Deep thinky thots on porn and such

[valarltd]

I was reading some feminist blogs before lunch. They are universal of their condemnation of pornography as a male-dominated commodification of women.

Which leaves me wondering about my own second job.

I am a woman, writing erotica (porn with better lighting and production values) for other women, being published by a female-run small press.

Aside from the fictional characters and one male editor, I'm not sure how men or the patriarchy comes into this at all. It all feels very lesbianic, especially when I'm writing f/f. I'm writing women making love to women, in order to please and arouse other women who will pay me, through the agency of a female company.

Yet, I'm told lesbians have no sexual agency under patriarchy.

Now I'm all conflicted and confused. I think I'll go be an agent of either compliance or subversion and go write another pegging scene.

Comments

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

When ever I worry about this, I go read Pat Califia until I'm too horny to care anymore.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

I believe the "all porn is bad" school of feminism comes from an extremely academic stream of thought that veers into nearly-posthuman territory with its ideas on society and images. I think these are good ideas, mind, but they're not really down-to-Earth ideas.

In most feminist blogs I've seen, "porn" is shorthand for "mainstream visual porn," and when exceptions like Torquere are brought up, the discussion heads back towards the ideas in my first paragraph.

I'm ambivalent about pornography, but I see much of it as being a symptom of a sick culture, not a cause.

[carenejeans.livejournal.com]

Sigh.

A lot of feminism, it seems, is still stuck in the Century of the Fruitbat.

Hey, I spent a lot of the weekend perusing books on the Female Gaze that didn't include looking at men, papers on pornography that didn't even get close to the question of what women might like to see in the way of male bodies, and hip porn guides that advise women who want to look at beautiful male bodies to look for gay porn -- and that last included an actual women's porn company. That, you know, makes porn films for women.

I think I'll go be an agent of either compliance or subversion and go write another pegging scene.

It's all you can do! 8-)

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I don't much like visual porn. The videos are dull and mechanical and in photos, women always look uncomfortable and bored. I have not, so far, found any hardcore exception to this in 20+ years of watching porn on and off.

Softcore stuff, where there's an actual movie around all the sex, seems to vary. Young Lady Chatterly was hot hot hot when I was a 17 year old virgin. It's still pretty hot today as a jaded 39.


On the other hand, I find written smut varies wildly. The TQ stuff is almost universally good (there has been the occasional story whose style was too experimental for me). Nifty varies wildly, but tends to come down on the "barely passable" to "unreadble" end of the scale.

I'm not sure I had a point.

Oh, yeah.

They'll take my smut away when they pry my cold, dead fingers off the keyboard.

(And won't that be a scene?
"Mama!" yells 16 year old Lilith. "Mama, Grandma's not breathing!"
Bun comes in.
"But oh mama, I didn't know two girls could DO that!" Lilith says reading over my dead shoulder.
"Hush, sweetie and ask your mom about it," says Bun, saving the document.)

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Not having any Califia, I think I'll just scrub the toilet bowl and do laundry...

Or, you know, write gay male sex. Because nothing says "Help, help, I'm being repressed" like a woman who refuses to write women into her stories. (but when i write het, it's false consciousness, and when I write f/f it's just reactionary behavior and lack of agency...)

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Since I find your pirate porn hot as hell, I have no moral standing, here. ;)

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Given the general troglodytishness of the men in straight porn, I second the gay porn suggestion.

I'm sorry, small, lumpish hairy tripods who missed out on the grooming lectures? Not my idea of sexy.

[timewalker.livejournal.com]

Uhmmm.... ask Susie Bright?
Hell, what do I know? I'm just a heterosexual guy who happens to like some of the same stuff that you do. Off to listen to some Tom Smith.

[eyeless-angel.livejournal.com]

I think I'd tend to err toward subversion.

When the topic of this sort of writing gets brought up among a lot of men, they get quite angry, and that's generally a good thing, imo.

Subversion, it is. :D

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I love Tom. He's a big sweetie in a lot of ways.

And Susie Bright is a very brillant lady.

I'm just going to keep writing. False Consciousness, Elision of the Female or Playing into Lesbian Stereotypes, whatever.

I write what makes me hot.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

See icon...

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

One issue I have with feminism is that, frequently, the leaders don't seem to have much faith in women being able to make their own decisions, unless those decisions agree with them.

