Comments

102
I was in a relationship where I was acting crazy about stuff like this. But I haven't in any relationship before or since. I think I wasn't getting "what I needed" in terms of feeling appreciated. So there. To the LW, your loving styles may be very different!
103
92/AllieP: I don't get the whole "porn is cheating" thing. Porn is not cheating. Neither are dildos or dreams.

Good point about dildos, Allie. Many (I'm assuming) women use dildos or vibrators to get off, even though they have a boyfriend or husband, and I doubt they're always thinking about their guy while doing so.

* * * * *

95/erin: as one of the much-maligned feminists who has the audacity to question a dude's inalienable right to close-ups of the pink despite the skeezy situations that may arise in production...

Erin, a couple questions for you...

1. Can you define what you see as "skeezy" situations in porn production, or give some examples?

2. If there were, hypothetically, none of these "skeezy" situations, would you still object to men watching porn?

Thanks.

* * * * *

96/a woman: Can we stop with "Men are visual"? Of course they are. So are women. Humans are visual. Porn is not made for women so of course we don't like it.

When I was younger, I bought into the idea that "men are visual" (with its implied counterpart that "women are not.") But now, while I still think that men are somewhat more visual than women, I know that women are very visual too. For example, although many women like to pretend otherwise, what's "on the outside" of man matters to them. A lot. A guy could be a great guy on the inside, but if a woman doesn't like his body or his face (or both), she's not going to want an intimate relationship with him. So yeah, I agree with you: humans are visual. Looks matter to us.

As general rule, if a person feels there's money to be made selling something, they will create and market that good or service. If porn (or most porn) is not made for women, isn't it likely because people who make porn feel there's not that much demand for it? I mean, if women loved porn as much as men, and there was good money to be made catering to that desire, then why on earth wouldn't makers of porn do it? Look at romance novels. They're written for women, not men, because the demand comes from women. Romance novel writers and publishers aren't going to make much money writing romance novels for guys. (I do think that, to some extent, makers of porn underestimated female demand for it and I believe there is now a lot more female-oriented porn than there was before.)
104
@95 (erin), I don't think you're much-maligned -- you're just wrong, on several counts. (My main contention: since there is no exact science of social engineering, debating the "effects of porn" on society as a whole is at best dilettantism...; the production is not worse than for many other jobs, and if it were indeed bad the solution would be to improve working conditions, not stop the whole thing; the effects of repeated exposure should be researched, not claimed as fact; other than that... when you belittle men's inalienable right to close-ups of the pink, you're using the same kind of dismissive tsk-tsk-they-are-just-little-children argument that feminists fought against when they were used against women.)
Other than that, you're not malign. I have no problems talking to people who I disagree with, and I don't assume they have evil intentions. I actually enjoy debating issues like this one with people who have some knowledge and experience and new ideas to share. I hope you return the compliment to me, a staunch defender of men's (and women's) inalienable right to close-ups of the pink (or of the hard-on...).
105
Roma (@103), according to Violet Blue, women's interest in porn has been increasing steadily (see her Our Porn, Ourselves blog and the polemics it raised at Facebook).

