Here are some preliminary thoughts about something I see pretty often in pornography, especially BDSM (or kink-wanna-be) porn, that I don’t like. Men in such pornography, regardless of whether they are dominant or submissive, gay or straight (as if men’s sexuality is as binary as that), or most any other characteristic that I can think of, are often seen wearing masks, hoods, or other items intended to hide their identity and render them, mostly, anonymous. This is very frustrating for several reasons.
- It is an obviously gendered inequality; that is to say it is downright sexist. Women, again regardless of their sexual orientation, role, or other characteristics, are never seen wearing such anonymizing devices unless the purpose of the pornography is to accentuate (presumably) consensual objectification (which I have no problem with and think is very sexy).
- It tells men that our sexuality is expendable and replaceable. This is probably a bigger issue than I can do justice (due to a lack of education on the subject), but this is also showcased quite profoundly by the fact that men are universally paid less for their participation in pornography—if they are paid at all—than women are.
- It tells men that we are unsightly. I’ve even seen gay porn in which the only actors are men who are all wearing masks. I mean, really, what the fuck? Do these pornographers think that gay people do not like seeing the faces of their sexual partners?
- It makes ignorant or uninformed people believe that participating in sexual acts such as the ones portrayed is something to be ashamed of, so much so that even the actors fear for their identity.
- It makes for worse porn.
First of all, I am not talking about the kind of sex that happily incorporates hoods and masks into the sexual act. I am instead talking about the kind of porn that uses hoods and masks specifically for purposes so obviously not related to the sex I’m watching that their mere presence becomes distracting in the best case and downright insulting in the worse. Frankly, I am insulted by the insinuation that the only valid part of a man’s body worthy of being filmed is his penis. It’s simply untrue and unfair.
It is absurd to watch Men in Pain clips in which the naked guy is being interviewed about his experience while he is wearing nothing but a locking leather hood. It is similarly absurd to see clips or pictures of bound women being fingered by men who walk in and out of the frame, fully clothed and masked, in an obvious attempt to be as stealthy as possible.
The standard disclaimer from the pornographers is this: most people who buy our porn are men, so we want to make it as easy as possible for men to feel like they can imagine themselves as the man in the video/picture/whatever. First of all, completely sidestepping the circular point that most porn is made for men and that’s obviously why most of the pornographer’s customers are men (it really isn’t rocket science), they need to understand that as a submissive guy, which is indeed part of their claimed target audience, the person I see myself replacing is the submissive. If the submissive is faceless because he is hidden by a hood when he shouldn’t be, then I lose a big chunk of information about how that submissive is feeling and thus the porn becomes less valuable to me.
In other words, I would prefer to wank to pictures of men being tortured than pictures of women torturing men. This is why I tend to enjoy femsub porn more than most malesub porn out there. At least in those instances I can actually get the emotional content from the submissive’s point of view and vicariously feel that. Porn that hides the submissive man behind a hood is taking the hottest part of the picture, the bottom, out of focus.
In every instance of viewing the hooded or masked man the message is the same: the man is just “some guy.” He could have been replaced by anybody, and the effect would be identical. All the value to the product is brought by the women. And in gay porn where everyone’s wearing masks? Again, what are they thinking the value is in that if it’s not some sort of plot device?
There is a paradox here. The women are at once more valuable and less protected than the men. Think about it. Why else would someone want to hide their identity while doing porn? Duh, it’s not okay to do porn. Doing it is wrong, something to ashamed of, something you need to hide for fear of being outed, as sex worker, a pervert, or maybe something even worse. Yet only the men are hiding. Does the fact that they are mean they are so much more fragile than the women? Please.
What is most personally disturbing to me is the instance when submissive men are involved in some porn scene and yet the porn scene is so obviously not about submissive men that one would think submissive men was not actually a sexuality.
The most striking recent example of this occurred the other weekend at Black Rose XX, where in the Oasis Room a table full of fetish photography postcards was laid out. Out of the more than 20 available photographs, a grand total of 2 showed submissive men at all. One image showed a woman looking over her shoulder (dressed in formal fetish fatigues, you know the kind) and in the background, literally about 2 centimeters high, was a small image of a submissive man—hooded, of course—doing absolutely nothing interesting. The second postcard was a close-up picture of a torso in a waist-cincher, extremely shapely and made-up, whose only hint of maleness was the few pixels of clear testicle peeking out between the legs.
