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Hard Core: What Porn's Ubiquity Says About Men and Women
- nkurz 16y agoThis is a really good article, and just the fact that it's published in a mainstream publication like The Atlantic shows how much internet pornography has changed American sexual mores in the last few years. And I think the author makes a good case that it indeed is technology that has changed the thinking: "When a 13-year-old girl can sit in math class, hide her Hello Kitty smart phone behind her textbook, and pull up such an extreme video in less time than it would take her to text a vote for her favorite American Idol contestant, we’ve certainly reached some kind of new societal landmark." The writing is solid and bold. I'm impressed. Author's website is here: http://www.natashavc.com/?page_id=62 http://www.natashavc.com/?page_id=62
- mwhooker 16y agoShe can also swing a string of solid double entendres, "The difficulty of acquiring this material may have hinted at a great, and therefore pent-up, demand. Then, technology produced the Second Coming: the Internet. And then the Rapture itself: broadband."
- JoachimSchipper 16y agoGiven the subtitle, "The new world of porn is revealing eternal truths about men and women", I'm not sure that your interpretation is complete - as far as I can see, the author is arguing that porn reveals (and partially legitimizes) male... appetites. I must admit to being somewhat taken aback by the "males are aggressively, dangerously sexual" undertone. Is this a common (female) attitude? (For context: I'm male, living with my wonderful girlfriend.)
- erikpukinskis 16y agoI must admit to being somewhat taken aback by the "males are aggressively, dangerously sexual" undertone. Is this a common (female) attitude? Are you thinking there is no aggression whatsoever in your sex life? Aggression and power are complex things. The way they play out can be quite subtle. Many things men consider to be "human" or "neutral" are in fact norms that exist to reinforce male hegemony. And those things play out in the bedroom.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoMany things men consider to be "human" or "neutral" are in fact norms that exist to reinforce male hegemony. Can you explain what this means, and tell us some non-bedroom "human" or "neutral" activities which really reinforce male hegemony?
- T_S_ 16y agoNot sure myself. But it might involve the TV remote control.
- fleitz 16y agoGenerally, in the context of gender studies anything that results in another person to making an economic decision will be regarded as 'aggressive' and reinforcing male 'hegemony', especially if the group in question is known to make really poor decisions when confronted with that question. For example, lets say men are known to take more risk in their investment portfolios. Investments that have high risk and hence create higher returning male portfolios would then be regarded as reinforcing male hegemony.
- lmkg 16y agoAs part of the societal trend towards equality of the genders, there's a tendency to take the standard or model for men, say that women are now allowed that standard or model, and declare equality to have been achieved. Saying these standards "exist to reinforce male hegemony" is an exaggeration, for the most part men aren't actively trying to oppress women, they're just not succeeding in achieving true equality. From a women's perspective, it's the same result, although sensationalizing doesn't really help their cause. As a somewhat abstract example, when women are compared to men in the workplace, they're usually seen as cautious or passive. Now, this is true, that the average female is more cautious or passive than the average male (leaving aside nature vs nurture for a second). But that bolded part is critical--most people, when making the observation that women are more passive, don't realize that they're using a male standard as a basis for judgment. It's important to note, that the differences attributed to women are not necessarily bad ones. One could just as easily say, men are rash and compulsive. And, this would also be true, in exactly the same fashion: the average male is rash and compulsive compared to the average female. But, because of historical male hegemony, the average male is taken as the ideal or the standard. Difference from this standard, even when neutral or situationally advantageous, tends to be perceived first as a deficiency. Here's a slightly more concrete example, which I don't know if it's true but it could be: until recently, men drove cars and women were mostly passengers (this is still true in other countries). Cars were physically designed around the average male body. When women started driving, that meant that they were allowed in the driver's seats, but those seats were still designed for men. The pedal and mirror placements were sub-optimal for their generally smaller bodies. Even though women have achieved nominal equality in the area of driving, until car makers update their design constraints, women operate cars at a disadvantage because they must conform to a standard that was designed without them and that does not fit them. On the one hand it's unfortunate, but on the other hand it's inevitable, because it's not a good business decision to design a car for people who don't drive (until they do).
