I’m usually not one to read the latest in the never-ending series of books all best described as “I Was A Sex Worker Despite The Fact That I’m An Educated, Middle Class White Woman”, but I did pick up Audacia Ray’s Naked on the Internet, mostly because the book promised to be about a lot more than titillating the audience with the story of a girl next door gone bad, and because I know Ray is too smart to waste the audience’s time with “am I a feminist?” hand-wringing. She’s had a lot of experience navigating these waters as the editor of $pread magazine and as an all-around sex and sex work blogger at Waking Vixen. The battles over whether or not there’s feminist potential in porn* have reached an impasse, and so Ray basically doesn’t address the issue in the book, instead choosing to treat it as an overview of all the various ways that women use the internet for sexual purposes, from dating to looking at porn to peddling it to outright prostitution to blogging about sex and dating, as well as a bunch of other uses.
Fitting with her attempt to make the book an overview, Ray takes on a very non-judgmental tone throughout most of the book, the one exception being her badly concealed disgust with the “fuck machine” porn. On the whole, I think her choice to take her opinions out of it was a good one, since only in stepping aside can Ray really show you a fuller picture of all the various attitudes that people have about sex and the internet. It was especially good on relatively non-controversial parts, like accessing health information or using Match.com. However, her non-judgmental tone occasionally frustrated me during the sections covering controversial topics like porn or sex work. I really wanted to know more about how Ray, as a former sex worker and porn director, really feels about the heavy asshole factor in her now-former profession, or even just the huge male entitlement issues going on with men cruising for casual sex on the internet in a situation where they have to know that they’re going to outnumber women precisely because women don’t want to deal with entitled assholes or the safety issues when it comes to anonymous sex over Craigslist or other hook-up sites. She does mention at one point that she has trouble resisting the urge to tell the guys on Craigslist who are complaining about the paucity of women advertising for no-strings-attached sex to pay for it if they want it that bad, which was amusing and I wanted to read a little more of her actual opinions.
Still, it wasn’t really that necessary to have more Ray injected into the pages, because her objective tone let people and their actions speak for themselves. Ray doesn’t try to sugarcoat sex work, and by the time I finished her chapter on it, I got the impression that being a prostitute is a lot like being a waiter in a restaurant where 95% of your customers snap their fingers at you, make messes just to watch you clean it up and then stiff you on the tip when they’re not trying to welsh on the entire bill. It’s just clear from Ray’s perspective, that sex work is hard and often demeaning is all the more reason for feminists to support the few sex workers out there who wish to unionize and agitate for better treatment by the law.
But the book is about more than being a prostitute who uses the internet to peddle her wares; in fact, that’s a small, if fascinating, portion of it. It’s an overview, and the parts I found most intriguing were the ones where she interviewed women who have an interest in using the internet for sexual expression, either through sex blogging, writing erotica, or making more visual pornographic material. She talks to a mix of women who are not feminist at all and women who have a pro-woman agenda . One thing that she highlights that I found interesting was the widespread notion amongst women who are trying to cut out a feminist space in porn that women don’t look at porn as much as men strictly because of the male gaze issues.** Written erotica was deemed more female-friendly not because of inherent preferences for visual porn for men and written porn for women, but because it was much easier for women to find written material where you’re not going to encounter some huge misogynist turn-off. In other words, that women don’t look at porn is a supply, not a demand issue. The owners of one porn portal website aimed at straight women bemoaned their inability to meet the demand for new pictures, since they have to buy explicit pictures of men mostly from photographers who are aiming for a gay male audience, and then they have to work at it to recontextualize the pictures for a straight female audience. It was really interesting, and I went to their website to see how good a job they did, only to find that you have to pay to really see a lot of pictures, which I found interesting as well—if they’re able to make a living off this project, that pretty much does show that there’s more demand out there than the “women don’t look” stereotypes would have it. All in all, I found that section pretty persuasive.
Doing an overview of sex on the internet sounds pretty close to impossible, and Ray surely couldn’t do anything even remotely complete. But I found that she did a remarkable job touching on a wide variety of topics and she dug in a little deeper on most of them than I expected she could in the space of the book.
*Yes, no, and maybe are my answers, though I maintain that it’s Pollyannish to pretend that the majority of porn out there doesn’t use misogynist tropes or use misogyny as its main selling point.
**Again, which leads to outright misogyny in the majority of porn, in my opinion, and I find it hard to believe that spitting in women’s faces and calling them names could be characterized as anything but.
74 Responses to “Book review: Naked on the Internet”
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I think you need a “not” in there.
Very interesting post, especially about why women aren’t interested so much in visual porn.
Thanks, fixed.
Might you be able to elaborate here? Were I to troll Craigslist for casual sex, I’d assume that a serious straight male/straight female imbalance existed, but I wouldn’t consider myself to be showing some kind of male entitlement merely by seeking it out.
In my experience, women are keen on cartoon porn, more than the real stuff. Of course there’s the whole ‘yaoi’ crowd, but even the stuff aimed at straight male usualy has a good share of female readership. Don’t know why.
