A couple days ago I chased a link over to unablogger and found myself unexpectedly confronted by pictures of naked women. This picture, in particular. And I noticed something unusual — which was that I liked it.
Don’t get me wrong, here. I’m a functioning heterosexual male; I enjoy looking at naked women. It’s most pictures of naked women I can’t stand. I’ve found by experience that most of the vast amounts of pornography available on the Internet leave me feeling more repelled than aroused. And not out of puritanism either; I have no intrinsic moral objection to porn, and I judge that the consequentialist arguments against it don’t stand the reality test.
No, the truth is that I find most porn subtly and deeply ugly. Unablogger’s picture (which happens to be of a Czech model named Veronika Zemanova) was a sufficiently glaring exception that it stimulated me to think seriously about why.
It was immediately clear to me that Ms. Zemanova’s physique was not the primary reason this photograph struck me as an exception. Ms. Zemanova unquestionably has a very shapely and appealing body and a pretty face. However, I have seen many photographs of women with equally lovely bodies and equally pretty faces that I nevertheless found ugly and unstimulating as entire compositions, without being completely clear about why.
My initial reaction was reinforced when I searched for other images of Ms. Zemanova and discovered ugly generic porn. The difference, clearly, was not in Ms. Zemanova’s body but in way the attitude and setting — one might say the implied narrative — of her pictures differed. Time for some analysis…
Like any good scientist, I proceeded to do some research. I surfed to a well-known porn index site and random-sampled the content, sticking to pictures of single unclad women in order to control some obvious variables. Using my own hypothalamus as a calibration instrument, I graded the samples into “excellent” (I want to keep a copy) “good” (pleasant to look at) “mediocre” (mechanically arousing but unpleasant) and “bad” (just plain unpleasant). There were very, very few “excellents”, and almost none of the caliber of Unablogger’s image of Ms. Zemanova.
After the first grading pass, I re-sorted the images in an attempt to compensate for the presence of particular physical features that I know are powerful sexual releasers for me (red hair is an example). I did this because, to the extent possible, I wanted to try to separate my autonomic arousal reaction to the images from my esthetic and psychological reaction. So I downgraded images in which the women had obvious, powerful releaser traits for me.
Now, this was hardly a controlled experiment. And it’s just me. But once I corrected for my autonomic biases, a clear pattern emerged, especially in the “bad” category. Many images contained elements that were, at least to me, anti-arousing. Over-styled hair — especially over-styled blonde hair. Fake pearls. Strappy high heels being worn by otherwise naked women. Feather boas and tacky hooker lingerie. Bloated silicone breasts. Excessive makeup; excessive makeup was, in fact a rule even in most otherwise uncompromised images.
The pattern was not surprising; I had had some insight about this before without thinking it through completely. Bad porn is full of the fetish signifiers of sexual allure, to the point where they crowd out the reality of sexual allure. Porn models often look more like women trying desperately hard to be sexy than they look like sexy women. There is a wrongness there.
Contrast this picture of a model named India Allen with Ms. Zemanova’s picture. I have no doubt that Ms. Allen is quite a fetching young woman; indeed, I chose her image because on the physical-traits level she can compete with Ms. Zemanova quite handily. But this image is not good porn; it is crowded with elements that distract one from Ms. India’s native sexiness. The silly carousel horse. The glare spot behind her left hip. The teddy artfully half-removed despite the fact that she is obviously not planning to strip for sex in the immediate future.
I can’t speak for other men, but my gut reaction is “What is all this bullshit?” Where the Unablogger photo of Ms. Zemanova offers us a narrative about sex (“I’m taking my clothes off because I want to have sex with the person I’m looking at — yes, that would be you.”) Ms. Allen’s offers us a narrative about being sexy — looking alluring in a fantasy context that makes actual sex quite unlikely. How many of us, after all, have ever gotten laid anywhere near a carousel horse?
And typical porn is actually far worse than this. Mostly the models have a vacant-eyed, stunned look to them. They frequently contort themselves into bizarre positions that would make sex impossible and aren’t really plausible as a stage of foreplay either. Or they sprawl, surrounded by fetish objects, passively waiting to be fucked. They don’t smile; their faces are either mindlessly slack or locked in a rictus of simulated passion as obviously fake as a three-dollar bill.
As I looked at more bad-porn images, I found myself waking up to a deep bewilderment. How could these pictures arouse anyone who was actually paying attention to them? Why is there a market for this crap?
When I remember the good sex I’ve had, or imagine the good sex I might have, my head is not populated by vacant-eyed women surrounded by fetish objects and passively waiting to be fucked. No; my fantasies, and my experience, is of women who are intelligent horny animals like me; live-eyed, smiling, fully awake and quite ready to seize the initiative if I drop it, thank you. For real women, the meaning of the sex is the sex, not the ooh-look-I’m-hot posing that goes before it. The Unablogger image of Ms. Zemanova looks like she has a real woman’s attitude; most of her competitors’ pictures (and indeed most of her own) don’t.