- nkurz 16y agoI presume that subtitles in pieces like this aren't usually written by the author, so I'm not to worried if they actually agree with the sentiment of the piece. For the "males are dangerously sexual" undertone, I think this is true but intended as historical background. My ultra-summary from an American perspective would be something like: 1960's: Males are dangerous and women must defend their honor. Betty Friedan writes about trapped women. 1970's: Males still dangerous, but women can take control of this. Feminism on the rise: Our Bodies Our Selves. 1980's: Women and males be equally dangerous, equally pro-sex. Aids causes concern all around. Anti-porn. 1990's: Feminist backlash. OK to be an effeminate metrosexual. Read Katie Roiphe and Bitch Magazine. Move toward pro-porn. 2000's: Decade is over, and now the history is being written by people like Natasha Vargas-Cooper. Porn is passe.
- a-priori 16y agoI too don't buy the argument that the aggressive, degrading sex you see in lots of internet porn is what every male secretly wants. My theory is that the reason lots of internet porn is extreme is the same reason as why movies revolve around unusual situations: it's good drama. It's something most people don't experience, and so they're curious about it. Here's a testable hypothesis using anal sex as an example: In a longitudinal study, ask a group of men who watch internet porn about what sorts of videos they watch every six months for several years. Also, ask them about what kinds of sex they have had in the previous six months. From the results, pick those men who first have anal sex during the time period, and compare their porn habits six months before to six months after they report having anal sex. I predict you would find that, as a group, they will watch fewer videos involving anal sex after than before they do it themselves. It's no longer as novel, so it's not so interesting.
- fleitz 16y agoIt's not really a common attitude, but many vocal feminists/leftists have that attitude. It plays well into the gender/class struggle ideology and the culture of victimhood. The article is mostly trash using opinions unfounded in data, but supported by mainstream society. If you look at the popular videos it's all pretty benign and standard fare, the author was right in her economic analysis that decreased distribution costs have increased variety but if you look at whats being viewed its still all standard fare. It's like indie film, yes the internet has caused some indie films to do very well and increased the variety of films available, but the vast majority of people are still going to blockbuster major releases such as Avatar. Also, if you look at what the Victorians (a notoriously conservative period of western history) had access to, or what was made by the likes of Betty Page in the 50s you can see the the internet didn't really change anything. All the internet really tells us is that lowering barriers to consumption increases demand. Hardly a revolution in economic thought. No one seriously quotes Freud in regards to sex, Freud's opinions date to a time in psychology before statistical analysis was prevalent. They also date to a different time and culture. Freud said a lot of things and like most people, he was mostly wrong. Even Kinsey which was the definitive study with regard to male sexuality for many years has many holes in it. It's very difficult for sociologists / psychologists to tease apart nature from nurture and know what is eternally 'true'. If porn was really causing aggressive and dangerous sexual behaviors you'd see it reflected in a variety of stats. Since there are no facts to support such a conclusion, opinion and anecdote are substituted.
- patrickgzill 16y agoThe only problem is, I am not aware of an actual Hello Kitty smartphone; otherwise my wife would have asked me to buy it for her. Perhaps this is a regular phone with a plastic skin or a themed download?
- ecuzzillo 16y agoI believe the normal use case is to stick a Hello Kitty sticker to any smartphone.
- zephyrfalcon 16y agoDon't show her this link: http://www.chipchick.com/2010/02/hello-kitty-touschreen-phone.html http://www.chipchick.com/2010/02/hello-kitty-touschreen-phon... :)
- defen 16y agoGet your checkbook out: http://www.amazon.com/Hello-Kitty-Samsung-S5230-Limited/dp/B00384CPV2 http://www.amazon.com/Hello-Kitty-Samsung-S5230-Limited/dp/B...