And I wouldn't dismiss men's interest in written erotica, including even romance novels. (I, for one, love learning foreign languages; romance novles in languages I'm trying to learn have both the attraction of the new language--and of the enjoyable erotic scenes, all complete with the little taboo words that your usual teach-yourself-Language-X books don't list in their vocabularies...)
106
101 : oh, yeah, IBTP so often it makes my head hurt. she puts things in funny, straightforward and applicable sound-bitey ways.
103: well, there's the whole male-female power dynamic stuff of a woman trying to sell sex to someone which puts her in the less powerful position. There's the incredibly narrow aesthetic standard. There's young women competing to please older, richer producers. There's the whole mess of STD testing and the waivers of anonymity that go on. Like I have to keep going with skeezy situations that arise in production of porn. And I don't think I would watch it if there were no skeezy aspects of a porn's production, unless that meant that there were no more gender-based power dynamics, stigma attached to female sexual freedom, and all that jazz.
HA! I just realized you asked me if I would object to men watching porn, but I responded talking about if I would watch porn. I never said I objected to men watching porn (in the last porn fight thread I was commenting on I used a "I hate the oil industry but I drive a car" analogy) but I do think it is ok to question the use of porn and think it through, which is usually all it takes to get people up in arms and freaking out about how I am fighting to curtail their personal freedoms. B) that's kind of funny in a men have active sexuality, women provide the fodder kind of way.
107
Erin (106):
(a) the whole male-female power dynamic stuff isn't (inasmuch as it still exists) a prerrogative of porn, or of women trying to sell sex -- it's everywhere. To see it more strongly in (nondescript) porn is to assume that sex has to be based on whatever power imbalances a society happens to have -- which isn't the case. Porn, even in its current (very) imperfect state, is just so varied -- there's something for everyone and every taste (especially in the case of reversed, or absent, power dynamics)
(b) the incredibly narrow aesthetic standard is again a function of what you look at -- romance novels and "low brow" literature also has an "incredibly narrow aesthetic standard" without this meaning that the stuff in itself is bad (or that the better literary work should be dismissed also). If your taste in porn is for more aesthetic forms, you can find it -- you just have to look for it. (My personal tastes, for instance, involve much more storyline than is usually available, which means I have to do some research to find my porn -- but I can attest it is possible and doable).
(c) Young women competing to please older, richer producers? Don't you mean simply workers competing to please their employers? In what way does the age make it any worse? (In general, in the workforce, workers are less aged than employers; is that bad?)
(d) The whole mess of STD testing: as you may know, STD testing (including HIV) is nearly obligatory in the porn industry, thanks (among other factors) to the efforts of concerned porn stars like Nina Hartley. It seems that the chance of porn stars getting AIDS is now much smaller than in the average population.
(e) you don't think you would watch it anyway -- that's fine, you don't have to. Just don't think that us consumers, or the industry itself, is somehow 'bad' or 'inherently skeezy'. I don't like philatelists (I'm not simply neutral, I really don't like them -- I've had some bad experiences), but this doesn't mean I think their hobby is bad, or should be stopped.
(f) is it OK to question the use of porn? Sure it is, because it is OK to question the use of ANYTHING. But it is also OK to answer and debate. I am defending the opposing viewpoint, and I hope I am (respectfully) making a good case -- your comments would be welcome.
(g) are you fighting to curtail their personal freedoms? Well, if you don't want to exaggerate (and you said you don't), then let's keep the discussion down. You're now "fighting to curtail their personal freedom"; in your tone of voice, when you go beyond merely discussing/debating porn related issues, what I feel is that you tsk-tsk them from a position of moral superiority; this may be a bit pretentious, which is why I think you get the reaction that you mention. If you refrain from condescending language, this kind of reaction should disappear (or at least be limited to the few nutjobs).
108
Erin -- a typo in my message says the OPPOSITE of what I wanted to say!