Bad porn is superficially sexual in a way as stylized as Kabuki theater, but deeply anti-erotic. To be aroused by it, you have to be reading the code that tells you are supposed to be aroused — the artificial boobs, the decorticated stares, the garter belts. If you delete or mask out that code, no actual sexual charge remains — there is nothing left that connects your desire to the subject of the picture.
Mediocre porn, though mechanically arousing enough to facilitate masturbation by someone with a case of serious hormonal back-pressure, has only the subject’s body parts and the viewer’s autonomic response going for it. For very few men is it plausible to have sex with a lipstick-and-eyeshadow-wearing starlet/bimbo type with 40DD breasts who’s somehow had her skin lacquered to a gloss that resembles model-airplane dope and just happens to be bent over a motorcycle while stark naked. Sorry, no sale; a real woman would at least have her hair a bit mussed.
The fetishistic perfection of such scenes actually puts distance between the subject and the viewer’s desire. It removes the subject from any real world in which one might meet her and actually take her to bed. Autonomic response to the picture itself is the limit of the possible.
Good porn, by contrast, conveys a sense of plausibility. You believe the women in it exist. You can imagine meeting them. You can imagine liking one of them, having her like you, and the two of you sliding off somewhere for a mutually happy fuck. Being aroused by such a picture makes emotional sense; you don’t have to either fight or ignore any sense that the subject is an inaccessible fantasy.
The contrast is perfectly evident in two pictures of Ms. Zemonova. In this one, she looks like an unusually sexy but normal young woman in the act of removing her panties while she looks at the viewer. The narrative is clear; she is stripping for action, and you are the fortunate object of her desire. Women do this sort of thing. If you are not a virgin, you’ve probably seen it happen, though perhaps never with a partner quite as exuberantly mammalian as Ms. Zemanova. This is a plausible scenario.
In this picture, by contrast, Ms. Zemanova is a heavily cosmeticized, unsettlingly glossy womanoid-thing in an unlikely position, masturbating herself and gazing off into space over your right shoulder. You are not involved. Nothing like this would be even remotely plausible in your bathroom — if only because sensible women masturbate in their bedrooms, where they can collapse onto something more comfortable than a tile floor when they orgasm. This picture is not presenting a plausible scenario, unless you are the sort of wealthy British rock star who builds huge custom bathrooms in which to boff acquiescent supermodels.
This image makes an ironic example of good porn because it demonstrates that the apparent lack of artifice in good porn can be just as misleading as the fetish objects of bad porn. This innocent-looking girl-next-door posing as though she’s giving her boyfriend a private thrill is actually the star character of a large and very raunchy German porn site. While one can hope she has nevertheless remained as sweet-natured and unjaded as she looks, betting money on this possibility would be imprudent at best.
Nor, despite the partial clothedness of my two examples, am I arguing that good porn has to be soft-core, either. This woman is leaving little to the imagination. But she has a nice smile — something which, in a medium supposedly devoted to pleasure, is astonishingly rare. I searched through many hundreds of images and found almost none that combined full nudity with a simple human smile. Symbolically, the first one I found had disappeared by the following day, and I won’t lay odds that the link above will stay good.
Very well, the facts are in hand; as many of them as I’m likely to get, anyway — I’ve had as much exposure to bad porn as I can tolerate. Let’s return to the central question. Why does pornography have to hurt so bad? Why is there so much bad porn out there and so little good stuff?
At one level the answer is fairly obvious. Like the purveyors of any other commodity, the people who produce porn have to respond to demand. Indeed, because production is cheap and the sales cycle is short, market selection can be expected to drive production to match demand very rapidly. There is no evidence of massive market-rigging, and good porn is no more expensive to produce than bad porn — in fact, it may be less expensive (the same models can be used for good and bad, and the good stuff needs less in the way of elaborate props). Therefore, if most porn is bad, it’s because most porn consumers want it to be bad.
Let’s unpack that. The trash percentage of porn is so high that, unless the producers are collectively insane, most consumers must actually want images of women who are doing the bad-porn thing. That most porn consumers actually like the trash is further suggested by the tacky, gaudy, crude design of almost all porn websites. They scream, they leer, they spew misspellings and degrading language at high volume. The sheer aggressive ugliness is far too consistent to be the result of incompetence.
So the real question is this: why do most porn consumers seek trash? Why do they buy the fetish objects, the implausable poses, the unobtainable women? Why welcome such an anti-erotic distance between their sexual fantasies and their sexual reality?
We can certainly imagine how it might be different. Why don’t porn consumers choose images they might plausibly act out, with partners rather sexier than the ones they have but still attainable? In fact some do; most porn sites have an `amateurs’ category — but it’s marketed like a minority taste along with pictures of older women and fat women.
