The other day during dinner while hanging out with friends, of course, pornography gets brought up. (I’m sure the waitresses love us. Or hate us. Or love to hate us. (That’s called foreshadowing, by the way. (And this is called Lisp.)))
Now, porn gets brought up all the time in conversations with my general social circle. This might be because some of them are sex workers, others are sex bloggers, and still others are BDSM equipment vendors, the latter of whom don’t blog much. But unlike the usual discussion, this time I observed a much more interesting exchange about porn. I thought I’d share it with you.
The professor (who has made guest appearances elsewhere) started talking about this one porn web site in particular that’s selling a very humiliation-specific brand of hardcore sex. It’s all about degrading women while fucking them. It’s unfortunate that I’ll never be able to do his description justice because smiles that wide just can’t be communicated through words.
Suffice it to say, however, that all the women start out with delicately applied make up and by the end of the video the tears spilling from their eyes have turned their faces tie-dye colored, their throats are horse as they shout through ragged gasps about how dirty they are, and the guys are demanding they open up and get ready for another dick.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the bigger the shock value, the bigger the payday. (Lack of link because, come on. Tons of porn sites do this, not just this one. Do you really need a link?)
To my knowledge, I don’t think this has anything explicitly related to so-called formal BDSM (you know, whips and chains and stuff, the “serious” stuff) but come on, you can’t deny that’s fucking kinky sex.
Now, here’s the interesting part that came from the conversation. After the table was left momentarily silenced from the description of such (hopefully consensual and totally hot) humiliating sexual abuse, Eileen said, See, I’d have no problem with any of that at all if there were sites where I could see women doing that to men.
“Well, there’s like, Men In Pain—”, our professor friend started to say.
“Ohhhh no,” Eileen and I both started simultaneously. “Men In Pain is largely about excruciatingly typical pro-domme talk. Oh, and handjobs. Lots, and lots of handjobs.”
Are we wrong? Is there porn out there that objectifies men in an equivalent fashion to the way the industry of objectification of women (and very much including dominant women, by the way) called mainstream pornography is doing? I’ll admit to not actually having a subscription to Men In Pain. (I’ve never paid for porn in my life, unless you count buying Eileen dinner and hoping she’ll tie me to a spreader bar and stuff large things in my butt and then beat on me for it but I don’t think that’s comparable.) However, the massive amount of free video clips (soo NSFW) that Kink, Inc. puts out does not inspire hope.
So, fuck, where’s that porn video, the ones where the guys are sobbing? I’d be in it. Over the years, friends and acquaintances have offered me varying spots in varying kinds of porn shoots, but I always decline because they expect me to respond as though being asked to be in a porn production where I don’t get paid for my time is some kind of favor they’re bestowing upon me. As if, oh my god, now they like me, they really, truly like me!
What the fuck is up with that, also, by the way? First of all, it actually is a lot less sexy for me if I don’t get paid to do it, and second of all, why are my only two options for porn shoots always “stand right here and let me kick you in the balls while I look pretty” or “you’ll be blindfolded and he’ll go down on you ’til you pop”? If there’s one thing Men In Pain actually gets right (maybe there’s more than just one thing, but anyway) it’s their fucking variety. Or variety of fucking. (I even submitted a modeling application to them, for many reasons, but to no avail.) Anyway, you get my point.
I’m sure this post is going to confuse a lot of people. Maymay, they’ll say, how the fuck can you be so pro-porn and so anti-prodomme. Pro-dommes are just sex workers after all, you know. They’re part of the same industry. Why not get all huff-and-puff-and-blow-your-house-down about that porn site that your friend was talking about that you think objectifies women?
Because my problem with all of this isn’t the existence of the sex industry; it’s the monopoly (and the resulting monotony) of the sex industry that I think causes problems. In other words, it’s not just that I have a problem with pro-domme’s being the representation of female domination out in the world (a la Mistress Asscrusher), I also have problems with all the other shame-ridden stereotypes of every other gender and orientation combination. A lack of visible variety breeds a closeted, guilt-ridden culture. That is not okay.
Like Eileen said, where are the porn sites showing me some other kind of sex?