But what do I know, I like porn.

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

And they always have dreadful tan lines and flabby, pasty white asses. Eww.

[carenejeans.livejournal.com]

Given the general troglodytishness of the men in straight porn, I second the gay porn suggestion.

Well, sure, but -- porn FOR women ought to be working hard to get rid of that... unsightly problem, yes? If not, what good is it?? Chee...

Here's a nice ass. Kind of a dumb story, but nice ass. 8-) (Peter Wingfield, in an ep of Bliss)

[jlm121.livejournal.com]

Where do you start

Women controlling their sexuality and using erotica and porn to do such.
Women who like gay porn and slash is the an attempt to feminize men and or an attempt understand them, or does it suggest a lack of self worth.
it all tends to make my head hurt

I like erotica. I tend to stray to the slash side because honestly it attracts a lot of good writers. Het tends to be very conventional and when it isn't it can border on scary with some exceptions. I like gay porn cause, hey for the most part it's like m&ms, one hot guy is good, two hot guys is better. I don't get 70s and 80s ugly actor porn, unless it was so homophobic that the guys had to be getting off on the girl, cause thinking the guy was hot was out of the question.

this makes absolutely no sense because I am tired and stressed out. I am going to go read slash. To hell with the patriarchial hierarchy

[hlglne.livejournal.com]

If you look at feminist art, it's sexual as all get out. I do not see why the bloggers of whom you speak are so ignorant of this fact. One very famous name-- Judy Chicago. Cunts all over.

If we're talking lit, Anais Nin. Gertrude Stein. Erica Jong. Rubyfruit Jungle. These bloggers know not whereof they speak if they omit the sex scenes from their Virginia Woolf. Fucking is too good for them-- shun 'em.

Those of us who start with the sex end and work towards the literate poesy end still have beauty as our lodestone.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

In the words of George Carlin: unfuck 'em

I don't worry about literate poesy. I had enough of that backn in college getting an English degree. I just want my story out in appropriate language and tone.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Works for me.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I've been known to say "Maybe feminism was once about the right to make choices, then it became all about making the right choices,"

On the other hand, I'd like to think we can get back to the original? Where each woman knows what's right for her and (if she has one) her family.

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

Oh, but women can't be trusted to make the right decisions all by themselves!

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

Lesbians have a Sexual Agency? What's it called? Do they have to stand in long lines when they go there?

Oh wait. You said they have NO Sexual Agency. Well, that's good. No one likes bureaucracy.

As for your topic: totally. When I was in college, the feminist line was that Pornography=Teh Evol. But slash fandom has totally, completely and irrevocably changed my view about it. I am really, really interested in a feminist revision of the issue, because slash fandom has made me more comfortable with my own sexuality and my own -- what's the word? - prurience.

For example, I now resist distinquishing erotica for pornography. I feel like it's a way of saying one is legitimate and the other is not. I don't think the distinction is at all that clear. Even though slash fanfiction is certainly different from Penthouse magazine, I'm not sure that the titillation factor for the consumer is really all that different. In both cases, we consume it because it turns us on. (The real differences is, I think, more a matter of economics. Who is making the profit?)

And again, bondage and rape porn in traditional feminist thought was seen as totally degrading to women. Yet when women write the exact same thing of men??? What the hell does that mean? To me, it means that there is a difference between fantasy and reality, and that really lurid, even gory fantasies do not necessarily mean that you actually want it to happen in real life.

[dragon-lord.livejournal.com]

I realize this is quite a bit late, but...

I tend to think of porn and erotica as two different things (one being video, the other the written word) and I think erotica appeals to women more than men, while porn appeals to men more than women. (That's not to say that they appeal to only one sex on the other, only that in my experience, they tend to go for one rather than the other).

Is erotica commodifying women? I think it's all about the relationship into which it's placed.

Just gotta jump in with my .02

[dragon-lord.livejournal.com]

re: bondage and rape porn

I have no problems with bondage -- either way, male or female. Boys look pretty when they're tied up, so do girls.

Now for rape stories -- I like them when they focus on the aftermath, the psychology of it, the healing such as it is. Rape stories just for the sake of rape though, those I stay away from, whether it's male or female.

Then again, I'm more of a humanist I think.