Thu, 2005-06-30 21:31

In comments to an earlier post Tony Comstock said

The models, the styling, the photography, and all the other production elements in porn are never up to the alllussions to glamour that porn is forever making. Playboy? Sure, they’ve got bucks (at least the magazine does) but they don’t show pink. Penthouse? Back in the day, when they had real advertisers to pay the bills. But the rest? Third tier lingerie catalog looks better.

Bug when you take the Abby Winters/GND approach, suddenly the one precious thing you do have, a beautiful woman with her legs open, gets a chance to actually be seen. She’s not being made to look foolish by failing so far short of the ideals of a Victoria’s secret model in a production that falls short too. You can just see her for what she is, beautiful and naked.

First of all I agree that one good rule of pornography should be that you only ask the model to do what he or she would be willing to do for free, though perhaps not so publically.

But secondly, the observation about Playboy vs. “girls next door” reminded me of a study conducted a few years ago that said as men age their “feminine ideal” changes as well. I don’t remember the details (and a quick Google didn’t turn up an answer) but the gist was that (at the time of the survey) very young men were most attracted to examples of extreme femininity such as Pamela Anderson while in their twenties (or thirties?) they were drifting towards more a more nuanced though still vivid ideal along the lines of (I think Demi Moore) and then in their thirties (or forties?) they preferred girl-next-door types like (I think) Sandra Bullock.

If that’s so (I can’t find a citation so I could be mistaken) then it may be incorrect to simply state that industrial porn could be “fixed” by focusing more on ordinary people. Instead that fix would affect only consumers in my particular demographic. (Also if this is true then we have to be careful not to simply brand as “crap” that which simply doesn’t appeal to us.)

If the research is correct then we have to think about a couple of things

1) For different age groups what is the “meaning” sought in the imagery. Thinking back to my own teenage years answers could range from “didn’t know any better” to “seeking idealized stereotypes at the tail-end of identity formation” and all the way to “incest-avoidance reflex steering me away from women too similar to people I actually knew.” Oh yeah, and there’s always “since girls my age tended to go for men who were older, and since younger girls weren’t old enough to fool around, and since I was a fairly typical ungrounded pimply-faced youth I had no actual contact with women and thus wasn’t able to form a basis in reality.” :-)

2) For different age groups assess whether the one-size-fits-all approach of industrial pornographers is effective and whether better category segmentation might lead to better overall satisfaction. Similarly it might be helpful to examine older demographics to see whether any tendency to prefer extreme acts and imagery (multiple penetration, extreme surgical enhancement, violence or non-consensual degradation) in older men might be the result of misplaced focus. In other words if the same old Barbie look isn’t working maybe the answer is to seek a different form of pornography rather than more extreme versions of the form that no longer works.

3) For pornographers the challenge might involve finding suitable subjects. Generally speaking, for instance, older and more established men are less likely to join the military so recruiters tend to focus on just-out-of-school types. Similarly, older and more established women may be less inclined to pick up a few hundred bucks for an afternoon photo shoot, or a few thousand bucks for a multi-day video production. Industrial pornographers may thus be limited by the availability models and actresses, whether they’re aware of the Lee->Moore->Bullock spectrum of preference or not.

Thus the grammar of porn may require the employment of models that are best suited only to entry-level (“hardbody”) and much older (girl-next-door) customers, leaving big gaps in between to be filled by weird substitutions.

—-

I’m not saying I’m right, end of story here. I do think something along these lines is going on and I need help clarifying it. The point is that, fetish outliers not withstanding, there are large, probably age-related demograpic preferences that might not be finding suitable types of porn and are compensating by substituting less fulfilling and thus less “normal” alternatives. The benefit of clarifying the categories, I think, might be a reduction in the outlandish/extreme requirements that are sometimes placed on models, actors, and actresses.

Comments are more than welcome!

Thu, 2005-06-30 15:11

One suggestion for improving pornography might be: Leave the action/adventure/special-effects genre to Hollywood. I, like almost everyone else, is generally more interested, and attracted to, the ordinary people we know.

When I think about my own next-door neighbors over the years it’s hard to imagine very many of them shifting straight from “should I undress in front of a bunch of strangers with cameras at all” to “and while I’m at it why don’t I just let them tie me to a Sybian during an eclipse, too?”