There was a wonderfully timely string of comments that started with britspin made on Bitchy’s blog earlier today just as I was trying to come up with the genius conclusion to this post. It’s so perfect, in fact, that I’m just going to quote some of what he says:
OK. Confession time. I’m one of those guys who enables this crap.
[…]
When it comes to a woman who even hints that she might be dominant, I go completely doolally. Self respect gets checked at the door, along with judgement, the awareness of possible mental health issues and anything that comes between me and the possibility of a woman doing rude, rude things.
This is even worse with people like me whose starting point with Femdom is the internet and our own fantasies- I get to measure my behaviour by strange chatroom etiquette, incredibly varied demands in alt.com profiles and a few videos made by english mansion and men in pain.
I suspect that basing my flirtation with dominant women on these reference points is not a recipe for successful social intereaction… but christ, I’m an ignoramous mostly hoping not to make an utter fool of myself… so I plead ignorance, not malignity!
Just as I’ve said countless times before. And then, just to drive the point home:
When you realise you’re sub or Dom, what reference points do you get? For me it was the avengers and a very weird fantasy about being kidnapped and kept in an emptied swimming pool by about twenty avenger clad women. I don’t think I ever got any options showing dominant women without PVC and leather.
[…]
I think with me it was very much… Gosh, I really want this badwrongthing done to me. Hmmm who seems to get away with doing badwrongthings. evil, pvc clad, fur wearing, faun torturing, whip wielding bond villanesses. Well in that casen that’s who I fancy… because they do the badwrongthings….
Did it really need this much elaboration? Where do you start railing against this stuff? Mainstream pornographers? Pro-dommes? Submissive men? Gender supremacists? Fucking abstinence-only sex educators? I’ll tell you where: every-fucking-where you see it. Yeah, that’s where you start.
by devastatingyet
14 Aug 2007 at 23:33
My own favorite pro domme makes some of her own porn, and at least one video has a guy crying. I never watched it (you have to pay to see more than a clip) but it could be hot. I even know the guy (who is even prettier when he’s not dressed as a girl, but what the hell).
Oh, here. I make no promises:
http://www.mistresssaskia.com/videos.shtml
There appear to actually be plenty with men. How many feature crying or would be up to your standards, I can’t say. But my pro domme friend is not a ponytail-wearing barbie, at least.
by Bitchy Jones
15 Aug 2007 at 04:13
I think that Men in Pain is made by a mandom who likes to make dom women cry with frustration.
by Calico
15 Aug 2007 at 09:20
Bitchy, you’re probably not far off. I think James Mogul runs both Men In Pain and thetrainingofO.com.
by maymay
15 Aug 2007 at 09:36
Devastating:
“There appear to actually be plenty with men. How many feature crying or would be up to your standards, I can’t say. But my pro domme friend is not a ponytail-wearing barbie, at least.”
Yeah, I’ve seen a good number of femdom/malesub videos I’d call pretty decent, too. I guess one of the points I was trying to get at in my post is that there’s an incredibly skewed representation of just about every form of sex in mainstream porn, but it’s especially apparent when it comes to gender and orientation combinations. I think equal representation might not be such a bad thing for the sex industry, or our sex lives.
Also, the other reason I posted this was to get more links to porn sites I might like. ;)
Bitchy and Calico:
Isn’t James Mogul starting LeatherDaddy.com for Kink now, too…?
by Elizabeth
15 Aug 2007 at 10:47
Isn’t that interesting. My somewhat porn related post today, I made before I read this one.
Not that porn is ever too far from most kinky people’s brains, I think.
I’ll disagree with my BFF BJ on Men in Pain. I like the site enough to pay for it.
Is it a *compromise*? Sure, I have to squint a lot to block out stuff that doesn’t work for me, but Claire and Total Euro are worth the price of admission. I just skip over the scenes where the director has him hooked to some weird contraption.
All porn that’s available to me is a compromise. Gay porn has good points to it, so does M/f. (In the right mood, I can do some elaborate mental gynamistics on M/f to float my boat.)