Where I wrote: "You're now "fighting to curtail their personal freedom", I meant to write "You're NOT 'fighting to curtail their personal freedom'". Very sorry about that! I should have re-read that thing before posting it...
109
Yeah, to be honest, Erin, that was the message I got on the last porn post, that if men were *evolved* enough, they wouldn't need porn, and that you wondered if it was "good" for society in general to watch porn. I think that's an example of the larger issue, that people couch porn in terms of good or bad, as though it's a moral issue, rather than seeing it as a tool in the arsenal of what gets people off. You'd get the same reaction from women if a male commenter suggested the use of vibrators wasn't good for society.
110
After they break up, I want an introduction. I dream of an extraordinarily beautiful woman who wants to measure my ejaculate on a daily basis.
111
Okay...I am a doctor , straight, a woman, mother and 41. Personally porn does nothing for me but my ex-husband needed it in his daily life. She needs to get the FUCK over it already! On the other hand I do see how having a woman who gives it up once a day gives him pause....Bottom line is still that a woman who can not separate her self esteem from her boyfriend's need for porn after 4 years together and daily sex probably does not equal a fixable problem. That is a different issue altogether. I have a conversation fairly regularly with the mothers of 14 year old boys about the fact that the cable bill had $80 of porn on it...it goes like this....me: that is completely normal at this age, I suggest you add a password to your account. Mom: but he was looking at nasty pictures, he did it last year and we blocked porn but then he was good so we unblocked it....me: this is completely normal at his age and I think you should block porn if you don't want unexpected bills (and then I say very directly to the kid) this is completely normal and you should not abuse your parents trust by ordering things that cost them money because you think you will not have to worry about the charges for at least one month. Me: (to parents) block porn and never bring it up again, (to the boy) You are normal. Most mothers are stunned and still want to tell me what a pervert their child is! I have to keep repeating very clearly and succinctly that their son is entirely normal for a male of his species and they should let it go! Now, teens are terrible at remembering to clear their internet histories even when they think they have, so we would check every once in a while to make sure he didn't search anything weird like kids or goats and what we learned was he likes beautiful women of color (Indian, black, latina...) so therefore he wasn't gay. Gay was totally dealable but knowing ahead of time was so much better! I guess my point is that a guy who needs porn is normal and women who tie that to their self esteem need a reality check!
112
Is there any good alternative to deleting my internet history...?


Use a second browser, dedicated solely to porn. I use Firefox for regular browsing, Opera for porn. When I delete my porn history, I do not lose my useful internet history.

Opera is also way safer for your computer.
113
Speaking as a straight, vanilla, feminist woman. . . That woman is a controlling bitch. DTMFA. She monitors your computer? She doesn't want you to ever jack off? She uses porn but you're not allowed to? She agrees to your using it, and then repeatedly gets into fights about it again? How freaking crazy is that? How will you ever make peace with her? DTMFA. Or plan to live a life in the closet, with two browsers and hiding and lying about all sorts of stuff. (I bet her controlling doesn't stop with sex, or won't if they move in together.) The sex with her must be really really hot or you'd have left her already. But long term, it can't be worth it.
114
I really hope that woman never has kids.
115
Break up? Seriously? They have sex _every_ _day_. So she's nuts. We don't get to hear about the ways he is nuts. Everybody is whacked about something. But he'll look for a long time, in all likelihood, before getting daily nookie again.
116
@51: Um. It's still his dick. I agree a guy should be considerate, but if he jacks off every so often without realizing you were jonesing for sex, then whatever. There's a fine line between asking for some personal courtesy and making him feel like he's your private sex toy.

If he's making you actually feel like you're not getting enough on a regular basis, OK, you guys have something to talk about.

As for LW, ugh. That you didn't just say, "OF COURSE" when Dan advised you to run away from a crazy insane ejaculate-measuring psycho means you deserve this. Sorry.
117
#33, You said 'Heterosexuals are so touchy. Every last one of them!'
If someone said anything like that about homosexuals, all of them, your panties would be in a bunch faster than a gay man could get some dick in a sex club! FUCK YOU!!!
So, did you have some sort of solution, or was that just a stone throw from far back just so you can claim moral high ground.
118
Also: "She looks at porn too, and says that she feels guilty getting off on someone who is not her SO, and doesn't understand why I don't feel guilty in doing the same."

Oh my God, I would NOT be able to co-exist with someone crammed with such self-loathing.

@115: Honestly, he doesn't have to be nuts. Some women and men just really enjoy owning the hell out of their SOs. She's staying because she gets to control him.

And really, to her? The way he's "nuts" is jerking off to porn even though she's giving him sex every day. Not sure what letter you read.
119
Sweet Jesus that's crazy. The ejaculate-measuring is at least as scary and inaccurate as hymenal inspection/looking for blood on a woman's wedding night to prove virginity or trying to judge sexual history/present activity by vaginal "tightness" (the closest analogues I can come up with), as ejaculate volume varies with hydration and a host of other factors, including length of arousal before ejaculation. It's not like the body stores semen (sperm cells, yes): it creates it on-demand as part of the arousal response. The girlfriend needs therapy for the creepy-controlling behavior patterns and the sexual shame/repression (she masturbates to porn and then feels guilty about it), and you need to run like hell if she's unwilling to take steps to get better.

