you have no issue with supporting other sorts of commercial sexuality-related endeavors. (E.G. professional photographers, artists, therapists and educators you link to from #malesubmissionart) So the message here, by your words and actions, seems to be […] That erotic content is polluted somehow by being bought & sold, or perhaps by being made with the intent of making money by simply getting people off without some other redeeming social value.

That’s such bull, Erisiana, a short-sighted misinterpretation of my agenda.

First of all, I’m not “supporting” commercial sexuality-related endeavors with MaleSubmissionArt.com, I’m utilizing them. What I’ve done with that site is found a win-win way for me to advance my own agenda that commercially-minded photographers and models want to participate in. That’s the beauty of win-win: I don’t have to give a flying fuck what their motivation is, and they don’t have to give two shits about mine. All we have to do is find the exchange mutually rewarding. Content owners who don’t tell me so, and I remove their content from the site, lickety-split.

This meets all my ethical criteria and has nothing to do with elitism, being “anti-porn,” or any of your other flagrantly misdirected accusations.

And, for the record, even if I felt I was “supporting” commercial sexualization with MaleSubmissionArt.com, I would have no intrinsic problem with that, either. Fact is, I get to vote with my money however I damn well please. Until “the porn industry” lives up to my standards, I’m going to boycott it commercially. And that’s just as much within my rights as anything else I do or do not spend my own money on, thank you very much.

That doesn’t make me anti-porn, it makes me unwilling to spend money on something I don’t find valuable enough to spend money on. Is that really so difficult for pornographers to understand? Every other businessperson apparently intuitively groks the concept.

Show me one example of someone claiming that purchasing subpar products will result in better products and I’ll show you an idiot who’s putting the cart before the horse. On the other hand, a boycott is a tried-and-true tactic as part of a strategy to effect capitalistic entities because they pressure, rather than support, market forces. I’m not so stupid as to hand over my money to people who promise they’ll do right by me when they’ve done nothing of the sort in the past.

Every argument I’ve ever heard trying to convince me otherwise—including yours—is almost literally insane.

Ah, great comment, as that is an interesting discussion starter. :)

An interesting discussion perhaps, but also one that I have had ad nauseum. Hence my (previously expressed to you in email) exasperation with the subject. And (in my experience thus far) trying to convince people who are personally uncomfortable with buying porn to reconsider their views is like trying to convice people who believe voting is futile to get out and vote. I’ve been having essentially this same argument with anti-porn folks since…I can’t remember when.

In brief, as this is merely a blog comment and I don’t have time to go into it further right now (as I think you are aware), I disagree with you because I disagree with the premise that commercial “competition” will beget more of what I want to see.

There’s a number of things wrapped up in that, of course, including precisely the kind of sexist influences that make so much of the amateur (non-commercial) porn equally distasteful to me.

Yet you have no issue with supporting other sorts of commercial sexuality-related endeavors. (E.G. professional photographers, artists, therapists and educators you link to from #malesubmissionart) So the message here, by your words and actions, seems to be that selling sexually explicit material is ONLY ok if it is done by “true artists”, who are I guess above crass commercialism, or other “respectable” sources like teachers and therapists. That erotic content is polluted somehow by being bought & sold, or perhaps by being made with the intent of making money by simply getting people off without some other redeeming social value.

1) Isn’t this more than a little bit eliteist?

2) Isn’t this also remininscent of the whole “sex is a sacred thing that should only be shared with your one true love” meme?

3) How exactly is this consosnant with your claim to be pro-porn, a supporter of sex workers, etc?

To me it sounds an awful lot like the things I heard from the aforementioned anti-porn feminists, or even from the folks back at the various churches I went to as a child. I was told in those places that using porn (and other sorts of commercial sex experiences) wasn’t worthwhile, that it depicted sad imitations of real intimacy, that it interfered with healthy relationships, that it perpetuated vile stereotypes about people and contributed to a culture of violence and oppression. I rejected those arguments then; why should I buy them from you now? How is what you are saying any different, at its core, from the liberal-minded church lady who says “oh, this material is ok, it’s wholesome erotica not like that nasty, degrading porn“?

You’ve drawn the circle of what’s acceptable to be somewhat larger but still seem to be operating on the principle of “what I like is good and just; what I’m uncomfortable with must be dangerous to society”.

You want to know why you don’t see more of the porn you like out there? THERE is your answer.

For every Kink Inc. out there nowadays there are dozens of porn-makers like me, who are ready, willing, and *eager* to do something different. But if nobody actually BUYS our product, then how are we supposed to even survive, much less compete with Kink Inc?

Ah, great comment, Cherie, as that is an interesting discussion starter. :)

In brief, as this is merely a blog comment and I don’t have time to go into it further right now (as I think you are aware), I disagree with you because I disagree with the premise that commercial “competition” will beget more of what I want to see. There’s a number of things wrapped up in that, of course, including precisely the kind of sexist influences that make so much of the amateur (non-commercial) porn equally distasteful to me. See also what I think of Margot Weiss’s piece as well as sexual consumerism in general.

I often get criticism for not buying or supporting the efforts of pornographers from porn producers like you, and many of them say precisely what you just have; that if I did support them more, they’d make more of what I wanted to see. But correlation does not equal causation; just because most of the imagery depicting submissive men is currently awful by my tastes does not mean my purchasing the few satisfying images, much less purchasing images that I find off-putting, will improve the situation.

In fact, MaleSubmissionArt.com has done more to improve the situation than even I’d ever dreamed possible for that project. And I spent literally no money on it at all.

I think the takeaway point is that treating money and commerce as the sole or even the primary solution to a problem is extremely self-limiting. Further, in this case, since the problem is actually exacerbated by capitalistic influences rather than eased by them, financially supporting capitalistic enterprises like porn companies, indie or not, when it comes to pushing for improved equity in sexual representation is, in my opinion, often foolhardy.

“I never watched it (you have to pay to see more than a clip)”

You want to know why you don’t see more of the porn you like out there? THERE is your answer.

For every Kink Inc. out there nowadays there are dozens of porn-makers like me, who are ready, willing, and *eager* to do something different. But if nobody actually BUYS our product, then how are we supposed to even survive, much less compete with Kink Inc?

Hey Professor,

In short: yes. The Internet is largely one-sided and very skewed towards a heterosexual dominant male viewpoint, but that much was obvious already.

As for filling this void (don’t make the awful pun, may, now’s not the time…) I don’t know who or exactly how to do it. As I mentioned on Devastating’s entry on this topic, I can’t say for certain I’d enjoy the circumstance if put into the situation myself, but I also can’t say the thought hasn’t appealed to me on numerous occasions. Part of what I see about it that is so erotically charged is expressing the surrender that comes with that kind of abuse. And I use the word abuse carefully, but deliberately. I don’t know what that says about me, but I do know that it is a very empowering feeling, being willing and able to fight, then lose and surrender, and then to still be okay. That, perhaps narcissistically, turns me on. But I’ve only done this with people who love me, and I may not be able to recover so well if I felt abused in this way (even in this way I wanted) by people who didn’t care for me.

I really need to blog about shame.