As a man who wants to find non-misogynistic porn, I can sympathize with the women who want straight porn without gay male elements. It’s just not always that easy to find stuff that turns me on while not offending (or, alternately, doing nothing for) me. I hate when the sexy woman I’m looking at is described as a bitch, cumslut, or whatever. Why does that get added? The image is the point, so why do the pornmakers add text that offends? I know some men (and women) get off on that, but that’s just not my thing. Actually, based on how much of that shit there is, maybe most men (but I doubt most women) get off on that.
Searching for good free porn isn’t easy. But I’m not in the least convinced that pay sites are going to be better. As for the notion that erotic writing is less likely to offend, I can only say that I’ve found some to go far beyond anything the worst visual porn I’ve seen. Though, on the whole, it depends where you’re looking.
Your point about the potential market for visual porn. Women don’t watch porn, b/c it is isn’t geared for them.
Me personally, I have to have a plot. Any plot, stupid plot, heal your lesbian girlfriend from the orgasmic coma the dude next door put her in, just some plot.
I have no problem suspending my deeply held beliefs in how the world should work, to get a couple hours of entertainment, especially as a “couple” thing.
I also like to read erotica(I recommend Laurell K. Hamilton, especially if your a Harry Potter fan & like erotica, like me), and even though most is written by women, it still carries some misogynist themes.
It would be really nice, if some feminists stepped into the visual market. We could not only gain more women as an audience, but as a “couple” thing, gain men as well.
This is sort of off-topic, but I wanted to speak up in defense of Peter De Vries, author of Tunnel of Love — the unfortunate cover of which illustrates this post.
Far from being some sort of mid-century chauvinist, De Vries was a savvy satirist whose comic novels deflated conventional, hypocritical notions about sex, marriage, and morality. Many of his books examine the conflict between skepticism (which is the only sensible response to the world) and faith (which promises to provide comfort and consolation, albeit specious) — for instance, the protagonist of Mackerel Plaza is an atheist priest. There’s another one (I think “Let Me Count the Ways,” but I’m not sure) where he concludes by proposing a form of “christian atheism” where the communitarian spirit and egalitarian ethics of christianity are preserved, and the bogus superstructure of divinity discarded.
And although his books are certainly “of their time” in many ways with regards to gender — most of his protagonists are male, for instance, and his plots do tend to center on a man’s pursuit of a wife (the basic comic formula) — the women in De Vries’ books are rarely mere occasions for male behavior. They tend to be smart and sexually independent. An example: the plot of Slouching Towards Kalamazoo involves the sexual relationship between Tony Thrasher, a 15-year-old who’s still in the eighth grade because he’d rather read Joyce than learn geography, and his teacher Maggie Doubloon, who is in her early 20s.
This is right before the introduction of the pill (De Vries very deliberately sets the book at the cusp of the sexual revolution to underscore how outmoded and unfair the earlier era’s values are); inevitably, Maggie gets pregnant. It’s bad enough that she’s unmarried, but as a teacher, her pregnancy is even more unacceptable — especially in the small town where the first part of the book takes place. After trying unsuccessfully to procure an abortifacient, she gets the hell out of dodge and goes back to Kalamazoo, where her father lives, to raise her child on her own.
Slouching Towards Kalamazoo has a lot of parallels with The Scarlet Letter — a book that Maggie was reprimanded for teaching her eighth grade class. In particular, Maggie’s sexuality is not vilified — nor is Tony’s adolescent sexual drive treated as a perversion. De Vries makes it very clear that Maggie’s integrity, intelligence, and spirit are undiminished by her so-called “indiscretion,” and that the flaw lies with an uptight society’s response to normal sexual urges. If I recall correctly, Maggie ends up starting a successful business making T-shirts, and she and Tony both get married — to different people — and live as happily ever after as can reasonably be expected.
Probably his best book is “Blood of the Lamb,” written after his daughter died of leukemia. It begins as a darkly comic book, and ends with what may be the five bleakest pages in American 20th century literature. His use of language is both exuberant and precise — kind of like Nabokov. He’s a really terrific writer.
Sorry about not responding to the content of your post! I enjoy your literary criticism a lot, and was totally like super excited when I thought you might be writing about De Vries. But I guess if there is a lesson here, it’s that even subversive writing (or art) gets packaged to fit in with the same old normalizing tropes about men chasing scantily clad women across the greensward and then hefting them over their shoulders and carrying them up the stairs. (I happen to own that edition of Tunnel of Love, and that’s what’s on the back cover.)
What is disturbing about porn (for me, at least) is primarily the fact that a lot of it seems to focus on how women aren’t enjoying the experience at all and are more or less toys for male pleasure. In other words, it seems centered on a sexual activity that’s one step above rape (if that).
And it goes without saying that women would probably find that a turn off. One has to wonder whether establishing a market for “feminist pornography” would be like establishing a market for progressive talk radio. The market has evolved so far into one direction to please its target demographic that it may not be worth the effort.
Whiners. If there’s a market, grab your damn cameras and get to work. Geezus!
And that whole “male gaze” theory, 2 words: 1) OBVIOUS. 2) Stupid. D’uh, the camera has a viewpoint! Stop the fucking presses! Amaze the intellectuals!
You want to change the viewpoint? Pick up the damn camera.
Sirkowski: I suspect it’s because the male participants in cartoon porn are largely drawn to be sexually attractive to straight women, as well as vice versa. That is, it’s not restricting its audience the way a lot of live-action porn is.