- kolektiv 16y agoIf I wanted to be cynical and/or pretentious, I might draw a parallel between the infant-like nature of Hello Kitty products, the Freudian childhood wish that might indicate, and the fact that her asking you to buy something rather than buying it herself portrays an interesting father/daughter dynamic. But that would be truly weird, and wait, are we still on HN? OK I'm disoriented now.
- patrickgzill 16y agoFunny ... however Freud was a fraud :-) Seeing as my wife and I share all funds, it would not be "me" buying "her" something, as us having a discussion as to whether this was an acceptable purchase. HK is huge in Asian countries especially, which is where my wife is from- I readily admit to confusion over HKs appeal. BTW did you know that HK is the weight of 3 apples and the height of 5 apples?
- philwelch 16y agoIt's really well written in the sense of flowing well and constructing narratives, and as an exposition of the author's point of view it's pretty well constructed. Unfortunately, the quality of ideas is a lot more uneven; while I can readily accept the idea that male sexuality is typically dominating and aggressive, the article is otherwise filled with the type of crap you'd write in school to make a banal thought about The Great Gatsby stretch out to ten pages. Sometimes the article reveals more about the author than about the purported topic: Hard-core porn...is undoubtedly extreme. But how is sex, as a human experience, anything less than extreme? ...the sex that occurs in between relationships—or overlaps with relationships—where the buffers of intimacy or familiarity do not exist: the raw, unpracticed sort. If a woman thinks of the best sex she’s had in her life, she’s often thinking of this kind of sex, and while it may be the best sex in her life, it’s not the sex she wants to have throughout her life—or more accurately, it’s not the sex she’d have with the man with whom she’d like to spend her life. ... Never was this made plainer to me than during a one-night stand.... He couldn’t stay aroused. Over the course of the tryst, I trotted out every parlor trick and sexual persona I knew....in a moment of exasperation, he asked if we could have anal sex. I asked why.... He answered, almost without thought, “Because that’s the only thing that will make you uncomfortable.” This was, perhaps, the greatest moment of sexual honesty I’ve ever experienced—and without hesitation, I complied. This encounter proves an unpleasant fact that does not fit the feminist script on sexuality: pleasure and displeasure wrap around each other like two snakes. And it gets even worse when she starts talking about male desires: ONE OF THE most punishing realities women face when they reach sexual maturity is that their maturity is (at least to many men) unsexy. Indeed, we now have an entire genre of online smut politely called “Lolita Porn.” ... Indeed, porn stars no longer look like porn stars. The image of Jenna Jameson, America’s most famous professional porn star (and a best-selling author)—with her comically huge breasts, overextended blond extensions, and artificially tanned skin—has been supplanted by the new face of pornography: a pale, naughty, 19-year-old with A-cups and a bad haircut, her face illuminated only by the bluish glow of her Mac. If you actually look at the most viewed or top rated videos on a porn aggregator site, the actual evidence doesn't bear out her assumption here. Yes, there's a wider variety of porn available. There's a wider variety of everything available; it's remarkable enough to write about that, even though the subject has been thoroughly covered by now. But the minute you've hinged your article on the argument that men don't like big tits anymore, you've disengaged from reality entirely.
- danenania 16y agoI think the writing is quite bad--pretentious and essentially sensationalistic. She manages to pack in pseudo-science, pseudo-psychology, AND pseudo-sociology. This is an example of a uniquely pathetic style of rhetoric that only an intelligent person is capable of. It's basically intellectual pornography for people who are predisposed to her prejudices. Ugh, wish I could unread.
- metal 16y agoI'm not sure what the author is trying to say. Just because porn is easier to get now than before (as has been since day 0 of porn), so what? Yet another jee-whiz look at what the internets have done to us article.