The whole point about people like the girl next door is they’re not actresses. And presumably if we just wanted acting we’d be going somewhere else anyway.

Coincidentally or not, one of the sexiest things I’ve seen in a video was an AbbyWinters model who casually but thoroughly strokes her breasts during an inventory of which parts of her body she thinks is attractive. She wasn’t thinking about being sexy. In fact she does it while saying she thinks most guys would probably like her breasts better if they were bigger! (Whether that’s even true is completely beside the point. What she was doing was eighteen times cooler than anything Chesty Canyon might ever have done while trying to act.)

It might not be the most creative thing a pornographer ever thought of shooting, but I find I go back and watch clips like hers a dozen times for every time I watch a more adventurous (i.e. doesn’t feel sexy just being herself) model trying to pretend inserting light bulbs is interesting. That doesn’t mean one shouldn’t experiment — some people really are wild, sexy, very attractive, and creative. But in the mean time I wish people would figure out how to get everyday people to just be their ordinary sexy selves. The problem for (industrial) pornographers is it might be hard to encourage and boring to photograph, but it can be riveting to watch.

Thu, 2005-06-30 13:35

One of my favorite social-theory quotes comes from Henry David Thoreau who, in Walden, said

I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology. My excuse for not lecturing against the use of tobacco is, that I never chewed it, that is a penalty which reformed tobacco-chewers have to pay; though there are things enough I have chewed which I could lecture against. If you should ever be betrayed into any of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does, for it is not worth knowing. Rescue the drowning and tie your shoestrings. Take your time, and set about some free labor.

italics mine

The Bay Window a New England regional gay and lesbian periodical, has a fascinating article about homophobia that lends credence to my suspicion that homophobia correlates strongly with homosexual feelings.

As with Red Staters who froth at the mouth over something as benignly nonsexual as nursing infants in public while annually breaking records for divorce, infidelity, incest, and teen-and-unwed-pregnancy, I’ve always wondered what could possibly motivate homophobes to care in the slightest whether other men have sex with each other.

One possible answer:

Lending credence to that assertion are the results of a study published in the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Abnormal Psychology in 1996. Researchers at the University of Georgia conducted an experiment involving 35 homophobic men and 29 nonhomophobic men as determined by the Index of Homophobia scale, a 25-item test used by sociologists and psychologists to determine levels of homophobia. Study participants were self-described straight men as far as sexual arousal and experience. Participants were exposed to an array of videotaped straight, gay male and lesbian “explicit erotic stimuli” while hooked up to a penile plethysmograph. Known in some circles as the “peter meter,” the somewhat controversial device measures the degree of arousal in men based on changes in blood flow to the penis. The results? While both groups were about equally aroused by the straight and lesbian porn videos, researchers noted that, “The homophobic men showed a significant increase in penile circumference to the male homosexual video, but the control [nonhomophobic] men did not.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, when it came time for participants to offer their own subjective assessment of the degree to which they were turned on by watching the various sex acts, the homophobic men “significantly underestimated their degree of arousal by the male homosexual video,” according to an APA press release that announced the study.

Read the whole article here

I will leave it to others to catalogue the spitefully anti-gay legislative agenda of recently outed Spokane mayor and former Republican legislator James West, who springs most recently to mind.

Instead I’ll just say that we have nothing to fear from heterosexuals, homosexuals, lesbians, bi-sexuals, transsexuals or abstinents. In fact we have nothing to fear at all except those seem to have the most, and paradoxically the least, reason to be afraid.

I say paradoxically because, to quote Dan Savage from the same article “I think part of the backlash right now is the sense of loss that these people who are afraid of [homosexual] sex are going to lose their bogeyman if we all just show up at PTA meetings and appear to be as boring as they are.” The only thing that makes same-sex attraction more titillating or taboo than opposite-sex attraction appears to be the absurd stereotypes promoted by overwrought and evidently repressed and severely-in-denial homophobes.