I think there’s a market for pornography that isn’t degrading. Specifically, I think the analogy with talk radio fails because sexual desire is much more deeply rooted than a desire to listen to blowhards on the radio.
Eric, after you finish channeling Larry Summers, meet Olivetti.
I’m not saying trolling for sex on Craigslist is de facto entitled. Ray just found that a significant percentage of the men get angry when they can’t get laid that way, even though it’s pretty evident that the numbers are against you. Getting mad because you can’t snap your fingers at a woman and get free sex is entitled.
I find this interesting. I had always just assumed that difference in preference was inherent, but this makes sense.
One of the things that kind of bugs me when people are discussing porn is when they fail to acknowledge the vast number of genres available(one movie’s selling point was that all the women wore glasses). I occasionally watch straight porn because the genres in gay porn can be very narrowly defined, and the men in straight porn have a more natural look than the overly groomed steroid cases who star in much of gay porn. At least they used to. I recently saw this film about these “soccer moms” (who of course look like silicone enhanced strippers) who really wanted their kids’ team to win the championship game, so they set about seducing a coach, an official, and the dad of one of the rival team’s star players. The guys in this movie actually looked like their roles until their clothes came off. They were all manscaped if not shaved completely, so i’m guessing the trend that started in gay porn has spread to straight porn; very disappointing.
Tyler- i don’t know what porn you’re seeing, but in the straight movies i’ve seen the women really overact their orgasms.
One of the things that always struck me when I started viewing furry art online was the relatively high number of women artists in the field. This is counting both erotic and clean artwork, by the way. I can’t say that this necessarily has resulted in less misogyny, since furry art has always been an outlet for some very odd fantasies to begin with, and has always been pretty permissive about the fetishes portrayed, regardless how silly/strange/scary/sick they might be.
Still even though it’s expanded dramatically in the 10 years along with the rest of the internet, There’s still a remarkably high number of active female artists especially when compared to commercial art fields like animation and comics.
Pablo, I think he’s referring to the way they get spit on, called names, get lots of shots where they look like they’re getting assaulted, make sure to look like they’re in pain, get two cocks shoved in their ass at once, have some guy pull his cock out of their asses and shove it directly into their mouth and then, to top it all off, they deliver a humiliatingly obvious fake orgasm to show how much bitches really like being treated badly.
Now, not all porn is like this. A lot of us just shows people fucking and having fun. What puts me off my dinner is how the majority of porn is mean-spirited and showing stuff where women seem to sincerely enjoy being there is considered a speciality genre somewhere below foot fetishism in popularity.
I read a lot of erotic fanfiction, and I’m trying to encourage my fellow fans to call it “smut” instead of “porn” because the moral & legal issues with “material using real people as models or actors” (=porn, conventionally speaking) are so different from “sexually explicit material that you make up”. And “erotica” sounds like you’re trying to be snooty or to fool people.
I’ve read a *lot* of smut written by women, and it undercuts many of the conventional notions about what women will go for. For instance, people will tell you that women don’t want very explicit writing, that we want a graceful “fade to black”, but all the fanfic writers I’ve talked to say they get more praise and feedback for NC-17 stories than they do for less explicit ones.
Indeed, I think women prefer more detailed, explicit, *plausible* smut than men do, smut that doesn’t describe improbable anatomy & physiology but all the touches, tastes, smells, feelings, and emotions sexual human beings might have.
I actually think a lot of the conventions of genre porn are designed or intended to distance the male viewer/reader, to keep him as *un*involved as possible, to make sex seem more tractable. I think the function of misogyny in porn is projection, to make sex seem bad and a function of *her*, a bad person, over there — not something that comes from in here, from the male producer/consumer.
I also speculate that the esthetic & moral badness of straight porn is to disguise its homosexual subtext. What I mean is, males produce porn for the purpose of sexually arousing other males (the consumers). This should imply that gay porn should be less wretched than straight porn, which may be true — at least True Porn Clerk Stories notes that:
That’s actually part of the problem, pablo, not a selling point for non-misogynists male or female. It’s heartbreakingly obvious (to me anyway) how little fun most of them are having. yuck
I don’t like the word “smut”. It sounds like something you’d dig out of a body crevice after not bathing for a week. But I have weird attitudes about words. I like “cunt” better than “pussy” for sure, as the latter just sounds all hissy and weird. “Fanny” is okay; I wish Americans used it like the British do.
Amanda- I don’t have the numbers and would be interested in hearing from someone who does, but the truly degrading stuff that i always hear cited as the preponderance of porn, is something i haven’t seen that much of and I have been a porn consumer for close to 20 years now. I would argue that the it is a fetish genre and not the prime porn demographic.
I’m not saying I’m *fond* of “smut”, aesthetically. I just think it’s necessary to have a different word for “Lolita” or “American Psycho” than for porn, because material that is made by actually exploiting actual people is *not* in the same category as the product of an imagination, no matter how fevered.
pablo:
Are you looking at straight porn, or gay? Do you get your stuff from a walk-in store, some kind of subscription service, or the internet?
The book has a nonplussed tone? Like Miss Teen South Carolina answering questions about education? That kind of nonplussed?
That doesn’t make the book sound very good.
Dr. Sci- I look at both, though much more gay porn than straight for the last 10 years or so, mostly rentable DVDs now, but tapes and magazines when i was younger(pre-internet). I’m not a big user of internet porn, eventhough i’m actually in some.