@103/Roma: Thank you for countering the "men are inherently more visual" bullshit. A lot of the observed correlation in this direction could be explained by the fact that EVERYONE is socialized to think that looks are more important than personality/education/money/etc. for women in trying to establish sexual relationships with men, while women (though not necessarily men) are socialized to weight non-visual aspects more in partner-selection (not that it works - most of the women I know care WAY more about looks-that-conform-to-normative-standards than I, and about on-par with most of the men I know, not that this is in any way "bad" or "good"; I don't think my less-visual selection is in any way better, and, in fact, it limits my dating pool much more severely, as the social pressures make straight women whom I find interesting in much shorter supply than straight women who conform to normative beauty standards). Now, I don't have any evidence that supports my socialization theory over a biological one, but I DO know that the difference in visual selection between genders is WAY overstated, if it exists at all, and that there is a similar lack of evidence for the biological theory. This letter is a fucking case-in-point: the girlfriend watches porn too (and feels guilty because she's been socialized to do so). I also second fixing problems in the porn industry, not crying for it's elimination. Erin brought up the power dynamic in women trading sex for money, but, of course, the male porn actors do this too... Granted a lot of porn is still by-men for-men and reinforces unrealistic and misogynist sexual stereotypes, but there's a growing industry of woman-made porn, and of course the internet has given us plenty of by-couple for-everyone amateur porn (the real stuff, not the studio-produced "amateur" porn with the paid actors, making it decidedly not amateur). Finally, if one can view porn as fantasy and not representative of normal sexual activity, I'm not even convinced that the misogynist-stereotype-reinforcing stuff is all that damaging (this absolutely requires the ability to interpret porn as fantasy-only, though, which a problematic number of people do not, particularly with teens getting an abstinence-only message from schools, nothing from parents, and only inaccurate depictions of sexual activity in mass media/porn).
120
Conclusion from a good friend:

She inspects the volume of his ejaculation?

Here is what he should do:

Move state
change his name
disown all the people they both know
fake his death
121
@117 Gear down, Spunky, he was being *funny*....you know, humour??
122
@ 3 Yes! This is SO fake!

And if I hear one more person say "men are visual creatures" as though women's eyeballs are detached at the root, I'm going to shove one of my detachable eyeballs up that person's left nostril.

Can we all please tell Savage that unless he stops pushing sexism, we're breaking up with him?
123
@107 (ankylosaur)

Now I'm very curious about your bad experiences with philatelists. (Lick it before you stick it!)

@ 115 (honeyandacid)

Why would you think that "he'll look for a long time, in all likelihood, before getting daily nookie again"? Women who like sex are not rare. Am I missing something?
124
@123: Well, you're sort of saying a different thing. Women who like sex may not necessarily be up for having it *every day.* And even among women who *love* sex (now ... that could always change down the road due to physical chemistry or lifestyle change) it's very difficult to conclusively say how many of those could or would have sex every day.

125
God, this pisses me off for so many reasons.

Anyway, there's a very good reason as to why men masturbate (even when there's an available woman or available women to enjoy): it's an orgasm that doesn't come with the risk of disappointment (assuming that a one-a-day man is smart enough to brush up on his oral-digital skills to keep his partner in the loop.) The inability to understand that concept is one of the things that I'll never understand about women (especially in consideration of the amount of women who complain about having unsatisfactory sex. Seriously, would you rather have bad sex once a week or decent sex three times a week? Because if you're demanding that your man only has sex with you and noone or nothing else, but you're also willing to act as his personal semen-collector, you're going to have far more episodes of plain to boring sex than good.)
126
@124:

Fair enough, but I don't think women who like sex at least once a day are all that rare either, especially if you specifically look for that, and it's what's most important to you. Am I wrong about that?

I'm baffled by all these people out there who think that there are things more important than sexual compatibility, and then complain that their partner doesn't want sex enough. If you like sex at least once a day, don't date someone who doesn't, and don't be as picky about other things.

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