- drndown2007 16y agoDo you seriously think there are no effects at all? How can you be so naive as to think this hasn't and won't change anything when such a giant portion of the population is experiencing sights/sounds/shows that no other generation ever has? Whether you see that change as good or bad, this will change personal relationships, and societies are nothing more than the sum total of all personal relationships.
- deadmansshoes 16y agoOther generations in history probably had more chance of the real thing.
- sev 16y ago> He answered, almost without thought, “Because that’s the only thing that will make you uncomfortable. I think this article is well written, albeit a little extreme with some of it's points. The behavior of the man the author had anal sex with is obviously not the norm, and yet she uses the event as a way to describe the norm.
- erikpukinskis 16y agoShe described his behavior, asking to make her uncomfortable, as uncommonly honest, so she agrees with you it's not the norm. I think her point is that the underlying desire is the norm, while the open and respectful request for consent as not.
- sev 16y agoI just don't think that the underlying desire, to make women uncomfortable, is the norm.
- philwelch 16y agoIt seems more like the author wants to be debased as much as men want to debase her--note how she describes aggressive, debasing, apparently non-committed sex as "the best sex [a woman's] had in her life", and describes her own reaction to that particular encounter as complying "without hesitation".
- SapphireSun 16y agoI think her compliance is simpler than that. If I believe something for a long time, and finally someone admits it, I cut them some slack, partly because it's funny.
- T-R 16y agoI think that's his point. I feel like the author is so caught up in the view of male sexuality being motivated by a desire to debase women (which would be well supported if we consider the extremes of pornography to be normal), that she fails to make a convincing argument that that underlying desire is in fact the norm. > While sexual aggression and the desire to debase women may not be what arouse all men, they are certainly an animating force of male sexuality. I think it's kind of a jump, when looking at how something plays out in the bedroom, to make statements about the motivations (e.g. enforcing male hegemony), particularly when applying it broadly to a large and varying group. Under her assumption that sexuality isn't egalitarian, and that pornography is an "unvarnished view of male sexuality" in general, she makes some good points, but I think the author fails to substantiate the validity of these assumptions. As much as the debasement of women in pornography offends me, we need to keep in mind that it's a product, and as such it doesn't necessarily provide deep insight on the consumer or the producer - both of whom are just negotiating to find something that more or less suits their needs at the moment.
- cosgroveb 16y agoThe article talks a lot about how male sexuality has a darker side and violence and coercion come in to play and perhaps is exemplified by porn. One of the examples she uses is the scene from Last Tango in Paris where Marlon Brando forces Maria Schneider's character to have anal sex... It gets a little meta when you look up that film on Wikipedia: "I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set because you can't force someone to do something that isn't in the script, but at the time, I didn't know that. Marlon said to me: 'Maria, don't worry, it's just a movie,' but during the scene, even though what Marlon was doing wasn't real, I was crying real tears. I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci. After the scene, Marlon didn't console me or apologise. Thankfully, there was just one take."
- wazoox 16y agoJust a passing mention : the scene is much rougher in the book, because he actually convinces her to fist-fuck him IIRC, so that they are both "raped".
- MBlume 16y agoUgh. Slightly interesting for the first third, then a random swerve into misandrist bullshit.
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- Swannie 16y agoWhilst I won't attack it quite so strongly(!), I must admit I got bored and didn't finish reading the last third. The writing style was a bit too full on and did verge off into ranting.
- Herring 16y ago>the Internet porn aesthetic verges on unvarnished realism. I'm thinking she doesn't know much about Internet porn.
- klbarry 16y agoIt's about 50/50, depending on what sites you view, between the gritty and the professional.
- kiba 16y agoI believe she suffer from the typical mind fallacy, thinking all males have overly aggressive/violent sexual desire. Note: I am a male.
- joezydeco 16y agoYet, if you watched any porn these days, the males are always agressive and the females almost always take the submissive role. The advent of "gonzo" porn hasn't helped matters. This material is training a generation, from puberty, how to act sexually.