As a (confirmed) heterosexual I probably oughtent care, but if everyone would just take a deep breath and relax maybe I could just get a damn prostate checked once a year without everyone making a federal case out of it. Case in point: Check out this Laura Tooth repost about a guy who goes all Hamlet (“To be or not to be wanked till my eyes roll back by a very attractive woman who first examines my prostate.”) during an otherwise extraordinary medical exam.

(Bay Windows link via Nyx at sxxxy.org)

Wed, 2005-06-29 15:38

I just ran across a wonderful primer on anal sex from Birdie at Lighten Up. It’s informative without being clinical, erotic without being sensational. Very cool. You really want to read the whole thing so I’ll just excerpt one of her introductory paragraphs.

First I need to disclose that I was participating in anal sex before I realized that it was considered taboo. Is it really considered taboo? I’m still uncertain about that. When I was 17 years old I found an erotic novel in a used book store that included a scene involving anal sex. I’m an avid reader. Which, by the way, is also where I found The Sensuous Woman by “J”; a how-to book on becoming a senuous woman. No mention as to why sign it “J” rather than take ownership of her work. I’ve always wondered if perhaps “J” is a man. In any event learning about sex from books seems to have warped my sense of what is taboo and what is mainstream.

I had anal sex Friday so now is a good time to write about it while the sensations are still very vivid in my mind and anus. Two things I feel essential to good anal sex are arousal and lubrication. Perhaps penis size is also an important consideration but I’m not going to be able to speak about penis size because all of my anal experience is with an average sized penis so I don’t have experience with variety. Any recommendations regarding penis size will have to come from someone else. Let’s begin with arousal. Friday I initiated the playtime and typical of me I dressed the part. I wore a jersey dress that is one size too small. Last Fall it fit perfectly but I don’t want to talk about that. I wore the dress with nothing under it and with high heels. My experience is that a woman doesn’t have to do much more than wear a dress that clings to her body and high heels to initiate sex. Anyway that got the balls rolling and the cock stiffening.

Read her whole post here.

Again what I really appreciate about it is the everyday erotic nature of Birdie’s experience. She did it before she knew it was taboo. She presents it as part of her sex life instead of as a separate, submissive, or exceptional event. It seems to me that if you’re going to do it (and of course not everyone does) then she and her partner have the right approach.

Since I’m feeling defensive about men’s “predictability” these days I’d like to comment very briefly on the idea that “all” a woman has to do is wear a tight dress and high heels to initiate sex. I’ll just say that sociologists have noted for years that women initiate virtually all successful consensual romantic or sexual interactions or, more accurately, they initiate a cascade of interactions and men spend a great deal of time trying to figure the signals out. An overt signal such as donning uncharacteristically sexual apparel helps clarify something that may have been brewing subconsciously, for both parties, for some time.

Cool post all the way around.

Tue, 2005-06-28 14:22

Various bloggers have been discussing pornography this week. Almost everyone agrees there are serious problems with virtually all porn out there. I want to thank Ell of Wilful Damage and MonMouth of Rentboy Diaries for kicking my brain into gear.

Somewhere or other I called it Industrial Porn and Ell called me on it. In keeping with the discussion VS, Freya, Lili-g and others are taking up, I think I’m goning to stick with that term instead of mainstream, plastic, or any other terms in common parlance.

Industrial Porn

I think it’s useful because so many other industries are being influenced by artsianal, boutique, microbrewery sorts of alternatives.

In my regional center we’ve got local “boutique” alternatives to coffee, beer, soap and bath stuff, and (very promisingly) chocolates. “Boutique” wines have gotten so out of hand it’s hard to find Gallo and Mogan David in supermarkets. Microbreweries have gotten so out of hand Miller Beer had joke billboards proclaiming “We brew beer in vats the size of Rhode Island.” And “boutique” steel mills are kicking Pittsburgh’s ass… or would be if they were even making steel there.

The point is that branding can go two ways. Calling what’s out there “Mainstream” porn is being way. too. flipping. kind! It’s not mainstream, it’s industrial porn and that’s why it’s got all the character, appeal, romance, and originality of other industrial products such as Miller Lite, Chrysler K-series cars, and WalMart underwear. Industrial porn: it’s big, it’s cheap, it’s artificial, it’s mass-produced, it’s tasteless, flavorless, moisture-free. It’s a bulk commodity with all the individuality and charm of a rack of store-brand processed cheese in a can.