Eek, I’ll fix that. Thanks.
I don’t have to look into specific categories to find porn that is “truly degrading” when I’m surfing. Right off the bat I can see multiple “b.ang bu.s” titles, “mon.ey talks”, etc. Or any amount of titles that refer to women as bitches, holes, meat, etc. And let’s not forget the b.arely 18, and movies that add race to the degradation. And this is mainstream. The titles that try to have a plot, and even comedy, are few and far between.
That’s why I just call it day and go with amateur. Real people with real bodies enjoying real sex and sharing it with the rest of us.
Gay sex porn is a turn on because it’s watching two people on a sexually equal ground for the most part. It’s not always (unless you are specifically looking for it) one trying to dominate the other.
pablo:
I’d be interested in hearing what you think of True Porn Clerk Stories. That writer definitely gives the impression that the porn is strongly fetish-driven: the fetish watchers may not be the largest group in terms of individuals, but they are *obsessed*, so they are the most reliable repeat viewers, the core of the market.
the porn *market* is strongly fetish-driven.
Sheesh. They give me a preview, but do I look at it?
that the porn *market* is strongly fetish-driven
sheesh. They give me a preview, but do I look at it?
Dr. Sci- I have read and enjoyed the TPCS, and i see your point about fetish porn consumers probably being the biggest repeat customers, still i would think that that market is smaller compared to the standard vanilla stuff which would have the widest appeal. I have a couple friends in the gay porn industry, but I wouldn’t know where to start looking for production stats in the straight porn industry.
Shasta-I didn’t say that the degrading stuff was difficult to find, only that it wasn’t the only thing out there, or even the majority of what’s available.
pablo, back when I was walking into brick-n-mortar porn stores, I noticed that the hypertrophied steroid cases were mainly in American gay porn. The Euro gay movies seemed to favor thin, even wispy or boyish, actors.
But from my little corner of the internet, I do get the impression that the misogyny Amanda refers to is increasingly penetrating the mainstream of straight porn. It’s not just fetish videos that include verbal and physical abuse anymore, it’s the run-of-the-mill casting couch compilations as well.
I think that part of the angry straight men on Craigslist may result from male entitlement. I also think that part of it involves frustration at living in a world which isn’t compatible with their sexual natures.
I’d like to second what Shasta said. Extraordinarily primped and toned bodies are no substitute for actual enthusiasm. I just wish it would sell more; for every Beautiful Agony or I Feel Myself (or amateur porn group on Livejournal), there are a bajillion Bangbus clones.
It’s interesting that we’re living at a point where it’s very easy to see how other people fuck. Not everyone, but at least some people; while professional porn is highly ritualized and stylized, amateur porn frequently bears a pretty good resemblance to reality, even if the people making it sometimes feel like they have to emulate the professionals.
As for porn made for women, I’ve prided myself on being the sort of guy who can find things–I’ve gotten unusual requests and been able to fulfill them. But one of my female friends asked me for gay porn involving skinny guys with long hair, and I could not, for the life of me, get anything. Lots of beefcake, maybe some more willowy guys, but never the long-haired slightly feminine type.
There’s a market for lesbian porn made for men (is there ever!); maybe there’s a market for gay porn made for women. I wonder what that would look like.
Try anime and manga of the ‘yaoi’ genre. Most of it is made for women.
There’s http://gaypornforgirls.blogspot.com, a reliable source.
Yes, no, and maybe are my answers,
And where’s your time machine, Professor?
Amanda, you might like Doug Henwood’s interview with Audacia Ray, from his Radio Archives website. Also on there is an interview with the founders of $pread magazine just before the first issue came out, as well a host of other marvelous economics and political interviews. Henwood is one of the best interviewers on the radio today precisely because he gets out of the way and lets his guests express themselves. The interview with Ray definitely lets you hear more of her voice and her opinions.
Check out:
http://gaypornforgirls.blogspot.com
I agree with Sirkowski, grendelkhan; for gay slim males with long hair, yaoi is the motherlode. I’ve had similar difficulties though looking for ‘live action’ porn, since I too often prefer thin, somewhat feminine men. Closest matches were a few East Asian sites and some trans porn. The live action selection is really only good when I want to see other women and some fetish stuff.
You’re standing in it!
How could I have forgotten? That’s an excellent point.Also, Doctor Science, you win the internet.
I dunno about yaoi. A lot of what I’ve seen just seems to repeat many of the same misogynistic tropes which Amanda identifies as problematic about mainstream porn. It just projects those roles onto a same-sex pairing. I keep picking it up because if the hype is to be believed, I should be all over it. But sure, while there is plot and relationship dynamics, those dynamics are almost always dysfunctional to the point of abuse.
I’d be interested in hearing what you think of True Porn Clerk Stories. That writer definitely gives the impression that the porn is strongly fetish-driven: the fetish watchers may not be the largest group in terms of individuals, but they are *obsessed*, so they are the most reliable repeat viewers, the core of the market.
I’d say this is it. I’ve speculated on this before—the meanness of most porn is because a small fraction of the porn-viewing audience drives most of its sales. I think a lot of guys who watch porn on the internet but not enough to pay for it probably overlook the misogyny, which of course is easier to do when it’s not aimed at you. I’m not sure how I feel on the theory that they’re absorbing bad attitudes about women. I don’t doubt it, but that theory implies that men don’t get the message that women are beneath them at every turn, and that’s not true in the slightest.