I am forced to the unhappy conclusion that plausibility is exactly what most porn consumers don’t want. That somehow they feel better when their fantasies are safely distant from reality. All the possible reasons I can imagine for this are very sad.
One reason could be simple old-fashioned sexual guilt. If you believe sex is sinful and desire is dirty, if you have that old madonna/whore complex, than you may be more comfortable thinking of porn models as whores. You may indeed, be so conditioned to associate sex with sin that you can’t get it off without feeling wicked first.
A more plausible construction for most potential porn consumers today is that they have issues about female power. Men who get lots of attention from attractive three-dimensional women are not likely to be buying porn-site subscriptions. Therefore, we can safely assume that the consumers who define demand patterns for porn producers generally feel that their sex life is hemmed in by female choices and the female power to refuse. Defining the objects of their desire as “cum-sucking sluts”, to be used but not related to any emotional way, is a kind of equalizing move in the sexual-power game.
This theory differs sharply from conventional feminist critiques of porn, in which porn seen as a ratification of existing power relationships that privilege males. The difference is testable. If the conventional theory is correct, porn should be becoming more and more irrelevant as women become more independent — or, at least, assume the nostalgic character of references to a golden age of male privilege that has already passed.
On the other hand, if bad porn is a compensation for male feelings of powerlessness, we should expect it to become steadily tackier, uglier, more strident, and more popular in direct proportion to the degree that female power in the real world increases.
I think it’s pretty clear which of those worlds we are living in. The gloomy conclusion is that porn is likely to get worse before it gets better. If it ever does.
UPDATE: Have since corresponded with “German Lucy”, the woman whose picture I described as an ironic example of good porn. It’s nice when cynicism turns out to be a mistake; she really is like that.
To Heck:
Ahh, yes, no sense in actually trying to say anything intelligent about the post. It’s so much more fun (and I’m sure lots easier on a poor overworked brain) to slam Mr. Raymond with a largely irrelevant comment.
I think it would be amusing for people to find your blog on the net and reply to every post with single line put-downs. They aren’t that hard to manufacture.
This article makes sense to me. I find some of the links disturbing, even the “good” porn ones, but the point comes across. Maybe there is more of a manic compulsive need for women than a natural easy going desire…
i totaly agree with you but would like to add that i hate hardcore!
what strait man likes to see cocks!
its ridiculous
if porn is for sexual stimulation then its pointless
all hardcore does is make one feel jeleos of the man getting fucked
I agree, hardcore is quite stupid to watch. I think seeing cocks for sexual stimulation is stupid, it’s an anti stimulation.
I liked the post, was quite eye opeing actually… i think i understand why i have had thrills from things like “old people” etc… simply because the pictures are more realistic in comparison to what is available. I also think that a low expectance of my own pulling power, and the idea that they would really want to if they got the chance also contributes. Thanks for the post, really helps explains a lot of other things aswel.
It’s hard to say what other men think, but I would have to agree with him. That’s the main reason I dont bother with porn at all
I fee vaguely bad nudging an old discussion, but this is actually something I’ve given thought to, so I’ll say my piece.
What I want from porn, and from this article I’d guess that esr might agree, is assistance for my imagination. I want a visual (and, in the case of movies, auditory) aid for imagining myself in the situations depicted. So, I want something plausible. It takes a fairly significant leap of imagination in the first place to imagine myself in such a situation; I don’t want to waste mental effort suspending my disbelief in the possibility of the situation in the first place. I want the kind of sexiness that actual three dimensional women display, to help me remember and re-enact, after a fashion, the experience of actually having sex with real women.
I can imagine a different mindset, though, which wants different things from porn, and which the vast majority of internet porn satisfies much more nearly. I think of it as the Superhero Sex mindset, and I imagine its internal monologue running something like this: “Yeah, sex in real life is nice, but when I consume porn, I want it to be even better. I want the women to be sexier than real women could ever be: thinner, with bigger boobs, sleazier outfits, capable of constant screaming orgasms for hours. I want the men to be supermen: hugely muscular, massively endowed, capable of pounding mercilessly away for hours with perfect, emotionless control. I want bodily fluids flying everywhere, positions I would never have imagined (let alone attempted), women who will do anything, with anyone, at the drop of a hat. I want my porn to be larger than life, the platonic ideal of sex. I may never be able to experience it, but at least I can see it through the magic of porn.”
The problem with unattainable ideals, of course, isn’t just that they’re unattainable, but also that the higher your target, the farther short of it you’re likely to fall. Hence the (very large) fraction of the sex industry catering to the Superhero Sex mindset tends to produce some unbelievable dreck.