Industrial porn. Let ‘em try to escape that label.

Meanwhile we now have a “brand” for what we’re looking for: artesian porn (or boutique porn, or whatever you want to call it. As I mentioned to Tony Comstock a couple of weeks ago, what we name it isn’t as important as that we name it and make the name stick.)

Aside: the only name I’d really want to avoid would be “alternative” porn. That’s already a fairly well established niche with it’s own connotations in porn, as well as film, music, art, and other markets. I’d like to think that “artisan” porn, like artisan ice cream, could be a broad enough category to include both genuine mainstream (call it vanilla) offerings as well as alternative varieties. The distinction shouldn’t be based on it’s difference from industrial stuff but it’s higher quality and value.

Of course there are risks. Artisan brewery Redhook Brewing Company (a local product) is now owned in part by one of the big breweries. On the other hand, you can now buy that and similar “microbrews” live, on tap, in cowboy bars in southern Utah and even a teetotaler like myself can tell the worst microbrewery beer is better than the best Coors or Budweiser offering. Artisan coffee roaster Starbucks, which started out as a single store 25 or 30 years ago, may now be selling more coffee than anyone else and they’re garnering huge amounts of scorn these days. (Note the occasional “friends don’t let friends drink Starbucks” bumper stickers.) But the very worst Starbucks coffee (and there are a heck of a lot of other options, even though I sort of prefer the original myself) is miles better than the best Maxwell House coffee ever brewed.

Industrial porn vs. artisan porn: That’s my story and I’m gonna stick with it. I strongly recommend the rest of us stick with it (or something like it) too.

Freya puts it very well in her blog

I think the existence of prurient materials is part of our societal need to express ourselves sexually. At the same time, if we leave it to the San Fernando Valley to do that expression, we get what we deserve. In other words, we have a responsibility in this too. As artists we need to make better porn/erotica/art and as consumers, we have to seek this out and buy it and eschew the crap.

I’ve done this before without getting a lot of feedback. It won’t stop me from doing it again. Here’s a list of artisan pornographers we ought to think about patronizing:

• Comstock Films
• Abby Winters
• Erotica Lee
• Beautiful Agony

If there’s someone you think is making artesianal porn, let me know and I’ll add them to the list.

Tue, 2005-06-28 10:56

Bliaz asks an intelligent question.

I was just wondering about something. I saw that Loaded Magazine (a UK based magazine for men) had done a survey asking the readers whom they’d like to fuck. As far as I recall, the survey had 5000+ respondents. And Paris Hilton came in second. Given a free choice among all the women on the planet … Paris Hilton came in second.

Now, when women starts arguing about men’s taste in women, there’s always the risk that everybody will think she’s just envious. But in this particular case, I just want to discuss something. I know Miss Hilton is a very sexy little package in the eyes of many. But what I don’t understand is why so many want to fuck her if they’ve seen that supposedly “leaked” sex video of hers (and I’m presuming they have).

Read her entire post here

Most of the comments to her post run along the lines of “eww, who knows?” I’ll take a contrarian but heartfelt position. I find Paris Hilton sexually attractive. I’ve never really seen her, other than still photos, and never heard her speak. (Those are admittedly major sticking points. On the other hand there are a number of bloggers I’ve not really spoken to and haven’t seen at all that I’m very attracted to.)

I have seen audio-free snippets of her infamous videos, but my experience with videos of actual sex (as opposed to porn sex the main theme of the week here at RAS) is that real sex is rarely as interesting to watch as it is to do. We rarely look as interesting as we imagine. To that extent (only) I’m willing to give her the same benefit of the doubt I’d give anyone else.

I’ll add a final qualification: I like all kinds of different women and I’m attracted to many different body types. I think it might be more accurate to say that in the past I’ve enjoyed having sex with other women who look as she does, and to others who behave as she does (without, however, making it to the front pages of the National Enquirer.) If I were single, and met Hilton in normal circumstances, and if we felt compatible with each other, then I’d be happy to have sex with her as well.

