sluts take it up the ass until they scream'.

With regards to what you say here;

"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."

Sorry but this just sounds to me like outrageously blatant male entitlement and objectification of women. This is just men saying that they would like women to be sexually available all the time and that men like this don't really care if their partner is really enthusiastic (read consenting) as long as they pretend to be. This argument however does not explain why so much porn is insulting, degrading and painful for the women involved.

Why would men want to watch images of a girl dressed up to look under-age pretending to be an enthusiastic partner in brutal anal sex, facial ejaculation or multiple penetration? Why do some men want to watch images of women being told they are sluts/whores/dirty bitches/going to get fucked really hard/etc and pretending to like that?

I think some men want to watch this sort of stuff because they know that it is not acceptable behaviour or treatment of another human being and they don't quite dare do it themselves but they get off on watching some other man doing it to a woman.

I agree with you Sakura that porn corrupts healthy men and skews how they see women, sex and relationships (as demonstrated by what SGB says above really).

Also we know that porn has a desensitising effect and that there is a phenomenon where it is getting more and more violent and degrading in order to 'keep the edge'. Max Hardcore who was mentioned earlier by dittany has said numerous times that he himself has to have more and more violent, extreme, pain inflicting sex in order to 'get off'.

I think anyone who defends porn should watch one of his films and then think about just what they are defending. Porn defenders like to concentrate on the softer stuff and the idea that everybody is consenting and making a good living. If you can only defend an industry by ignoring huge swathes of it then you are never going to be very convincing.

Come to think about it, if feminists want to shut down porn, we should reshift the focus. Let's point out to everyone how racist porn actually is, and we'll have a better job of shutting down the industry.

Trying to give women a human face, OTOH, is just flogging a dead horse.

" not everyone you are attracted to is either attracted to you in return, "

I think this is particularly true for Max Hardcore. He probably knows he's a runt, that the only way he can get women to have sex with him is by paying them. Because women who excercise their right to own their sexuality, and have the economic means of doing so, would never give him the time of day. And this thought pisses him off.
Almost any woman who wants sex can get it, for free. This is not true for men and they know it. They try to redress this evolutionary balance with prostitution and porn, and sometimes, marriage.

ITA Sakura. Much of porn is just making it clear to women that we might have all the pussy but that doesn't make us powerful - it makes us vulnerable.

This essay just says it all for me;

My number is zero. What's your number?

Sakura: 'almost any woman who wants sex can get it, for free'. Well, if her standards are very low, maybe. But women also fantasize (and wank over the fantasies) of men they cannot have sex with, and in those fantasies, the man is enthusiastic and willing to have sex, whether the object of the fantasy is Edward Cullen or the bloke behind the fish counter in Asda. Or the happily married bloke in the office.
And for a man to fantazise that the gorgeous woman he lusts after is equally enthusiastic about the prospect of having sex with him isn't necessarily abusive or harmful to that woman - lots of men fantasize about having sex with Cheryl Cole/an attractive woman they saw at a bus stop/the happily married woman in the office and don't do anything about it because they accept that these women are not available to them. It's not even wrong to ask a person if they would like a date, or if they would like to have sex should you have gone on a date, as long as you take a refusal with good grace. We don't, any of us, fantasize about the object of our desires going 'Eugh, no, don't fancy you' or 'Sorry, I'm happily married' or even 'But I want to get to know you first'.

Oh, and women's choice in ethical porn: have a look at Petra Joy's site here (This IS a site about sexually explicit film making, NOT worksafe though the page linked to is mainly text).