Have you ever considered that what consumers of low grade porn want is humiliation?
i think that the article makes a good point about how this “bad porn” originated and became so prevalent. but i also think that many boys today (as they first discover their sexuality and the world of porn) just accept these images as what is SUPPOSED to be sexy because it is all they see. this, to me, is much worse than just the creation of such porn. it is so pervasive that now boys (and girls) who may not have otherwise come to the conclusion that this “bad pron” is what they want, are now being brainwashed by it. boys and girls grow up seeing it and and just accepting that this is what is sexy… which makes it harder for the boys to experience anything in real-life that is satisfying, because it will turn out to be so much unlike the bad porn they are used to. for girls, ofcourse, it makes them think that the liposuctioned, implanted, glossed-over girl who is not actually being pleased at all is what they should become. it would be scary to think that maybe these types of boys and girls will find eachother and just perpetuate this “bad porn” ideal even more. they would affirm it as what is sexual and arrousing (because that is what they would believe) and (even more frightening) any actual intimacy in sex would be lost… sex would become cum-guzzling lacquered bodies… …or then maybe if this did happen a new type of porn would emerge to satisfy some other fantasy of the mind… maybe then porn would finally become intimate becuase it would be what we don’t have… …or maybe i am just making an excessively long comment and should stop being so hypothethical… and just think about writing my own article…
Well I know no-one will believe me, but what the heck…Miss Zemanova, is the exact double of my ex-girlfriend! Miss Zemanova’s chest is considerably larger though, but still, my ex had a nice pair.
The difference between my ex and Miss Zemanova is, that I doubt seriously, that Miss Zemanova is crap in bed! I also doubt that Miss Zemanova is a complete psychopath who threatens to burn cars or run smear campaigns against her ex’s.
Some women are nice to look at, but if they ain’t got sanity – move on.
I have to agree with the article as well, but not quite for the same reasons. I look at porn, but I’m a guy… And I dont look at it excessively or anything, either. I too hate hardcore for the anti-stimulation reason and the jelous reason. But I like simplicity in porn, like for example, 1 woman, not too many colors, and the woman should be in an easy going natural (or as natural as possible) pose. So, I dont really look at porn, so to speak, but more of poses. Like an art. Thats what makes porn good. (to me of corse)
ok i have something to say
i love porn, naked ladies do it for me, if they dont do it for you then dont watch it…or possibly consider hiring a whore or get a girlfriend.
i wove boobs
also..ive seen ur mum in porn
Mummy
Oddly enough, this post reminds me of a Joni Mitchell lyric. “You don’t like weak women, you get bored so quick, and you don’t like strong women, cause they’re hip to your tricks.” Is this the porn paradox?
You’re right. Check out Rico’s World, the girls there look like peasant’s but they are real.
I like your thought pattern and the way u went through this whole process. You knoW, i WoulD NoT have thought twice about why i like porn with women like my own girl friend(yes i only have/had 1 ever) and why i like the “amature” porn. GOod WorK !
There are of course enclaves of the not so bad, such as domai.
The Oddness of comparing “Porn” to any real life natural arousing responses, is a mistake far to many men and women make. A mistake not to be or feel defensive or guilty about, however a mistake, an oversight more so. “Porn” is the illusion of sexual desire not a copy or even an artistic impression. “Porn” Industry creators Like Horror Film makers, have an understood code. The Purpose is so that the content is entertaining however the focus is on entertaining are sexual reflexes. Women where shoes while having sex the males where shoes and socks, the “money shot” is semen splashed on the actor or actress face, all these are most often taboo and not often sexually orgasmic behavoirs and events. Liken to casino gambling which are actually entertainment, however many people mistkae the casino for a form of stock market or investment venue or even a career. Mindfully for those that are free willed and have the liberty to enjoy these forms of entertainment have the right to make of them what you will. However one ought not become confused and began to compare apples to appricots, porn is porn and sex is sex. The Mind Is Tricky Navigate Her Well
Another factor here which is being approached but not quite reached (just like certain near-unattainable desires) is the fact that so many, if not the downright majority, of intended porn consumers are not virgins or people who are otherwise not “having any fun” whatsoever, as one might expect, but married men whose wives are, well, dependable, but not goddesses. (Think about how many more letters to Dear Abby are from women who were shocked by the contents of their husbands’ hard drives than from parents who caught their teenagers.)
This causes interesting “mirror” effects in the relationship between porn and reality, the best example I can think of being the wide prevalence of blowjobs. After all, a blowjob is the very definition of a male-oriented sexual experience (for nearly all couples) which some wives would either refuse to give or don’t consider doing in the first place. Are blowjobs really *that* exciting for the average man? Well, not necessarily — the ultimate prize is generally still the same as the act Mother Nature intended. But they’re different from the common range of sexual experience, and that’s key. (At this juncture I should add that I’m not referring to the common experience of all American married men but just those who consume large quantities of porn.)
Hence the bulk of what Mr. Raymond and others encounter is “nontraditional” in various ways (lesbian, dominatrix stuff, blowjobs, just plain posing — who actually does that in bed? — etc), and the aforementioned weirdness (strange glazed expressions, boob jobs, nonsensical positions) might very well be part of that. Left to the fringes, then, is such attainable normalcy as old people, fat people and amateurs such as the ones which do, in reality, turn most of us on the strongest. The reason that the industry could never succumb to raise it all to high quality realism is that it would lose this “mirror” niche that makes it successful. “Why pay for porn here in this hypothetical example universe”, consumers would ask, “when I can get a non-virtual, if less shapely, equivalent for free?” In the end, it’s content (what we see) which beats form (how exciting what we see is) here.