- chc 16y agoThe males are usually aggressive because in general both women and men are turned off by the presence of weak men. Related: The actors are almost never horribly disfigured.
- awakeasleep 16y agoYes, you hit on the edge of my complaint about this article, and a lot of the feminist writing I've seen. This article was just a long laundry list of complaints about the way things are without any attempt to suggest a better alternative, or even any questionings about why things are the way they are. Also, I never trust anything written about sex that isn't personal or intimate. What does the author like? What does she think would be better? Is this all conjecture? To make this real, she would have had to get her hands and mind dirty, and that is one thing complainers hate to do.
- sigzero 16y ago"This material is training a generation, from puberty, how to act sexually." Exactly so, and that isn't a good thing at all.
- adovenmuehle 16y agoJust as Call of Duty and other violent games are teaching a generation to act violently?
- Tycho 16y agoSome people look at sex-drive as something like a God-given gift, whereas others see it as basically a (fun) evolutionary side-effect. Varying degrees of sanctimony ensue.
- axiom 16y ago"While sexual aggression and the desire to debase women may not be what arouse all men, they are certainly an animating force of male sexuality. They may be unattractive and even, if taken to extremes, dangerous, but they’re not, perhaps alas, deviant." That's a pretty ugly thing to say and requires a bit more evidence than just the pervasiveness of online hard-code porn. Inexplicably the author seems unaware of the contradiction in her article in pointing out (correctly) that the various porn sites online are dominated by mundane amateur content (housewives, random teenagers etc.) while claiming that online porn demonstrates how the male psyche is fueled by the need to hurt and humiliate women sexually (for example the double anal porn she cites about 15 times.)
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- dejb 16y ago"This encounter proves an unpleasant fact that does not fit the feminist script on sexuality" The fact that the author chooses to generalise a 'proof' from a single personal encounter shows what sort of low standard she has for evidence.
- Eliezer 16y agoThis shows that all female authors secretly want to set a low standard for evidence!
- hackerblues 16y agoThe feminist script she describes is 1990's notion that a couple can obtain a satisfactory sex life through a process in which the woman overcomes the mans negative sexist conditioning by using a verbal contract to stipulate her limits. There some provisions made about people with no respect for women like date rapists and people with the "frat boy" mentality. The example she gives is of a man who is by external measures an enlightened guy - wealthy, polite, and educated. We are given no reason to believe he is disrespectful of women generally speaking. But when it comes to sex he is unable to get it up unless he is explicitly pushing a woman beyond what she feels comfortable doing. For emphasis: this is a part of his sexual experience and not a part of his general attitude to women. The fact that this single event occurred is sufficient to demonstrate that the 'How to have a mutually enjoyable sex life' script does not work universally and so requires revision for a full explanation of the world. It proves the unpleasant fact that dominance beyond enthusiastic consent can form an integral part of a mans sexual identity. In this section she establishes that a breach in this perception of sex has occurred. In the rest of her article she uses online pornography to argue the size of the breach. tldr; lolz bitches hate logic right bro?
