Visual erotica for women

[SparklingExplosionGoldBrass]

Because the discussion on this at Ladyfest was fascinating but didn't go on long enough, I fancy continuing it here.
Soo, iirst off, why aren't there proper erotic magazines (with pictures of naked men in them) for heterosexual women?

well, there are obvious exceptions

D'you know, I was just imagining a costume drama with real sex (thanks for that, Sakura ) and wondering whether the male stars would have to be those weird-looking guys from porn. Of course they wouldn't! Their prime qualification is that they "get good wood" - since our putative fporn movie doesn't require incessant dive-and-bang action, that's not necessary. We can have good-looking men who can act. Hurrah!

it's just being discussed on another thread that ugly men are more succesful in the porn industry because ordinary men can more easily identify with them and believe that they, too, can have lots of gorgeous women to fulfil their sexual fantasies

Well, fair enough. In period dramas, it's still the Cinderella who gets the Prince (something that pisses me off, but for political reasons rather than dramatic). Fair trade, I suppose, if the ugly boot-boy gets the porn queen.

I don't like costume dramas.

Grace the cinderella isn't usually ugly though. Or ever ugly, in fact.

True, true, ISNT! That's in my political objection: Poor, timid, beautiful women get princes. So it's okay to be poor as long as you're beautiful & timid. If your porn theory's right, those films provide a male equivalent: it's okay to be ugly as long as you've got a penis ... or something like that (I'm not convinced of the theory, but still.)

I don't like the prissiness of TV period dramas, but thoroughly enjoyed the TV remake of Henry VIII (lousy historical details, but more in keeping with the real story) and have seen a lively Fanny Hill on TV. I'm sure I'd like Downton Abbey if the characters weren't quite so trapped in their costumes.

Come to think of it, Fanny Hill's a ready-made script. And de Sade, for the kinky - and dear old don Juan, if you compressed the spiritual content a bit.

Was just about to post something terribly thought provoking when got distracted by the rugby players on the telly.

Who says women don't respond to visual things

Er, not all the men in mainstream porn are 'ugly' any more than all the woman are blonde, busty, false nails and fake tan. These days there seems to be a fair bit of variety in the men too.
Sakura/Lenin: there is a certain strand of lefty-feminist thought that is tremendously killjoy, negative and offputting (thought whether that's the lefty end of it or the feminst end of it is debatable) - even Robin Morgan experienced it and named it; she was told to make her writing less good and then told that because she wrote 'too well' she could carry on working for the left-wing/feminist magazines but she wasn't allowed to write because she was 'too good at it'.

I hate costume dramas personally. remind me of my mum and grannies and seriously dodgy itv bollocks. I am happy to accept sex no story;line. I could never get turnedd on by that myself. (each to their own though).

As askgrace says I like raw sexuality cocks, fit men, toned bodies, footballers, etc put in to a porn that would be job done for me.

ALso anything invoplving women getting with young men in a bit of a reluctance/rape/forced type thing (thats good I like them even younger then me, love anything with female dominace in etc). I am mad for me being a domantrix demanding stuff from men in any form. Really forecdyful stuff.

I think ifaskgraceasks post says about finding what women want is not that simple. all women like different as do men we all have our kinks, what we like etc and we need a huge amount of variation

'Am I wrong, though? How would the women in this thread, and friends, respond to a Bridget Jones (say) with real sex?'

Also this would be my idea of a worse nightmare there are no attractive men in this its full of dad style middle age posh blokes. the story is centred on some women who is desprate who likes going on boat trips and ends up fighting over 2 randoms one of which wears a knitted jumper and both of which fight like 2 idiots. no on so many levels. It is probably the worse film of all time I dont think this is what most women want when it comes to porn personally.

Heh, I can't stand Bridget Jones either! I just picked it as a widely-loved women's film.

Interesting about the banana-fibre-shirt brand of feminism, SGB - that makes two real-life contributors on this thread, who have direct experience of feminist publishers demanding stereotyped work. I'm convinced your standard feminist publisher would be the very least likely to promote joyous, liberated, sexual media for women.

The best editor I ever had was a feminist woman - not a 'career feminist' though: a talented & energetic promoter of women's voices. I can't help thinking that a person who defines their life by a set of negatives (a ghetto mentality) is incapable of effecting positive change.

ROFL at Snowflake's synopsis of Bridget Jones.

That's about it really.

DIttany: I didn;t say Robin Morgan was 'totally suppressed', I was paraphrasing from one of her own books, when she talks about her time on underground newspapers in the 60s.

Germaine Greer's so far up her own arse it's embarrassing. On female circumcision...

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/535488.stm

I think, as a man, fewcloudy, the multiple oppression of (white male) cultural imperialism alongside patriarchal oppression of females in the form of FGM (which is just as prevalent in the west in the form of labioplasty) may have passed you by.
GG is bringin the imperial and colonial debate to the table, that is all. And it is a bit rich to criticise "natives" when women in your own backyard are being mutilated for 'beauty' then told they chose that mutilation

Not saying I agree with Greer, one way or another, I'm just saying I wouldn't dismiss her because a man has decided she's 'up her own arse'. In fact, that would make me want to take her more seriously

Dittany: Fari enough about the dates. In fact, I do rather think it was the male Left who were more into the hairshirt, miserable-bastard stuff than it being a purely feminist thing, but some feminists do have a similar killjoy mindset even now. (PLease note, I would never refer to all feminists as having a single mindset because I know perfectly well that there are lots of issues that we disagree on).
And FWIW what I think is that sexually explicit entertainment media are important and that the answer to so much of them being crap and produced under exploitative conditions is for people who are not exploiters to produce more of them, rather than insist the whole genre should be forbidden.

I think it's a liberal feminist/radical feminist divide.
Radical feminists (and I am one, I suppose) see the ultimate end point of feminist utopia, after the revolution, and see the banning of porn and a return to 'innate' sexuality as part of that, even if it means losing out on the possiblity of gaining a lot of enjoyment form sexually explicit products.
Liberal feminists work within the boundaries of the current system to make things better for women, which is what you are doing SGB.

That's pretty obvious just by the language they use. "Sex positive" - as if other feminists are sex negative, FGS. I've never been sex negative, except about crap sex. If it's good, I'm all in favour.

Hi sakura

She was a hero of mine and I was a huge fan. After that particular outburst she dropped a lot in my estimation. It didn't rule out her previous 30 years work, but still...

I hoped then, and still do, that she took that stance and said what she said only to increase her profile, be controversial, and sell more books.

Was it "an outburst" though, or was it reported that way by the meejah? I have never read the whole woman, but I would imagine she was discussing this in the context of cultural imperialism and the argument was distilled into something stupid journalists could understand. Who has read the book?

Dittany: I have met feminists who were miserable killjoys. I have read articles by apocalyptically bitter, spiteful whiners.
I have met other people with this sort of attitude, it seems to cross various political boundaries and be more of a specific personality type.