The experience of seeing those postcards was saved a little when Eileen and I overheard two women looking at them muttering to themselves, “It’s all female submissives.”
“Didn’t you know?” Eileen sarcastically jabbed at them, “Men aren’t pretty enough to photograph.”
This sent one of the women on a very welcomed, short rant about that fact, paraphrased below.
[The photographer] told me he doesn’t photograph men because those pictures wouldn’t sell. Hah! I laughed at him, and told him I’d have bought pictures of men and how could he possibly think there wasn’t a market for such work? Just look around us! Most of the women here have come to this event with their men, dominant or otherwise. I mean, one picture, he can’t do one picture where maleness is the focus?
Of course, people know that women aren’t “the real market” for images of men, because only other men are, right? This woman clearly didn’t seem to think so. Neither does this more famous one.
More to the point, though I hate to admit at times because it lets people too easily lump me into that category of men-who-would-buy-porn-of-men, I would like to see porn of submissive men where submissive men are actually the focus of the porn because then I could actually believe that I’m not the only man in the world who wants to do those sorts of things. Why else do you think people look at porn? It’s because they are using it as an instructive example of figuring out their sexual likes and dislikes. I look at porn to go, “Holy fuck, that looks awesome, I want to have the things that that girl is having done to her done to me!”
I’ve gotten really good pretending all the tied up women in porn are really tied up men, but it still angers me that I have to do it. It is endlessly frustrating to see an endless stream of so much very good pornography, excellent bondage, extremely hot fantasies-come-true only for the women who bottom. There is precious little good male bondage, and even then, there’s no sex. This is why so much of my personal porn collection that has anything to do with men getting fucked is drawn art.
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by Rona
11 Dec 2007 at 21:41
I always thought that they did that because men were the primary consumers of porn and the theory was that it would be easier for them to imagine themselves “in the action” if the person they were replacing was faceless.
by B
11 Dec 2007 at 22:27
I’ve gotten really good pretending all the tied up women in porn are really tied up men, but it still angers me that I have to do it.
Honestly, I thought that was just me. I’m glad to hear I’m not the only person struggling with that.
by maymay
12 Dec 2007 at 01:35
Damnit, I knew I forgot to address something; that’s what I’ve heard to, and I can tell you from at least my experience that is total bullshit. See edited sections of post.
by Rona
12 Dec 2007 at 07:41
Oh, I don’t disagree with you at all that it’s idiotic, I’m just arguing that feeding the tastes of the least common denominator is a tried and true tactic for having a wide, mildly happy customer base… which to me is no substitute for having a smaller, actively happy customer base, but that’s why I am not a large corporation.
by B
12 Dec 2007 at 10:28
Oh, I don’t disagree with you at all that it’s idiotic, I’m just arguing that feeding the tastes of the least common denominator is a tried and true tactic for having a wide, mildly happy customer base… which to me is no substitute for having a smaller, actively happy customer base, but that’s why I am not a large corporation.
I don’t know…porn seems to be the poster-child for finding a niche segment of the market and filling it. I can, no-lie, chain together adjectives on the adultdvdempire search function until I find the dozen or so videotapes that meet the description Amateur>BDSM>Glasses>Clowns,but there’s really precious little good stuff for our niche.
On the other hand, I suspect it may be because it’s just hard to fill that niche. I see a lot of stuff attempting to fill the gap, but it’s all wrong, from my perspective.
by Bea
12 Dec 2007 at 15:53
the person I see myself replacing is the submissive. If the submissive is faceless because he is hidden by a hood when he shouldn’t be, then I lose a big chunk of information about how that submissive is feeling and thus the porn becomes less valuable to me.
In other words, I would prefer to wank to pictures of men being tortured than pictures of women torturing men.
Reminds me of a conversation I had with friends once. All of my straight female friends agreed that they preferred porn which focused on a woman who was actually getting off over, say, gay male porn, even though they prefer men and most of them find gay men sexy and if it were all about seeing what they’re attracted to that would mean more naked men. Because they can identify with that woman and find pleasure in her pleasure.