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- Eliezer 16y agoThinking that the flood of badly made, poorly scripted porn on the Internet reveals the secret darkness of male sexuality, is like thinking that an endless succession of awful movies from Hollywood reveals that people secretly want a poorly scripted sequel to the last blockbuster. What it reveals is that making good movies is difficult. It's like thinking that a flood of nitwit Web startups reveals that the economy really wants nitwit Web startups. If you're a venture capitalist, you may want better, but you'll have trouble finding it. Likewise if you're a movie viewer. And likewise if you're a man. If you look at what the Internet has done to written pornography, you see exactly the reverse effect as what the article describes. I once picked up a book of published erotica that wasn't online, and holy crap was the quality vastly worse than what I now expect. Tawdry, pointless, plotless, emotionless, needlessly violent encounters - because, I presume, that is what the publishers think men want, because the publishers conceive of pornography as a sordid dirty thing and imagine themselves as exploiting it. But if you look at what men write, and what men want, when they are free to produce their own written erotica, then you find that the rise of the Internet has created, from scratch, the genre which I think is now known as the "erotic romance novel" and means, roughly, "well-written sex stories with plots and emotions in them". Publishers of erotica are only now just beginning to think about trying to sell books like that, after the Internet showed them there was a huge pent-up demand. "Seduction is always more singular and sublime than sex and it commands the higher price," said Jean Baudrillard. In the days when written erotica was produced by publishers who looked down on it, no publisher knew how to write seduction. And today, when visual erotica is still seen as a tawdry and exploitive affair by the people who produce it, who still see themselves as pandering to the base desires of men, who still see plot as the domain only of real movies, there is no seduction in that visual erotica. You cannot find it, no matter how hard you look online. There are big-budget porn productions but not productions that spend more than five dollars on the script. But in the domain of written erotica where getting started is as simple as owning a keyboard, and people don't bother writing if they're not having fun writing, and the producer is a lot like the consumer - people who like erotic literature - there you find plot. You find seduction. You find the "erotic romance novel". That's not what all men want, I suppose; not what all men want all of the time. But it's what I demand as a matter of routine in my written erotica, and what I can't find in online movies (even if it's advertised as big-budget or woman-made, it just doesn't seem to exist). And before anyone writes the obvious dumb reply, yes I have a girlfriend and no I do not apologize for consuming the form of art known as erotica anymore than I apologize for writing Harry Potter fanfiction.
- gribble 16y agoBanning links to The Atlantic would greatly improve the quality of the site.
- marcusbooster 16y agoI agree with the author's characterization of rhetoric in the 1990's, though I wonder if the reexamining of the whole "communicating boundaries" thing is a result of these women now raising boys of their own, or a more general societal trend that emphasizes aggression.
- tsotha 16y ago>...or a more general societal trend that emphasizes aggression Eh? I don't see it - from what I can tell the trend has been going the other direction since at least the '80s.
- praptak 16y ago"One of the most punishing realities women face when they reach sexual maturity is that their maturity is (at least to many men) unsexy. Indeed, we now have an entire genre of online smut politely called “Lolita Porn.” This is not actual child pornography, a genre still blessedly beyond the reach of the casual Web browser." Ok, but for any X, X is (at least to many men) unsexy, as there's a lot of porn based on the opposite of X. Young age and beauty included, as evidenced by "mature" and "ugly" porn categories. So the above statement does not really add much information, except maybe some indication of the author's bias. Picking this particular fetish of some men, associates the whole group with socially unacceptable behaviour. Moral panic, anyone?
- yummyfajitas 16y agoIt's particularly silly given that the author also talks about "aging moms in shabby corsets" to make porn seem unappealing. Which is it? Are those evil sex crazy men chasing lolitas or milfs?
- keegangrayson 16y agoThe latter.
- Qz 16y agoSometimes I fantasize about strangling my boss. Do I want to actually strangle my boss? No. Not because I'm worried about the repercussions, but because there is a fundamental difference in the way we process fantasy and reality. In almost all cases, porn is about fantasy and should not be considered indicative of what men actually want. (disclaimer: I don't actually have a boss)
- mikedmiked 16y agoIf you are your own boss then it would be autoerotic asphyxiation, which would likely increase your enjoyment of porn.
- electromagnetic 16y agoNow, now, it might not necessarily be an erotic thing. He could simply have self-loathing issues mixed with dominance issues. Strangling is considered to be one of the most dominant ways to kill someone (due to the proximity). I wish... it would be such an interesting psychological study to read. Alas, I believe he was simply illustrating a point.
- WalterSear 16y agoThat woman is ignorant to everything that I have observed my male sexuality to be.
- JonnieCache 16y agoThe article isn't about you dear.