One thing that I always wonder about in this debate is what female-centric porn would look like. I know that yaoi is mostly consumed by women, but has it caught on much in the States? My gay roommate has often tried to convince our mutual straight female friends that gay porn features rippling men not wearing clothing, but most of our friends, even those LOOKING for porn, decline. It often seems (although I know it must not be this way for many straight women) that they don’t necessarily know what they are looking for in their porn.
Much of male-oriented porn is focused, it seems to me, on the male orgasm as the “point” of sex, with any female participation as simply a vehicle to get there - hence the proliferation of so many stupid, misogynist genres of porn. Oral sex does feel good, and I’m sure that many folks love to both receive it, and to give it. I think that probably less people really enjoy being on the receiving end of a m*ney shot, though, than a representative selection of male-focused porn would have us believe. The frequency of this act in male-centric porn shows just how important the male orgasm is to the genre, and how unimportant female pleasure is. Why do straight men like watching other straight men get off (even if they don’t know that’s what they are doing)?
I wonder what the female equivalent of the all-pervasive m*ney shot would be? Would there be one at all? This is less a statement and more a question to the group - is female-centric porn less prolific because porn producers don’t know what it would/should look like? Should it look like any one thing? Are there fetishes/sub-genres of porn that today get a lot of female viewers?
I’ve always thought the “m*ney shot” was pretty stupid; someone explained once that porn producers put it in to demonstrate to the viewers that the actors were actually having sex, that it wasn’t faked up with Hollywood magic somehow. Which seems pretty pointless.
I wouldn’t dispute anyone who suggests that there must be some deeper, very likely misogynistic, for that particular fetish and its variations to persist so much. But it certainly isn’t an automatic erotic trigger, not for me anyway. It actually bothers me. Anything that doesn’t look to me like something both partners would really enjoy bothers me in porn, which is why so much of it is nasty as a product, quite aside from the ethics of considering where the images come from.
I will say that I’ve known at least a few straight women who were into gay porn, but at least one of them was incredibly ashamed of it–I found out through a friend of hers, and offered to send her some (being the sort of guy who can find things, you know), but was told in no uncertain terms that she was incredibly ashamed of this and that I was not to mention it, ever.I wonder how much of the pressure for straight women to not look at gay porn comes from the idea that porn is something that guys do, how much comes from shame about admitting to one’s own lusts, how much comes from generalized homophobia, and how much is actually from the female-unfriendliness of the industry and the content itself.
I confess to being a woman who watches gay porn. Why? Two reasons:
1) I think men’s bodies are beautiful, and gay porn means there are at least twice as many bodies to look at.
2) There are no women with boob jobs (some of which are incredibly bad - kinda the Wal-Mart version of the boob job), shaved genitals, and the worst kind of over-acting to try and cover up the fact that they are NOT having a good time.
I admit to finding lesbian porn boring, not because I think it’s icky, but because 99.5% is being performed by two women who are NOT into it. I did see one sequence where the two women involved actually seemed to be enjoying themselves, and that sequence was *hot*.
Which I guess leads me to believe that the best porn is the kind where the participants are actually enjoying themselves. These couples (straight or gay) at least *appear* to have both self-respect and respect for their partner, and a desire to participate in the other’s pleasure. And *that* is really hot!
As far as yaoi goes - some of it is good, and some of it is bad, and most of it is “Mary Sue” stories where the author is indulging her fantasies with her favorite character. The worst of it, though, makes me want to contact the author and say, “Damn, get some therapy!” (shiver) Freaky, freaky stuff. It pays to pay attention to the warnings, trust me.
(shaking head) Sometimes I think I’m such a perv - and then wish I’d discovered it when I was younger and flexible enough to enjoy it!
@ MHorag:If you’d like some lesbian porn featuring women who genuinely are into it (quite literally…),get one of the flicks by www.pinkwhite.biz .You will not be disappointed…
I have no interest in yaoi or anime stuff, but I do watch and read gay porn. I have a number of straight and bi female friends who are also slash writers like myself who do so as well.
I find that it’s been really interesting to examine what I like about gay porn (usually writing or reading rather than watching — watching, for me, is usually only interesting in terms of mechanics, etc.) and compare it to what I find to be lacking in straight porn and even straight relationships in real life. As someone mentioned above, I think a lot of the appeal is the equal footing the characters have (at least, in what I like to read; as others have mentioned, there’s some unhealthy stuff out there, too). There’s a lot to be unpacked there, but I’d love to be pointed to a big meta discussion of what women like about slash/gay porn. I know there’s one out there.
I also know of lesbians who really don’t like penises (their words) and yet almost exclusively write and read gay male porn. I can’t speak to what that’s all about.
And I was beaten to the “gay porn for girls” link
All right, I waited and refreshed and this still didn’t appear. Reposting, sorry if it appears twice:
I have no interest in yaoi or anime stuff, but I do watch and read gay porn. I have a number of straight and bi female friends who are also slash writers like myself who do so as well.