Class project: Can anyone think of a good parallel argument for another art form? I was thinking of what might make a travel documentary unsuccessful — “Why watch this when I can just go to Finland myself?” — but, of course, most people don’t have the means to just “go somewhere themselves.”… Something to contemplate…
You willl get closer to the truth if you skip the category of Porn for all babes and use the term erotica. But the search you have done gives a nice rationale for spendinglots of time looking at what we non-scientis dig. Are you wrong? Yes. You contrst Zemonova with In dia and show a lousy pick of Allen to make your point. Now, from Unablogger, try this one of India and you will see that it readily is as good as tghe one you praise
http://www.mumblumbia.com/images/IA1.jpg
i am a fan of both hard and soft core but i definitely see what your saying. most stuff on the net is over the top gaudy or just disgusting. i have literally seen pictures of women shitting on men. Disgusting. holy crap. disgusting. one thing i am beginning to like is harder-than-soft-but-softer-than-hard porn. another one of my favorites now is lesbian porn. i found a site that is a perfect blend of both. saphicerotica.com or sapphicerotica.com i cant remember which. chech it out.
Good article with some interesting points. Some of the responses said they don’t like hardcore because of the cocks. Isn’t that just homophobia? What – you so insecure about your sexuality that you’re scared you might get turned on seeing a cock? Run away little boys! The point of hardcore is that you’re experiencing sex vicariously through the male actor. The sex depicted on these web sites is as far removed from reality as possible. Reality sex can be awkward, slightly embarrassing, messy and lasts a whole lot shorter than the 40 minutes of a porno session.
I’ve never subscribed to any of these sites, but after going on “free tours†for too long a period, one gets desensitised. I feel like I’m at a butchers’ stall looking at meat. Not pretty. I find bad porn quite dehumanising. Skinny women with badly proportioned over-large breasts. I hate the way on some sites they make the girls look at young as possible (pigtails for christ’ sake!) And most of the girls don’t look like they’re having much fun. Expressions of mild distress as the guy’s pounding away then cumming in her face. I can’t enjoy it if she don’t enjoy it.
Good porn, bad porn. Isn’t it just like food? You can cook a satisfying meal for yourself and others or you can go to McDonalds and eat shit. The choice is yours.
Hey, just read this, sums up my views on the subject completely (hope you don’t mind me linking to this page in my blog). I’ve wondered before whether only a small minority have this view on porn, or whether most people just refuse to accept it. As you state in this essay, the former, oddly enough, seems to be the most likely scenario.
You all sound like a bunch of fags trying to figure out naked women don’t do it for you. To whoever wrote this article. Go suck a dick and get it over with.
To Bill:
by your reply I assume that we’ve encountered a real live specimen of someone who enjoys the Bad Porn mentioned in this article?
Congratulations! Currently unmarried, are we? say, for the last 45 years? (Or any age you might be).
SO WHO WINS….WHAT SHOULD WE WATCH AND WHAT SHOULD WE DONT….
Well Jack, nobody wins here. If you closely read the comments, for the past few years, you only have basically three demographics or “opinions’ to connect the “user” to the “stimuli”. Before you leave an opinion or jump to conclusions like an ignorant asshole, i.e. “BILL”, you have to realize this man who wrote the article has an incredibly high sense of articulation and evaluation of an issue that already is widely understood. Porn! It’s there, we use it for one thing or not; to be stimulated, no matter how the level of “core” or grotesque it gets. Or like I said, you have nothing to do with it.
Now, to the point. The first, is the person who reads this article and can relate without a doubt due to the depth of thought applied, the facts, true or un-true, and/or the personal connection of one man’s affection or constant appeal with one woman (almost as if he is stimulated to one kind of porn, i.e. “zemanova” core if you will). Like it or not, every man has a preference to porn. Not one man likes it all, that is an impossibility due to the fact there has to be even a 1% of something in everything that he will shun away from or remain unstimulated to. The second opinion, is the person who reads all of this and remains stern on understanding yet not reaching a conclusion himself or a bridge and/or connection to the writers and his own thoughts or intel on the topic. He relates, yet remains current with his own views in admiration that someone else may be thinking the same as him with a topic that is either ridiculously small to some yet large to others . Another commendable mind at best.
Lastly, the person who credits his heightened level of ignorance, again i.e. “BILL”. To read parts or hopefully this entire article, including the comments and thoughts of others, and reaching a hateful, unruly and pointless decision and/or conclusion that includes not only the author, but the reader as well. This person has attained nothing and has no higher level of consciousness or thinking even so the topic may be overwhelmingly spoken of or thrown out of proportion, to him porn remains and will always be a “fix” as any drug will remain as long as it is at your fingertips at all times. This person refuses to understand and removes all personal and intellectual aesthetics of not only porn, but any issue.