Would she be my #2 choice? Yeeks! Rating potential sex partners by preference would be bad form along the lines of ranking one’s family members by how much you loved each of them. Instead I’ll say what’s diplomatic, proper, and true: I’d rather have sex with my own partner than anyone else. After her, anyone and everyone else is and always will be no more (though also no less) than my second choice.

Final note: In the extremely unlikely event I ever have sex with a celebrity, I’ll check for video tapes. By now Paris Hilton might have sufficient experience with sex on tape to have sex attractively, but for better or worse I have not. :-)

—-

Update: Maybe not. (image link via sxxy.org) Yeeks!

Tue, 2005-06-28 10:14

Whee, I’ve been Fleshbotted! This is a lot like being Slashdotted or Farked, only my server isn’t just getting hot, it’s also starting to quiver and sigh. (I’ll be standing by with a wet washcloth and a towel.) My first inclination is to beat my own drum, welcome you to my site, and generally feel pleased with myself. Instead I’d like to invite everyone who drops by to also to check out some of my favorite sex and sexual-issues blogs:

 

Figleaf’s Real Adult Sex – Resources

Blogs

I check these first, often several times a day

 

DTG’s Pussy Talk

Wegg’s pillowbook

Demure’s life of a demure college studentâ„¢

mmighty69’s everyday nakedness

VS’s Virgin Slut

Ell’s Wilful Damage

CookieBush’s Blog

Watergirl’s Rant & Roar

Postmodern Courtesan

TheGirl’s Girl with a one-track mind

thatgirl’s life

 

Then I check these
A-I

Alyssa’s Welcome to Alyssa

birdmadgirl’ Blog

chilled_v’s Boudica Of Suburbia

Codename: Amy

Coulton’s You can’t go back…

Curious Pussy

Dacia’s Waking Vixen

Donny’s Ramblings: Diary of a Pornographer

feministing.com

flea’s One Good Thing

Flutterby’s Kissing in Public

Got anymore stuff you wanna throw at me!!!!??

Hailey Dai’s Daily Dose

Claire’s Cliffnotes

Fred and Wilma’s Fun

Gloria Brame’s Inside the Mind of Gloria Brame

Freya’s House of Dreams

Erotica Lee2

Bliatz

J-Q

Ken and Ariel

Kim’s Mercurial Girl

kntconfessions.blog-city.com

laura the tooth

Lori Porter’s Sensual Arousal

Man & Wife

Mister Nice Guy

Monk’s …and the strangest things seem, suddenly routine

Nadia’s Kinky Librarian

Nixx’s Bawdy Bits

Noli Irritare Leones » Sexuality

Overworked & Underf*cked

philip’s hotaction.ca

Richard’s Down On My Knees

Housewyfe With Benefits

Mistress Matisse’s Journal

A Nightcap with Jyl

Jane’s – the educated slut

 

R-Z

Salvatori’s Money Factory

Sarong Party Girl

The Divorce Chronicles

The Feminarian’s Feminary

This Fish Needs A Bicycle

TwiddlyBits’ Sex Blog

Unfurling: my sexuality

Violet Blue’s Tiny Nibbles

Violet Blue’s Blog Index

spankmewithaspoon

Vikki’s Her Desires

sexblo.gs

sxxxy.org

Currently Assessing

Madeline in the Mirror

Viviane’s Sex Carnival

Plum, a ripening

Girls Like Sex Too

I Should’ve Been Famous By Now

Saphire’s Seductions

Salacious Desires

Naughty_Virgin’s Inside the Mind of A Virgin: June 2004

Eros, Logos

A Perfect Marriage

She kinky!

Doogooder 2.0

The Virgin Student

internet addiction word therapy

The Call Girl

I, Arielle: My Sex Diary

Taste Brenda

 

 

Don’t get me wrong. I hope you’ll stick around and maybe even bookmark my site, but if I’m not actually your cup of tea maybe someone else in the list will fill it nicely.