Which just goes to show that the porn industry really has no idea how to make sex sexy in general.
by Tyler
14 Dec 2007 at 14:50
Not sure if this is better or worse, but coincidentally just before reading this I was in the galleries looking at our BDSM section. The one set of photographs up showing “BDSM” are actually of a femdom in an eye-mask kicking a guy on a St. Andrew’s cross in the ball. There are plenty of things still wrong with this picture – because she’s in almost as much bondage as he is (corset, strappy heels, uncomfy looking bra), however I found the mask puzzling. He’s completely naked and in full view while she’s hiding behind stereotypical clothing and a mask…
by maymay
14 Dec 2007 at 15:05
Tyler, I think I know that picture. You’re talking about the one in the Museum of Sex, right? Take a look at the date on that picture. I think it was taken in the 70’s? The cultural attitudes towards sex workers were quite a bit different then, and many, many more women in pornography from that era are wearing masks. I’m not really sure why that is, as I wasn’t alive in the 1970’s, but it is interesting. Maybe someone with more education on the topic can shed some light on that.
by tn
14 Jan 2009 at 22:13
um men get $300 max for most scenes women cam make $500-$5000 pay me a few thousand a scene its a career and i retire in a few years fuck what people think, pay me a few hundred its just part time fun and real life calls, double standards exiat as a man i cant charge hundres of dollars an hour for my services well I could but the demand is not close as if i was a woman who can get that rate without trying
by Mollena
01 Feb 2009 at 21:09
An EXCELLENT post, man. *applauds*
by Suraya
15 May 2010 at 15:53
One of the first things I discovered as I was doing the research that eventually led to Filament magazine, was that most photographers who were capturing men were creating headless, anonymised images of men because they’d heard some bullshit mythology that women preferred that. Meanwhile, I am still yet to encounter any woman who does, most saying that they find that the headless/faceless trope _really interferes_ with their erotic enjoyment of images of men.
This is but one of the examples of all the made-up crap around ‘what women want’ that actively prevents images that women would enjoy from being created. It infuriates me.
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by Dawn Davidson
05 Apr 2011 at 00:51
My absolute favorite “porn” shows ONLY the faces of people having real orgasms. It’s called “Faces of Ecstasy” and was made by Joani Blank sometime in the 90’s I think. Sadly, the one I like was only ever released on VHS, and shows no sign of being re-released in any other format. When I asked her about it in email, she responded that I should get the 2nd video, which has been released on DVD. And while that is ALSO wonderful in its own way, it’s not the same as the first one. *sigh*
In short, though, I most certainly agree with the assertion that hiding the face of the person experiencing the orgasm/pain/sensation *definitely* interferes with the enjoyment of the video. Fortunately for me, I’m very “audio” oriented, so if I really don’t like the video, I’ll just shut my eyes and listen to the sound track… assuming THAT’S real, too. But if I want to look, I want to be able to see the reaction of the “bottom,” to hear their breath become ragged, to watch the muscles tense, and to see the experience register in their face when it’s visible. If the whole thing doesn’t add up to “real” in my estimation (and I’m a pretty good estimator) then I won’t like it at all, much less buy a copy.
by Sunshine Love
02 May 2011 at 02:16
It almost seems to me that the ability to wear a mask in porn is emblematic of power. You don’t see women wearing masks in porn because they don’t have the right to hide any part of themselves from the possessive viewer’s eye, whereas men retain that right to anonymity (and thus vanilla world power). To not have to bare all if they don’t bloody want to.
It’s a double edged sword. Men’s sexuality is not on demand, so less is asked of or expected of them regarding how much of themselves they exhibit. But women don’t so much have that choice. Guys get nasty with girls who won’t show their faces, all distrustful and shit, like they are ENTITLED to every part of her. Perhaps more women need to feel entitled to the male form and face and figure and demand access to it in porn. But who fuck’s gonna listen?
by Dawn Davidson
02 May 2011 at 11:25
@Sunshine: I’m in complete agreement. It IS about real world power and privilege. And as tn mentioned upthread, that actually cuts the other way in terms of any money paid *for the scene.” The guys who get nasty DO feel “entitled,” and being “privileged” in a real world sense, it doesn’t ever occur to them not to, or that they’re even asking for something fundamentally unfair. Nor does it usually occur to the women that it is this loss of privilege and freedom that they are being paid for in their higher wages in the business. Those masked men can go on to have real world power that the women are unlikely to ever manage, subsequently. The power (and money) is still stacked in favor of the masked men, over the long term.
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