With all of this said, most of this is clearly my observation with the information and opinions given and time in between, as it was also the authors observation and information obtained in his research which by all means should never be criticized, and/or victimizing towards him. He never invited us here. We were just along for the ride and opened up our minds that much more to something in all of our lives, before we were born, while we are living and for a long time to come, Pornography!
Those of us with wives sometimes appreciate the fake stuff, we get the real stuff too often.
(first, thanks for your blog and your thoughts!)
Alright, getting down to business…
When I watch action movies, i don’t want them to be average, realistic action, I want it to be more over the top. Epic battles like in Gladiator, Brave heart, Die Hard, Lord of the Rings, Transformers etc. This is enjoyable to me (and most of you reading this, as these are huge hits).
When I watch comedies, I want them to be more funny than day to day life… I want ridiculous situations such as in Monty Python’s flying circus, Will Farrells’ movies, Eddie Murphy’s stand up routines, Robin Williams impressions etc. This is also enjoyable to me (and most of you reading this, as these are also all huge hits too).
When I watch dramas, I don’t want complete plausibility that I can act out in life, I enjoy things that are out of the normal life spectrum, biographies of famous people etc like Ray Charles, Rock stars and Presidents… and this does not make me feel ashamed.
Saying the desire to enjoy any of these this is wrong, would be bizarre. Why is it wrong to want watch extreme sex, why does it demand an explanation? Watching extreme sex (facial, hardcore, orgies etc, glam’d up models with studs) is FUN just like watching exciting huge battles, hearing ridiculous jokes, and feeling over the top melodrama. people have different preferences, but we -the porn consuming public- don’t need a Freudian complex to want to watch X-treme sex.
I do agree there is terrible wtf porn out there (like that unicorn) …but then remember that for every blockbuster, Oscar winning Hollywood movie… there are tens of thousands of movies (high budget and low budget) that blow. And also, for every blockbuster, Oscar winning Hollywood movie… you just may not like it.
I totally agree with this article. I often find it hard to look at porn because the women always look so slutty and just plain ugly… I’m not even picky but just the way they are “done up.”
Like, trashy long nails, dyed hair.. pierced up genitals etc..
I know some people find that hot, but for once could we find a more realistic woman? This is why I usually wind up sticking to artistic photographs rather than porn, even though I prefer videos + audio, but hey, what can ya do?
Great article.
well it’s nice to see that not every guy in the world likes trashy and slutty girls. I guess porn it’s fine but when women there have all those things (like a lot of make up, fake boobs, and just a really fake enviroment) it’s hard for “normal” women to feel good with themselves… I mean, when i found out my BF had porn pictures, i felt bad. And it’s not that I felt ugly… I just didn’t feel enough. But when porn is more like something artistic… then it’s different.
I know exactly what you mean
Sex is spiritual thing… I would MUCH better see a world of Loving making in all it’s different forms then a world at war. Think about this! People think nothing at FUCKing all about the violence on TV but show the wrong body part and that is considered wrong. Now that is wrong. “This Sin’s of the father is visited upon the son.” That is what is meant by that. Wrong thought handed down from generation to generation. Religious dogmatic bullshit compounded by ignorance feeding more ignorance. No thankyou. As for what porn is right and what is wrong? Bless it all! (Don’t look to religion to tell why I just said that, the answer won’t be there.) Now I will go off the edge, if you don’t think you experience every thought you’ve ever had AND the effect it has had on others, your just gonna have to wait and see. Gives new meaning the phrase, ‘be nice’, doesn’t it.
I will give you a spiritual freebie, if the world’s thought about itself gives rise to it’s experience that in turn gave rise to the “Hitler experience” what would it take to give rise to a “Christ experience”? Again don’t look for the answer to that question in ANY religion, it’s won’t be there. I think 2000 years of religious “hearsay” is enough to make us stop and say “Hey guys, um some things are not working”. It’s time to change and find out what is working. But the answers are not what anyone want’s to believe. So we make up more systems of belief completely over stepping what is true at the moment of discovery. A example of this? Orgasm, most believe it is a natural God inspired pleasurable experience of the physical body meant to encourage sexual reproduction, or so they say. Until you GET spiritual (or whatever term describes a personal One On One relationship to the creator outside un-transcended religious belief systems) you won’t realize that the orgasm in itself is not a function of the body at all. The truth is (through my personal experience, there I go being crazy again not listen to what religion tells me) The body just responds to the energy. What will really knock you socks off is when invisible beings you can’t see, show you that any part from the leg to a Steatopygia butt can feel like this type energy called Orgasm and there are other pleasurable energies to experience too. Nope that is what no one chooses to believe, so more stories and hearsay are created and fashioned into a sociably acceptable norm. Anyways, have lots and lots of passionate but not lustful(not too much lustful that is) SEX in real life. ENJOY watching others have sex if it turns you on, Porn, real life or whatever. Be happy because you are evolving in every eternal NOW moment. Seek the/your highest truth! AND FOR GODS SAKE BE TRUTHFUL ABOUT IT WITH YOURSELF. BTW: I could be wrong, You can’t believe word I say, personal experience is a subjective thing, not a objective one, that is why so many scientist are having a hard time describing our universal super set with limited subset objective observation. It works but only to very limited extent, then things have to change. Stuff like quantum mechanics comes along and more accurately describes what they thought was but really was not. Theyd have much better luck using inner truth in order to better understand the outer truth.