Mon, 2005-06-27 12:23

One of the coolest sensations, by far… Let me start again. One of the most fabulous sensations ever… I’ll try again. Sometimes you meet someone. You flirt a bit and dance, walk, and talk. Maybe you kiss right away, or maybe not for several dates. You hold and stroke each other through your clothes, slide hands under shirts, feel each other’s lips melting against each other, and then, sooner or later, my hand slips down into her pants, lingers in her curls, slips down and lightly caresses the hood of her clitoris, and then arches out away from her flesh and slides down, as she shifts her hips up and parts her legs a bit more, my hand slips deeper to lightly fingertip the very bottom of her folds. And sometimes when I do I find more than silky, tender petals of flesh. Sometimes instead I find a well of slippery, warm, luscious and lustrous cream — cream so abundant and slick I have to take care not to slip in too far, not right away, because instead I want to coat my fingers with it and slide them back up, effortlessly coating and parting her lips from within. Just thinking about that makes me so hard I ache. Experiencing it makes me so… happy I can forget who I am.

As usual, most of the words for it are barkingly inadequate. Goo. Syrup. Ooze. Juice. Wetness. The porn industry term for it is “girl cum,” and for once it’s not the worst possible term. The wierd thing, though, is you never seem to see it in industrial porn.

Australian pornographer Abby Winters mentioned once that a lot of porn shooters provide towels even to solo models so they can tidy up any evidence that they might be excited. I’ve certainly seen it often enough in real life. Real porn can’t be so stultifying that the models never experience arousal at all. Why on earth would anyone want to towel away evidence of arousal, especially evidence so pretty, pearly, and often hard to find?

I suspect the answer, as usual, has more to do with industry than eroticism. Model’s genitals are often groomed by makeup artists and human lubricant might smear it. If you’re shooting five sets on the same rented location nobody wants to take the time to change sheets, clean upholstery, or wash lingerié. It provides an inconsistent “product” and capturing evidence of visible excitement might cast other models in a bad light.

That latter bit is fair enough, by the way. Not everyone becomes visibly wet even when they’re excited as can be, and it would be genuinely awful if it became something like the dreadful male “money shot” where if you can’t produce it you have to fake it.

Still, I think girl cum is erotic as can be in real life. I wish pornographers felt the same way.

Update: Lili-g knows what I’m talking about. Click here for a lovely instance.

Mon, 2005-06-27 10:24

It’s starting to look like we’re having porn critique week here in the sex-blogosphere. VS of Dilemmas of a Virgin Slut actually kicked it off last week but she’s still going strong this week. I think it’s a great idea.

VS has been providing unfortunate examples: A model trying to use soft bananas in the kitchen, a model who keeps using the same bunched-up top as a general accessory, a guy with a ghastly mullet performing “cunnilingus” on a coffin-tan shrike with equally cliche porn hair. All well and good, but what do we really want?

Here’s a nice start from Cookiebush:

(click here to read her entry)

Got all ready for work this morning only to realize my son was sick and I had to stay home with him. As I un-work-day-ed myself, I caught a glimpse in the mirror of my new bra and my shirt. [...] So I had to get out the camera.

That’s a cool description of the erotic in everyday life and the photo to illustrates it nicely. How many men have found themselves peeking at their partners half dressed, even though they’ve just seen them, or are about to see them, completely naked? I dunno. It’s just erotic all in itself. It happens all the time, maybe every day, but it doesn’t lose its appeal.

In my not-at-all-humble opinion good pornographers recognize that effect and use it as the basis for everything else they do.

Mon, 2005-06-27 10:19

It’s important to distinguish, by the way, the difference between genuinely bad porn and porn that just doesn’t do anything for us. It might also help to work on a “grammar” of porn — some parts, like the hands-on-breasts cliche, represent acts the viewer would like to perform while others, like ejaculation outside the body, probably have more to do with employee psychology and industrial efficiency and nothing at all to do with viewers preferences. The tendency towards pudgy or otherwise unattractive men may have as much to do with non-threatening surrogacy as viewer identification.

Most of the other sex-bloggers talking about porn this week seem to be women. Nearly all porn, even that made by women, is made for men, and as such it often fails to appeal to intelligent women. Seems to me there are two ways to deal with that: give up, or develop a clear way to describe what should be done instead. As a former HP technical manager used to say “Investment follows the clearest specification of success.” Which is an extremely oblique way of saying tell someone what you want and a better way to do it and they’ll be way more willing to produce it for you.