- derleth 16y agoNo, it's about the author. The sad thing is that the author fails to realize this.
- macrael 16y agoThe most interesting writing I've seen on this subject came from McSweeneys: "The Conflicted Existence of a Female Porn Writer". You can find her first column here: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/pornwriter/column1.html http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/pornwriter/column1.html
- nlavezzo 16y agoWhy exactly is this on Hacker News?
- epochwolf 16y agooops, accidentally upvoted From the submission guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
- anamax 16y agoI wonder if Mz. Vargas-Cooper is related to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Vargas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Vargas .
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- johngalt 16y agoI wouldn't describe this article as misandrist. In many cases the author hints at female desires being worse. "...the sex that occurs in between relationships or overlaps with relationships where the buffers of intimacy or familiarity do not exist: the raw, unpracticed sort. If a woman thinks of the best sex she’s had in her life, she’s often thinking of this kind of sex, and while it may be the best sex in her life, it’s not the sex she wants to have throughout her life or more accurately, it’s not the sex she’d have with the man with whom she’d like to spend her life." So debasing sex is great so long as it's not with someone you care about? Sounds like men and women aren't that different.
- ErrantX 16y agoOh god, not this old chestnut again (admittedly wrapped in some stylish writing). The horrid fallacy is that pornography doesn't really tell you all that much about male sexuality and how they act in the real world. Take another example; how people act in anonymous online forums. Often pretty douchy right? Does that tell us anything dark about how they are in the real world; well, probably a little, I could guess that a really awkward guy on a forum is likely a bit awkward in the real world. But not as bad as he is when arguing random nonsense over the latest and best video game. The internet emphasises those darker aspects of our personality; do men watch porn that humiliates women - sure. Do they want to humiliate their lovers in real life? Probably not. It gets even worse because the assumption is that the style of porn created and posted on the internet is representative of the desires of most men. Of course, it isn't really. It represents the desires of a subset of men - for whom internet porn is often their sex life. Other men may use the content, but is it about convenience and fantasy, not a critique of their bedroom desires. Look at it another way; lots of people adore fantasy films - say Lord of the Rings. Would you actually, in reality, want to live a fantasy epic? Probably not, the reality wouldn't be all that fulfilling (no internet for one thing! :)). Same applies to porn, I think. And what of female sexuality? When I'm poking about in peoples computers (legally, for work) women's computers don't usually contain porn. They contain idealised erotic stories about alpha males who also have a soft sensitive side. Their internet history is usually crammed with hunks with their tops off. It's still "pornography" (in how it is used); it's just that some people prefer the sexuality of the unknown (i.e. clothed). There are dark fantasy aspects to female pornography too; the male is often a love slave, dominated by his desire for the woman. Bottom line is: Sexuality is not simple. And the internet is not a good way to make broad judgements about male or female sexuality.
- randallsquared 16y agoDoes that tell us anything dark about how they are in the real world; well, probably a little, I could guess that a really awkward guy on a forum is likely a bit awkward in the real world. How people act when they're completely anonymous is, in some sense, how they really are. Once you tie some traceability or accountability to their words or actions, words and actions change to manage image and status.
- ryanpers 16y agoAs a male who was raised by a feminist and in an all-female household, including the pets, I have a lot of things to say about this matter. First off I find that a lot of feminism in the 80s was implicitly anti-male. Take back the night is great for women, but what is the message you are sending to young boys who are often there? It's a subtle message and may not be a big influence on all males. Or the anti-rape messages? The more extreme is the mis-attributed quote "all men are potential rapists". This is a horrible message to be sending to young men, not as bad as "women are things", but if our goal is to raise fully formed males, "you are a rapist" is not a good one to give. Bringing it back to the subject at hand, this author reminds me a lot of the kinds of messages, rhetoric and material that was common in the mid to late 80s feminism. The material I grew up suffused in. I think it is very harmful for the normalization of male-female relations. Are there differences between male and female sexuality? Yes. Does this article overplay them? Yes absolutely. As long as we have articles describing male sexuality as a negative force that must be controlled and tempered I don't think the goal of a better society will be reached. The implicit message of "female sexuality is normal and healthy" and "male sexuality is dark and evil" is really disturbing to me. In the end this article is completely and utterly sexist. If we reversed the genders we'd just have tripe from the 1800s about how female sexuality needs to be controlled and how women are evil. If that isn't acceptable, then why is this?