(P.S. I DID NOT find this out through a system of religion. True freedom is found in Love, Truth and Joy, not systems of separation no matter how well intentioned.)
Has anyone ever thought that the reason the women look vacant, distant, or like they are not having fun is because they aren’t. These women are not your girlfriend or your wife – they are hookers, junkies, women down on their luck, or, in other countries, women who have no choice. Very few of them are having fun having sex. Men must be into that or porn wouldn’t be so popular. Men must secretly no that the women don’t want to be having that sex – this is the only conclussion I can come up with. Men like their women that weak. Reality must really suck for these men and that is why they prefer the fantasy.
Making love and sex are two different things. One requires physical intimacy and openess – the other requires getting off in one form or another. Maybe men today just don’t like real honest physical intimacy – maybe that is too much work when one can so easily, with a click of a button, find the easy.
very interesting. however, the first problem with the research was neglecting to look up the actual meaning of the word which was being analyzed. The word basically means the depiction of prostitutes and the activities in which they engage. The result of which has no artistic/literary value other than sexual arousal. Beginning & end of research. “Soft” and “Hard” are nothing more than terminology used to create an ambiance in a person’s mind. A way to ease ones conscience that this isn’t as bad as the other. But they’re overall, basically the same thing.
“And typical porn is actually far worse than this. Mostly the models have a vacant-eyed, stunned look to them.”
There’s also the fact that the majority of porn actresses have been the victims of sexual abuse in the past, which is the underlying reason why they got into porn. The immediate psychological reasons are many and varied, obviously, but some huge percentage of them were raped, molested as children, etc. That would be why. Porn isn’t fun, nor is it even really a job, for a lot of the actresses. It’s an outlet, some means of psychological release. Genuine enthusiasm is nearly unheard of outside of a few niche fetishes, and even within those, it’s very rare, only present in the models that actually have that fetish, or at least find it fun in a non-sexual way. Actually, you should look into the WAM (wet and messy) fetish, for reasonably common examples of models who find the fetish non-sexually fun. That in itself is a turn-on for some people.
>There’s also the fact that the majority of porn actresses have been the victims of sexual abuse in the past
That’s a strong claim. What’s the evidence for it?
Unfortunately, my main “linkable” source for that (i.e., not my own very limited personal experience) has been down for literally years, though it may be possible to use the wayback machine or something else. http://www.jewishcheerleaders.com used to be, IIRC, the blog of a Jewish guy who worked in the porn industry (as both photographer and male model IIRC, but I actually can’t remember that particular detail 100%). The main things I remember are that he was approached a few times by people who wanted to hire him as a “masseur” for rich homosexuals, and that the majority of female models he worked with had been sexually abused in some way. One in particular which sticks in my mind was an actress who insisted on being choked during sex. The particular male actor in that shoot had deep misgivings about mistreating women, and refused. As a result, he was not rehired by that porn company.
Fortunately, the same friend who linked me to this article also had a last-minute save. http://www.shelleylubben.com/articles/pornstarsandsexabuse.pdf
I’m not absolutely 100% sure of the veracity of the article, myself, but it does match up with my own experience with personal friends who were the victims of sexual abuse. IME, at least, one common theme was the paradoxical desire for two things: 1, control over sex, and 2, to relive the incident. I don’t pretend to understand the psychological underpinnings behind the latter, but it does seem to be rather common, just in my personal experience. And pornography is one way of accomplishing those.
Well I created a search on the internet where I asked do men actually believe that the women in porn videos are having fun? Cause as a woman let me tell you there are not enough nerve endings (look it up) in a vagina to make most porn scenarios remotely appealing. The reason women don’t like porn is that it is created for men… with lots of cock sucking etc. If there was lots of pussy licking we’d be getting interested – only stands to reason surely! Really enjoyed reading this blog. Oh and as a woman I can’t get excited about watching a woman fake it – its gross!
>Cause as a woman let me tell you there are not enough nerve endings (look it up) in a vagina to make most porn scenarios remotely appealing
This depends on the woman. I do believe there is a significant difference between the averange man and averange women, but the differences between the individual persons is much much greater. So yes there are women who like penetration more than licking. I think the combination (first licking than penetration) is prefered by most women.
