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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

Visual erotica for women

347 replies

SparklingExplosionGoldBrass · 16/11/2010 09:59

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?

OP posts:
Sakura · 18/11/2010 01:37

SGB I just don't subscribe to your belief that people can't accept women have a lot of sex for fun. We must move in completely different circles, or look at different media or something.

It's like you're tryin to prove women enjoy sex. Well, who are you trying to prove it to? WHo cares what a few sexist men think. They're wrong. You don'T have to make lots of pro-female porn to convince society that women like sex as much as men. Your average man knows very well how much women like sex. IT's the weirdos who share your attitude towards women and sex.

Sakura · 18/11/2010 01:43

I mean, you mentioned women who like lots of sex being miserable and fucked up and ashamed. I have not read that line of thinking for a while. I know you don't believe that yourself, but you must have friends Confused
You must have friends who have all kinds of sex lives and share it with you. Or perhaps as a teenager got up to all sorts of stuff with your friends knowing exactly what you were up to.
So you'd really have to go hunting and searching on the web and IRL for people who have such a negative view of women and sex.

Sakura · 18/11/2010 02:03

But well, I've been thinking. If porn is going to be made anyway, and there's nothing we can do about it, then I suppose we might as well start looking at women's porn in the meantime.

Hetero women get just as turned on by watching women's naked bodies as they can by men's. I was not impressed by that Filament magazine for the reasons MillyR mentioned.
The men need to be pretty and photogenic and soulful looking. They've got to look like they've got a personality.
I don't know if women are cleverer than men but there needs to be something artistic about female porn: I'm talking clothes, hair, make-up and 'storyline'. It all has to come together perfectly or women are going to be distracted.
There are many cases where male and female fantasies overlap, but I wonder how much women have already been influenced by male fantasies. It would be nice to have a women's porn that stretched the imagination of what sex is, not just stereotypes of sex.

IfGraceAsks · 18/11/2010 04:14

I rather suspect we may have worked together in the past, SGB. @Wukter: media industries haven't really caught up with online potentials yet; neither have audiences. Press, TV and radio content is paid for by advertising - it's a symbiotic relationship, which delivers quality content at affordable prices. If you had to pay the real cost of a glossy monthly mag, it would be about £15. Cutting out the middlemen, therefore, would leave you with insufficient funds to make a quality product.
That's why the Times & co are experimenting with paid-for online formats - someone's got to find a way to make it work commercially.

chefswife · 18/11/2010 04:24

I can't find it, but Jenna Jamison, porn star that did loads of women geared porn with her husband, and one of the biggest stars, talked about this on Oprah a while ago.

You don't need to look at porn to see the objectification of women. Every ad out there shows what a woman is suppose to be, from the pious homemaker/super mom to object of sexual desire and everything in between. There's a Guess ad on the outside of the shop where you clearly see the shade of the nipple as she parts her dark red glossy lips in ecstasy over new jeans.

snowflake69 · 18/11/2010 08:28

The stuff like that wouldnt be hard enough for me as I prefer hard cock pics and they arent allowed in mainstream mags. I just usually find fit men on net and get them to send me pics or get them to make cam videos for me.

I think its better that way as its free and you get to chose the men you personally are attracted to.

Sakura · 18/11/2010 09:28

Would be interested to know if your desire to see hard cock pics is a niche market snowflakes. BUt if the OP is interested in mass marketing porn to 'mundanes' then my guess is hard cocks shouldn't be the focus (although better than flaccid ones perhaps)

wukter · 18/11/2010 09:48

The debate seems to be 'can women objectify men as much as men objectify women.'
I think if there was a market for women's porn, there would be women's porn. I'm pretty certain pursuit of cash trumps any vague unease about women having an autonomous sexuality.

It's only been 40 years since women can separate sex from life changing/life ending reproduction and the vulnerabilities child bearing brings. Before you dismiss that as a load of evopsych bollocks, it could equally apply to the slow rate of change in society.
Therefore, just 'the look' of a man isn't enough to turn a woman on. He has to have a range of attractive attributes. So hard cocks on their own won't do it, but a good story of growing attraction ending a nicely torn bodice and a hard cock at this point probably would.
That above is based on anecdotes (me, friends, wine).

Sakura · 18/11/2010 10:11

I agree, wukter. MOney trumps everything, so something has stopped women from putting their hands in their pockets to shell out for porn.

One thing I've been thinking is that women literally do not need or prioritize porn as much. WOmen have got...now don't shoot me... babies and children. Breastfeeding is erotic, not sexual, but erotic. So there is this whole other world that women have got that men aren't really a part of.
I don't think that diminishes sex as a priority for women, but it means that there's more sad, lonely men who need wanking material than there are women IYSWIM.
Also, women are poorer, so the magazines have to be REALLY good for them to shell out for them.