I find that it’s been really interesting to examine what I like about gay porn (usually writing or reading rather than watching — watching, for me, is usually only interesting in terms of mechanics, etc.) and compare it to what I find to be lacking in straight porn and even straight relationships in real life. As someone mentioned above, I think a lot of the appeal is the equal footing the characters have (at least, in what I like to read; as others have mentioned, there’s some unhealthy stuff out there, too). There’s a lot to be unpacked there, but I’d love to be pointed to a big meta discussion of what women like about slash/gay porn. I know there’s one out there.
I also know of lesbians who really don’t like penises (their words) and yet almost exclusively write and read gay male porn. I can’t speak to what that’s all about.
And I was beaten to the “gay porn for girls” link
Also speaking of porn, my first thought upon hearing that women, generally speaking, might fantasize about things subtly or entirely different from what men, generally speaking, do, was overwhelming curiosity. I was surprised and then terribly disappointed reading about the trouble Nancy Friday had in publishing My Secret Garden, which now I’m going to have to read.
Mhorag, ifeelmyself.com has some good lesbian scenes, though that’s not their primary focus. Also, can I ask if you remember where the sequence you judged to be good was from?
I just wanted to second Olivetti’s comments uptopics on the merits of Peter de Vries’ writings. One of my favorite writers. Thank you, Olivetti.
Regarding inequality in yaoi anime and manga, a lot of that has to do with strict gender roles in Japan. I love yaoi, but this aspect of it does bother me, but it’s interesting to see why it keeps cropping up. It’s still very difficult for most artists and writers to tell a good ficitonal story about a relationship without some assignment given to the characters based on arbitrary gender factors. Art is almost never created in a vacuum, so there will always be some cultural influence.
A lot of yaoi fandom seems to understands this problem, though, so you get a lot of parody stories around the roles of the “uke” and “seme”. It’s not a perfect genre, but I think it’s off to a good start.
It does make me appreciate the Japanese manga industry more than the Amercian comic industry a lot of the time, that this kind of material can be published and distributed. They see that there is a market for it (for us girls sick of seeing only hentai stuff for guys), so they write and draw for it. There’s even a district in Ikebukuro, Tokyo like Akihabara, but for female anime/manga fans- Otome Road (or “Maiden Road”).
Regarding inequality in yaoi anime and manga, a lot of that has to do with strict gender roles in Japan. I love yaoi, but this aspect of it does bother me, but it’s interesting to see why it keeps cropping up. It’s still very difficult for most artists and writers to tell a good ficitonal story about a relationship without some assignment given to the characters based on arbitrary gender factors. Art is almost never created in a vacuum, so there will always be some cultural influence.
A lot of yaoi fandom seems to understands this problem, though, so you get a lot of parody stories around the roles of the “uke” and “seme”. It’s not a perfect genre, but I think it’s off to a good start.
It does make me appreciate the Japanese manga industry more than the Amercian comic industry a lot of the time, that this kind of material can be published and distributed. They see that there is a market for it (for us girls sick of seeing only hentai stuff for guys), so they write and draw for it. There’s even a district in Ikebukuro, Tokyo like Akihabara, but for female anime/manga fans- Otome Road (or “Maiden Road”).
Reminds me of a line on The Simpsons: “It’s the most popular non-pornographic site on the Internet! Which makes it three trillionth overall.”I have to admit that I don’t totally buy the “Japanese culture” excuse, because there is an American market driving the import and reprint translations. While it may be true that the source material may be rigidly patriarchal and heterosexist to boot, I also suspect that heterosexism is why I can Loveless on bookstore displays, but not Pride High.
While there are some people engaging in critical critiques of yaoi, I know from experience that some women use their appropriation of gay porn, yaoi and slash as a cover for their own heterosexism.
I don’t understand what you mean–how would one use gay porn (of various types) as a cover for heterosexism? Could you give an illustrative example?“While there are some people engaging in critical critiques of yaoi, I know from experience that some women use their appropriation of gay porn, yaoi and slash as a cover for their own heterosexism.”
True, there is the problem in yaoi fandom of female fans bashing female characters because they “get in the way” of the male characters’ relationships. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but it’s interesting that girls are gravitating so much to it. (I’d actually like to see if there are is any difference in what Japanese fangirls get out of it vs. Amercian fangirls.) Just because it doesn’t 100% succeeds, though, doesn’t mean it 100% fails. Lots of different women write/draw and consume yaoi, so there are all different kinds of it. There is not one overall “agenda” to it. Some of us just like a good romance story with some steamy sex. ^^
“why I can [see] Loveless on bookstore displays”
Well, most people probably think the second male character is a girl because of his design, so it’s a little easier to get away with. ^__~
There was an ex-porn performer named Candida Royale who founded her own company and directed her own movies; which were aimed at a female audience. I’ve never seen them, so i don’t know what they’re like.
I haven’t really seen much yaoi, but I know the terms “uke” and “seme” from akido classes. I hated being uke(receives the attack).
grendelkhan: Sorry, but the lesbian I actually liked was on one of those “buy $17.95 worth of stuff and get a free video” videos from Adam and Eve (where I purchase condoms and lube because the prices and selection are better). It came on a VHS tape, which I think bit the dust several years ago (leastwise, I haven’t seen the tape itself for about that long.)
