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.

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.

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.

Gayle [#67]: 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 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.

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 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…

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 think you’re right.

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.