The reason most femdom porn can’t work for me is that objectification is one of my biggest kinks. Most if not all femdom porn objectifies the female, not the male….
FWIW, women who don’t identify as dominant have given more positive reaction to the faux porn on my blog than I would have imagined. More than one has said something like this, which is a near quote, “I never thought about spanking a man until I saw it on E’s blog, and now I think about it all the time.”
Small service I offer, upping the numbers of potential female partners for you guys, no extra charge. ;)
E
by maymay
15 Aug 2007 at 11:14
Small service I offer, upping the numbers of potential female partners for you guys, no extra charge. ;)
You rule, Elizabeth. Here is your scepter and here is your crown. Now do some hurtybadwrongthings with that scepter, preferably with an objectifying bent pretty, pretty please? :)
And by the way, your comment on your own post today was so fucking right-on that I hope you’ll forgive the blatant re-post of it here:
“See, and I’ve never had a struggle with p0rn being degrading to women, even though so much of it *is* about degrading women.
I just want my fair share of degrading men! Is that so wrong?“
by Elizabeth
15 Aug 2007 at 13:24
You rule, Elizabeth. Here is your scepter and here is your crown. Now do some hurtybadwrongthings with that scepter, preferably with an objectifying bent pretty, pretty please? :)
Lord, man, you have my number. I needed a glass of water just reading that. :)
“Is that *my* throne? Oh, thank you so much. Very comfy. Now bring in the dancing studly men please.”
(they don’t have to cry, but I’m not opposed to it, should the reaction arise)
hugs, E
by Calico
16 Aug 2007 at 12:10
“I’ve never paid for porn in my life, unless you count buying Eileen dinner and hoping she’ll tie me to a spreader bar and stuff large things in my butt and then beat on me for it but I don’t think that’s comparable.”
ahahahaha! How did I miss this fabulous sentence the first time around?
by The Professor
24 Aug 2007 at 19:39
Just imagine you find a website and you see one of its free trailers… “tell me your a whore. come on say it ‘i’m a whore (giggling)’. no, say it. your a dirty fucking whore and i like to get fucked hard, i’m a dirty fucking slut and a whore, say it!” this then would be followed by two other actors ripping this person a new one. mostly through really rough anal sex and oral sex with lots of hair pulling, spitting, humiliation, and it all results with cum in the mouth and on the face. This may be pretty hot to many of you. What if the cum didn’t come from the two dominant actors? What if it came from the submissive? What if the smeared makeup and mascara was on him and not the two girls and he was in a huddle of defeat on the floor sobbing and repeating “i’m dirty, i’m a whore, i’m a slut” and the two girls are laughing. May, why doesn’t someone have the guts to make this true in porn? is the porn on the internet to skewed to the hetero dom male and sub female? has consumerism shied away from showing something possibly real in many peoples lives? has this created a one-sided internet, porn view of a sexually submissive male? so, i wonder who will step up to the bat and fill this void.
by devastatingyet
24 Aug 2007 at 23:19
Wow. I know that kind of porn is hot for some people, but it doesn’t work for me at all, regardless of the genders of the participants.
I really need to blog about shame.
by maymay
27 Aug 2007 at 16:30
“May, why doesn’t someone have the guts to make this true in porn? is the porn on the internet to skewed to the hetero dom male and sub female? has consumerism shied away from showing something possibly real in many peoples lives? has this created a one-sided internet, porn view of a sexually submissive male? so, i wonder who will step up to the bat and fill this void.“
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.
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[…] to Kink, Inc.’s über-fail. I’ve long condemned that company for their utterly sexist attitude to porn-selling, if not porn-making (although there’s some of that, too). But I’ve been largely alone […]
by Erisiana Cherie
22 Mar 2011 at 09:31
“I’ve never paid for porn in my life, unless you count buying Eileen dinner and hoping she’ll tie me to a spreader bar and stuff large things in my butt and then beat on me for it but I don’t think that’s comparable.”
“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?
by maymay
22 Mar 2011 at 10:22
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.
by Erisiana Cherie
24 Mar 2011 at 11:46
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.
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”.
by maymay
30 Apr 2011 at 19:38
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.
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