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- Mz 16y agoTL; DR: Woman with baggage projects her negative experiences onto the entire world. (XXX) Film at 11. My reason for saying this: Armed with a “Take Back the Night” pamphlet, we were led to believe that, as long as we avoided the hordes of date rapists, sex was an egalitarian endeavor. <SNIP> This is an intellectual swindle that leads women to misjudge male sexuality, which they do at their own emotional and physical peril. <SNIP> At the heart of human sexuality, at least human sexuality involving men, lies what Freud identified in Totem and Taboo as “emotional ambivalence”—the simultaneous love and hate of the object of one’s sexual affection. From that ambivalence springs the aggressive, hostile, and humiliating components of male sexual arousal. Never was this made plainer to me than during a one-night stand <SNIP> in a moment of exasperation, he asked if we could have anal sex. I asked why, seeing as how any straight man who has had experience with anal sex knows that it’s a big production and usually has a lot of false starts and abrupt stops. He answered, almost without thought, “Because that’s the only thing that will make you uncomfortable.” This was, perhaps, the greatest moment of sexual honesty I’ve ever experienced—and without hesitation, I complied. This encounter proves an unpleasant fact that does not fit the feminist script on sexuality: pleasure and displeasure wrap around each other like two snakes. (Before I am accused of misogyny, please note I am female.)
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- donaldc 16y agoFrom the article: The granting of sex is the most powerful weapon women possess in their struggle with men. I'm pretty sure I don't want to be having sex with any woman who views "granting" me sex as a weapon in her struggle with me. That's just wrong on a number of different levels.
- lizzard 16y agoLiterary and artistic fashions are quite different across cultures and across time. They're a poor data source to come up with an essentialist view of gender, if you pick one time and place. If you look at how, say, romanticism was gendered at first, it was described as essentially masculine -- tempestuous and powerful. Over time that perception changed and the very same material was described as something essentially womanly that reflected how women "are". While I have plenty of other criticisms of this article, this is the most basic one that I don't think has been expressed here yet.
- SkyMarshal 16y agoDoes anyone else just not grok the idea that sex is about all these terribly negative things? I have never in my life desired to degrade or debase women through sex or any other means. I know it's hard for women these days, and there are probably more screwed up guys out there than normal ones, but I feel like the latter are getting tarred with the same brush as the former. I can't think of any guy in my immediate social circle that's not a true gentleman inside and out, not even a suppressed, closeted woman-hater. Reading feminist articles like this usually makes me go WTF. On the hand I'm very sympathetic to the fact that it's not easy being a woman, but on the other I can't help but suspect the author has been a victim of bad luck with men and is projecting on the entire sex.
- RyanMcGreal 16y ago> at the heart of human sexuality, at least human sexuality involving men, lies what Freud And I'm done with this steaming pile of misanthropy. An essay on sexuality that falls back on Freudian ideas is beyond redemption.
- PostOnce 16y agoGirls watch porn too. That fact apparently eludes the author.
- sdenheyer 16y agoNoticing all the hidden assumptions - if a woman does amateur porn and puts it up on xtube, she's trying to please her husband - can't be that she's turned on by it. Somehow, even cuckoldry fantasies are about the male being dominant. Paul in Last Tango is a brute, but no mention of Jeanne being a status-climbing bitch for abandoning him when she finds out he's poor - she may have pointed it out obliquely, but all judgment-loaded language is pointed firmly toward the y-chromosoned.