Faking, I don’t like it either. However, they still doing this work voluntary. So they probably don’t hate it either.
Oh and the blogstarter should probably just google/sursue for “natural amateur” to find his taste.
>Oh and the blogstarter should probably just google/sursue for “natural amateur†to find his taste.
you mean: http://www.sursue.net/search?q=natural+amateur ? That is a better search machine than google,haha. More like the playboy of the search engines.
Women just want to be themselves without having to measure up to Porn models or otherwise.
There is a site: http://www.shelleylubben.com/ which details how Porn is NOT glamorous. These women were abused in the most horrific ways. They got caught up in the glam of it all, probably coming from being abused as children to begin with and Porn seemed like the better option than being beaten without some sort of compensation.
Does anyone care? Women are being hurt. The Porn star women are hurt and so are the Wives, and girlfriends of men who insist on viewing porn. These women tell their man they are hurt and the men don’t care. Many women even say they like it, but if you listen carefully there is a “but” in there. They are just trying to be pleasing to their man. Relationships are being damaged…..relationships that would be great otherwise. Even beautiful women having a healthy self image falling down because her husband looks at porn. Do men realize how SICK to their stomach porn makes women feel? How much turmoil they go through thinking they are NOT good enough? Why would you do that to someone you love?
You hear constantly by men that it is natural for them. Is it also natural for them to hurt the woman they love? Then when another man shows interest in his wife he gets Furious! What goes around comes around.
I think women are tired of playing this game where they feel like they have to compete to models and porn stars, and many women porn stars are tired of being abused and competing against other porn stars. Women just want to be loved. So do men, but they tend confuse love with sex or reality. So do women but women are the oppressed and follow the lead of man. Unfortunately.
Sex between a woman and a man could be so loving and amazing if it weren’t for all the distractions and UNREALITY. I think because we have moved away from reality is the reason we are so unsatisfied. Men have unrealistic views of what real women look like or behave like sexually. Women try to compete with men’s images of women and in doing so lose themselves in the process. Also if you notice it is starting to change…….men are expected to look ALOT better then they naturally do now too….what is it called? Metrosexual?…….no hairy chests, no fuzzy eyebrows, no NOSE hairs…..pretty soon you MALES won’t be able to be yourself naturally either. Is this what you want? Cause you are perpetuating it. If women follow your lead, you won’t be able to leave your house without getting ready for 3 hours every morning either and SHOPPING will become men’s hobbies too and you will have to stop rediculing women for shopping so much or face being a hypocrite!
When does being HUMAN count anymore? Being Natural? Why are we all chasing IMAGES instead of the REAL DEAL?
Seems rediculous when you really sit down and think about it.
The “good porn” shown on this blog is of heaving breasts beyond the capacity of most natural women and really makes me wonder if the op isn’t distancing himself from reality with the augmentation of breasts. I mean, id like to think that most women don’t have work done on their tatas. To me, the physical characteristics of these women is just as distancing as an unlikely situation. And who’s to say you can’t have sex at a carnival with a decent looking woman with normal sized breasts. Its really the opposite argument.
As a woman, when I first looked at porn, I expected to be titillated (heh) but instead I was deeply dissapointed. All I could think was:
“That woman is clearly not attracted to that other woman. They are just randomly pressing against each other. It is the most passionless sex I have ever seen.”
“That is not how you eat pussy, what is she even doing? That is the worst fake orgasm I have ever seen.”
“Why is there so much oil on their bodies. I can see my reflection.”
“It is statistically impossible for all those vaginas to look the same. Doesn’t that get boring?”
“How can all these women be orgasming? Their clits have not even been touched.”
And so on. Now I just stick to my imagination. Men should start demanding higher quality in their porn.
I don’t care what you guys think porn is amazing its like the best thing in the world.
All the big plump boobs and sticking your penis into their pussy. Its so amazing I think I’ll go to a strip club and tell a stripper that I’d pay them extra to have sex with me and I’d also say that if I can record it I’ll pay even more. So see ya I’m going to have sex with a stripper.
I myself am very picky about the porn I watch. Most porn out there featuring wild slutty women who keep pretending they’re liking it when they’re really hurting is a major turn off. What I really hate is when the woman is obviously hurting while being penetrated. I might be one of the minorities here but I would prefer porn where both are legitimately enjoying themselves. Not entirely gentle slow sex, I do like that sort of stuff though, but not rough hard sex when I’m clearly seeing the girl look like she’s being torn apart. I end up pitying her and losing my boner.
But I still love it because jesus loves the person but hates the sin even if they hated him and blasphemced him
The Gospels and the Communist Manifesto are on the wane; the world’s future lies in the power of Coca-Cola and pornography.
The ability to consume pornography is the distinctive characteristic of the imbecile.
The pornographic novel will always miscarry, because copulation is not an act of the individual, but an activity of the species.
– Nicolás Gómez Dávila