Sakura · 18/11/2010 10:13

also, snowflake asking fit men she fancies to send her pics is not really 'objectifying' is it

wukter · 18/11/2010 10:21

I was just coming back to Snowflakes post, Sakura but you beat me to it. There's interaction, banter maybe, the knowledge that the man has desire for her in Snowflakes actions. So it's not the same thing as straight looking at a picture.

Your point about bfing is not something i'd considered. But for the western woman at least that's just a couple of years out of a life, there's a lot of time left to fill.

LeninGrad · 18/11/2010 10:21

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
SparklingExplosionGoldBrass · 18/11/2010 10:44

Grace: Have PMed you (very nosy emoticon)...

OP posts:
IntergalacticHussy · 18/11/2010 10:54

i can't help thinking the main reason women's mags of this kind fail, might be the sheer embarassment of buying them in a supermarket or anywhere else?

wukter · 18/11/2010 10:58

There's always mail order, IntergalacticHussy. It kept men's porn magazines going for decades right up to playboy era and beyond.

Original poster
SparklingExplosionGoldBrass · 18/11/2010 11:30

Sakura: Am I right in thinking that you don;t live in the UK? IN which case you might have missed this sort of thing.

OP posts:
ISNT · 18/11/2010 11:33

I honestly think that the reason that women and girls don't look for this kind of material is socialised at a young age.

Boys will be passing wank mags around from when they're quite young & looking at the internet. "Sexy" images of women are everywhere. Young men are raised understanding that it is their absolute right to have plenty of arousing pictures of women everywhere, and that there are plenty of pictures for masturbation, and that is what the pictures are for, to sexually arouse them.

This just doesn't happen for young girls does it. They are encouraged to channel teh sexual energies into "safe" outlets eg bland boybands. The sexualisation of the male form isn't there as much, and when it is the understanding isn't there for girls from a young age "you can look at these hot men and have a wank". Do girls even talk about masturbation in the same way that boys do?

I could ramble on for hours but suffice to say, with our current society it's impossible to say what women would really like to look at as we are all steeped in all these powerful messages.

Tortington · 18/11/2010 11:34

can i ask... why can't we see erect penises?

it pisses me right off

wukter · 18/11/2010 11:38

Personally, I could look at pictures of erect penises all day and feel nothing. Place them in context and it would be a different thing.

Erect cocks on their own are very penetration-centred. For me and many women penetration is not 'sex'.

WowOoo · 18/11/2010 11:41

I have a superb quality Italian art book.

All those Michealangelo statues, fighting nudies and reclining bodies. It's all I need...Grin

ISNT · 18/11/2010 11:44

SGB reckons that the publishers don't like it, which is interesting as I always thought it was the law that erect penises are "hardcore" and so specialist shops only.

If I was going to look at pics of hot men, an erect penis or two wouldn't go amiss TBH. I'd say it's pants on, or hard-on. Flaccid penis viewing rather pointless IYKWIM.

Also interesting in this is that they were selling "XXX" films in anne summers a few years ago (they probably still are). Anyway don't ask me how I know this, but the films were filmed so that the "ladies version" didn't show any actual sex, while it was obvious there was another camera there filming the actual "action" for the "gents version". WTF was that all about?

WowOoo · 18/11/2010 11:55

I wouldn't buy into the objectification of men either. So wouldn't bother buying a porno made specifically for women.

I did as Uni student years ago and it was cheap. I'm sure some exist that would be OK for me - oh yeah, certain sex scenes in certain films.

doggiesayswoof · 18/11/2010 12:17

ISNT, totally agree with your post at 11.33

Boys get introduced to porn, girls get introduced to make up and sunbeds and waxing, so they can learn how to look like porn stars - it starts very early. I honestly think that is girls' rite of passage.

ISNT · 18/11/2010 12:28

I remember when my brother and I were children, we got a folder and cut out all the pictures of scantily clad people we could find and hid it Blush

Of course most of the pics were of women, because pics of men in their undies just aren't as common. So even at that age with our burgeouning sexual interest, we both learnt that when it comes to naked bodies, the ones to look at are womens.

That is a huge message for children and learnt pretty young and it sets them up for their lifetime. If women want erotic images they generally look at ones aimed at men as that is what is available, and further they have been conditioned (as men have) to see certain depictions of female bodies as equalling sex. I'm not sure if anyone will follow that.

So a bit like when women want to be sexy they are supposed to shave all over, put lingerie on, do their hair in a certain way etc. But that's not being sexy, that's looking sexy for someone else. While if men want to be sexy, they look at women. Does any of that make sense?

doggiesayswoof · 18/11/2010 12:44

Yep. Makes sense to me anyway

I think the conditioning goes so deep. You see threads on here all the time - advice for women with low libido or dull sex lives (make yourself feel sexy again, take off the greying bra and get yourself some new pants etc)

I think because of conditioning women actually do get turned on by getting dressed up in a conventionally sexy way - I bet men don't, and they aren't expected to. I think this is also one reason why so many straight-identifying women enjoy looking at other women.