CBrachyrynchos: “While there are some people engaging in critical critiques of yaoi, I know from experience that some women use their appropriation of gay porn, yaoi and slash as a cover for their own heterosexism. ”
I think I need some clarification as to what you mean. Is it similar to the lesbian sex so beloved of straight men? Are they (the straight men) using the lesbian sex as a “cover for their own heterosexism”? I am interested in hearing how your experience brought you to this conclusion.
I think I know the kind of gay porn/yaoi/slash that you’re talking about, where I’m wondering if these women have even *met* a man, let alone a gay man. Some of the worst cliches can be found in this stuff (not to mention grammar so bad your eyes bleed). I honestly think they don’t know better, and are just following the cliches. (Non-slash example: Professionally published Trek fiction: The Abode of Life. OMG! Within the first 2 pages, every overdone cliche of Trek was there - McCoy’s “I’m a doctor, not …”, Kirk wringing his hands, Spocking lifting his eyebrow, Scotty’s “I dinna hae the powerrrrrrr!” Barf. Now put sex into it. Double-barf. But it still sold!)
The same way in which many straight men may use girl-on-girl porn as a hot fantasy, but be dismissive or threatened by actual lesbian relationships. It’s a common phenomenon among the bisexual community of running into straight partners who are all into the idea having a bisexual partner who is willing to swing, but get threatened when a same-sex relationship involves significant quantities of time, trust, and emotional intimacy on its own.
My experience with this involved partners who were all into the “hotness” of gay porn. And I felt that the way in which they approached gay porn as voyeuristic consumers was related to the ways in which they considered same-sex relationships.
CBrachyrhynchos: In my experience, the slash and yaoi fangirls who have real issues with heterosexism tend to be the younger ones. That’s not excusing the attitude, but it does explain it some, I think.
I’ve occasionally run into slash readers and writers who are opposed to same-sex marriage, but those tend to be rare, and are generally people who are already conflicted about their interest in slash. They also usually get slammed hard if they say that in public.
Doctor Science:
I actually meant to reply to your LJ post on this, but since you mention it…I don’t see any real difference between the terms “smut” and “porn”. You seem to be trying to define text-only material as different–and less objectionable–than visually based material. By this logic, fanfiction about John and Rodney would be smut, but a photomanip or a drawing would be porn, because it’s using David Hewlett and Joe Flanigan as models.
I write material that is intended to evoke a sexual response in a reader. I call it porn because for me, that’s a political act, saying that as a woman, I am creating work that is centered around what I want to read, and that reflects my sexuality–and that is every bit as valid as the material published and available for sale that doesn’t speak to me. The difference is in who’s creating it and for which audience, but I refuse to say that since I’m writing it, it’s not porn. I’m still writing porn–it just happens to be porn that’s written by and (mostly) for women.
grendelkhan:
Well, I’m a little ashamed of reading gay porn, because the gay porn that I like is really, really trashy, awful stuff that uses words like “manmeat”. I’ve found that porn that’s well written doesn’t get me off nearly as much as the sleazy crap–it’s why I seldom actually wank to fanfic. I get invested in the plot and never remember to turn the Hitachi on.
/tmi
CBrachyrhynchos, I’ve run into heterosexism of that type as well, and yes, they do seem to be younger. Some of them seem to think that just about any female character is a Mary Sue, and don’t seem to want any women or girls in the character pantheon at all. Sometimes the vehemence can be rather startling.
Oh, grendelkhan, thanks for that Nancy Friday link.
I’ve read The Secret Garden and would advise reading it only as a cultural and historical text. It’s far more depressing than sexy, as it, perhaps inadvertantly, clearly illustrates women’s sexual repression 30+ years ago. There are women in the book who admitted they couldn’t even touch themselves–ever! That’s how draconian the repression was.
Friday wrote a sequel, (in the 90s, I think) which she herself described as much brighter and sexier. She theorized women of the later generation were raised with far less guilt about their sexuality and she said that view is reflected in their fantasies.
I haven’t read it, so I can’t recommend. But if you’re going for hawtness, you may want to check out the later book. It might be interesting to read both together and see what the differences are.
I think you’re right.
Plot? Plot? what the hell do you need a plot for? I’m interested in seeing people getting nekkid and down to business, what do I care if the buxom real-estate agent sells the condo?
I mean, are the plot-driven folks, in the words of Jeff Lebowski, actually under the impression that the male lead of “Logjammin’” actually gets around to fixing the cable?
//
in another note, i don’t really get those money shot things. I used to live with / share a computer with a guy who downloaded nothing but facials. 15sec clip after clip of nothing but spooge shots. Very, very weird- those are the most boring parts to me, and have a lot of creepy undertones
-hmmm. maybe he just likes looking at pictures of cocks and has found a semi-acceptable way to do it…
Indy, I’m totally there. I like things with lots of plot and character development and dramatic motivation, and I like things with NO plot at all that are just hot people enjoying each other, but the little piddly fake plots in porn are just lame. Don’t get it at all.
But yeah, money shots are teh creepy. I don’t know what the issue is with people liking those, but I hope your last speculation is correct.
I think the biggest problem with visual porn for women is it doesn’t show the things that feel good to women in enough detail, or convincingly enough.
You might see someone with a penis or a mouth or a hand or Hitachi in the right area, but you rarely see the direct signs of sexual arousal and orgasm. It’s supposedly happening, but you don’t SEE it. Ooh oh yes baby may work for the men who hear it, but not for the women who say it and know it’s often faked.
