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?

Smallorange I'm not saying that. I'm saying that straight porn is degrading to women. And that lesbian porn might or might not be. Just because women make it, doesn't mean it doesn't harm women. Women can be guilty of misogyny too of course. Women can also exploit other women. It's one of the effects of living in a patriarchal society.

Just wanting us not to make any assumptions about porn we haven't seen.

Reasonabledoubt has a good theory there.

Blinder I've seen a bit of fairly tame gay porn. It tends to be two fairly attractive men enjoying themselves AFAIK. Very different to straight porn, which is a man enjoying himself, and a woman pretending to, as far as I can see.

Well yes I suppose anyone can exploit someone else is they are in a weaker position.

You do wonder if porn scenarios are similar whatever the sexuality because alot of it is about power, dominance and submission.

EricNorthmansmistress. Quite!

sorry 'if'

Yes smallorange. I think the root of the question is 'does porn feature degradation just because it's porn or because porn is used as a vehicle to degrade women?'

I have been asking DH some pertinent questions.

He says that he prefers the porn made "by women for women" as the people are more "normal" and the participants (both men and women) look more like they're actually enjoying themselves.

He also had a bit of a go talking about how like hollywood films, porn films are formulaic, and how if one is successful then maybe the others all put the same elements in plus some to try and replicate the success. He then went off at a bit of a tangent talking about 3D (yikes!). And then as a grand finale he tried to illustrate his point by saying "you know that 2 cups film or whatever it is, they would say, lots of people have seen that on the internet, it's very famous, let's do the same but this time make it 3 cups". Bless.

You all seem to have quite an in depth knowledge of porn.

Do you all really familiarise yourselves with such porn on a regular basis?

could i just clarify that neither i, nor anyone reasonable looking at the (still unknown) etiology of human sexuality which IS a continuum is arguing that homosexuality is a mental illness!

all of our individual sexualities are shaped by a combination of nature and nurture imo. nurture is the interesting bit to my mind.

i think there may well be something in the proposition that male gay sexuality in some cases may have to do with a boy's inability to identify with the male, either through the absence of that male or more likely through an unconscious hatred of male coming from the mother which may or may not be accompanied by an emotionally absent father.

pornography in it's prevalent mainstream form is incredibly lacking in ANY sense of female pleasure (tbh, i'm not sure how much pleasure the males get).

I've seen one porn company that use real life couples (imperfect bodies and all) and there is a sense that there is real pleasure being had...THAT seems very radical...will try to look out and link..hold on.

I do think there is a parallel in fashion, and don't agree that thin people look better in clothes...the kind of clothes that are in fashion now might look better on thin people but a quick peruse back through fashion history will show that that is a very recent phenomenon.

That's interesting ISNT. I suppose the market has exploded, driven by the internet. I wonder how far it will go?

sophable yes and a few years ago I read that amateur porn was very popular - videos that were home movies by couples and other groupings. ie real people actually enjoying themselves

Then the porn industry got wind of it and now there is a slew of professional "amateur" porn.

think this was them

they won a 'feminist porn award' in 2009.

I sound like I know loads about porn. I really don't. I have seen a few american standard style films and a few anna span films and that's it. The rest is all just guesswork and things I've read.

I have watched a fair bit of porn in my time, yes (mainly in my youth, it has to be said) @LynetteScavo. I am no prude, but it does not interest me particularly now (although I consider myself a very sexual person).

I do NOT think there is anything wrong with homosexuality. I would defend the rights of gay women and men to the death. Not even an issue for me. I do think the domination of the fashion industry by older gay men has implications for women, yes. But my concerns are not directed at all gay men. No way.

My main concern on this thread i the way that the porn industry has become a multimillion (billion?) pound industry, based largely on the exploitation and subjugation of women. That concerns me greatly.

you see dittany i CANNOT agree with you on that at all..

how can you make that a cogent argument? that there is something intrinsically wrong or abusive about wanting to see sexuality or fucking as you put it portrayed on film?

is it only women being fucked on film that is degrading? would it be ok if it was men? how come? it just doesn't stand as an argument.

There has been lesbian porn made by actual lesbians - On OUr Backs in the US (still going) and there was a UK magazine called Quim in the early 90s taht didn't last very long, unfortunately (the straight publishing industry didn't want to know and the lesbian feminist 'community' was hugely divided on the whole issue of porn.)

And I have seen plenty of porn DVDs in the last few years which are not all about oral and anal, and which do include female enjoyment, humour, general fun for all concerned. There are women working within the industry who are trying to make stuff that's non-exploitative, sexy and pleasurable all round, but (as with feminist art of any kind) the mainly male distribution chains are unhelpful.

What about pornographic stories?

Are they a yes or a no?

I agree that the mainstream porn industry is a huge problem, for loads and loads of reasons.

That link should be compulsory reading for men Dittany.

ISNT the article makes the same point as your DH. Makers of porn need to keep pushing the edge hence the more extreme violence and humiliation these days.

Lynnette if you read the thread you will see that most of us are admitting to not having seen specific types of porn. Look upthread about 20 posts and read on. Do you have any point you'd like to make?

and i TOTALLY agree with you dittany on the level of degradation and abuse that is utterly unacceptable in mainstream porn.

Pornographic stories are a yes

SGB looked at that link. It's alot more ..um..phallic.. than I thought it would be.

Dittany you won't find anyone disagreeing with you there, I'm sure.

What about genuine home-movies that people share with other though? What about pornographic recordings that are made for fun (of all the participants) rather than for profit?