Add that to the goldfish eyes, shaved everything, and obvious disinterest or even pain of the women involved, and no wonder women usually aren’t interested.
I am interested in hawtness, but I’m also interested in being informed.Think of it like a long board resting on top of a squishy ball. One side of the board is labeled “hawtness”, while the other is labeled “thought-provoking”. I enjoy having my squishy ball squished sometimes, and to do that must be intrigued and aroused at the same time. Pushing down on only one side of the board doesn’t do it.
A board where I sometimes go–generally filled with rank stupidity and infantile humor–recently responded to an “ask the opposite sex” thread I made with honest questions and honest answers; it was both enlightening and extraordinarily hot. People who are so thickly stewed in irony that they normally can’t tell if they’re serious or not threw off the distancing methods for a few minutes, and it was fantastic.
So that’s what I’m hoping to get. It very much does look like the two Nancy Friday books are what I’m looking for; I’m especially curious about the differences between the years, as you mentioned.
Darkrose, I can tell I wasn’t clear. I’m saying that sexual and/or arousing material that employs real people (or animals) falls under labor laws, and it’s legal problems should be part of employment law. That stuff I call Porn.
Smut, I suggest, would be erotic material that does not economically employ the people depicted. A Kirk/Spock manip isn’t porn because neither Shatner nor Kirk were hired by the mannipper to do any of the setup. A nude portait of Spock can be painted withouy him giving any speific help or instrution, and it could be arousing enough to count as smut.
It squicks me when I go to a torrent site and “rape porn” is right there in the top ten most popular downloads.
Then again, most porn squicks me. I just end up wondering what the actress will behaving for dinner, or if she has any pets, or if she likes her job, or how many types of drugs the make-up artist was doing when s/he decided to cover half the actress’ forehead in eyeshadow. It’s impossible for me to see porn stars as just objects, like the viewer is supposed to.
And for that reason I always think “Aaaaargh!” when there’s bumsex without lube, or “gosh that’s not very nice” when she’s called a dirty cumslut. Which kind of kills the mood. That’s why I spend the time I would be looking at porn, having real sex instead.
On another note, Abby Winters is a great site, but not free. I like it because the actresses say things like “today they are paying me to have sex with a girl”. And it’s an Australian site, so it’s nice to hear people with my own accent.
CBrachyrhynchos: “The same way in which many straight men may use girl-on-girl porn as a hot fantasy, but be dismissive or threatened by actual lesbian relationships. ”
Okay - this I get. I read somewhere (I think it was Playgirl, in the early years when it was still for straight women) that girl-on-girl porn lets a man believe that there’s still room for him in that bed. Of course, actual lesbian relationships means that there is NO room for him in that bed - they don’t need a man to be satisfied, and frankly don’t want one. That could be rather threatening to one’s ego, I suppose.
In applying this to the yaoi/gay porn I’ve read, I can now see where you’re coming from regarding the heterosexism. Good point - explains a lot of the crap that’s out there.
This also made me think about some of my own motivations in watching gay porn, as in “Do I think there’s room for me in that bed?” De-constructing your own motivations is kinda hard (heheheh, I said ‘hard’, hehehe), but I think that I really do watch it because I think men’s bodies are beautiful, and you have to admit, the men in gay porn are beautiful. I do find it arousing, but not so much for the men in the video. Let’s just say my husband reaps the benefits of my watching habits.
JoAnne: “I think the biggest problem with visual porn for women is it doesn’t show the things that feel good to women in enough detail, or convincingly enough.”
AMEN! There’s a lot more foreplay in the best of the gay porn I’ve seen than in the straight porn. Straight porn is: Lick tonsils once, get naked, squeeze boobs twice, oral sex, penetration, change positions 4-5 times, faked female orgasm, money shot. It made me wonder if I was the only woman who actually enjoyed being caressed, or kissing that was more than Albanian tonsil wrestling. That was what made the 1 lesbian sequence I saw so hot - they *touched* each other in places other than the obvious erogenous ones and appeared to really enjoy being touched that way. They kissed in multiple ways - open mouth, closed mouth, licking, tongue-kissing, lip-sucking… Damn, it looked like fun!
“You might see someone with a penis or a mouth or a hand or Hitachi in the right area, but you rarely see the direct signs of sexual arousal and orgasm. It’s supposedly happening, but you don’t SEE it. Ooh oh yes baby may work for the men who hear it, but not for the women who say it and know it’s often faked.”
Testify, sister!! I’ve seen only one sequence where I was *sure* the woman in question orgasmed. She and her male partner were married in real life (weird factoid which may have helped, I don’t know), and she actually *flushed* raspberry pink along her face, throat, and chest after the usual panting and moaning (which did sound a lot more realistic than usual). Maybe this couple just figured out a way to get paid for indulging their fetish for exhibitionism.
“Add that to the goldfish eyes, shaved everything, and obvious disinterest or even pain of the women involved, and no wonder women usually aren’t interested. ”
I certainly don’t see myself as these women. Sex really is pretty silly-looking, and women are trained from earliest childhood to always think about how they *look* to others - not just physical looks but actions (”What will people say?!”) as well. One of the biggest dousers of arousal is to stop *feeling* and start *thinking* about how you look with your ankles up by your ears. Guess that’s why we tend to close our eyes.