Figleaf's Real Adult Sex

Note: All links in this post have NSFW content.

So via a @filamentmag tweet I found the website Naked Men, Happy Women, by essiegabi. But she’s got a significant problem.

Since I’ve long been irked by the dearth of representations of men in visual erotica that aren’t by or for other men (either as objects of desire for gay men, or as proxies or foils for hetero men) her About Page is near and dear to my heart.

Nowadays images of naked women are commonly shown everywhere; in advertisements, commercials, games and movies, art, on billboards and on TV. A naked female body is pleasant to look at, so no complaints here. But something is missing, isn’t there?

Have you, like me, been wondering why there is so little male nudity in every day life for us hetero sexual women to enjoy? Do you agree it is unfair to say the least, and do you want to see more? Then this blog is the perfect blog for you. Naked men, happy women, aka NMHW, is created to discuss various related topics with you, to post examples of how things could/should be, and to find ways to change the current situation to our advantage. It is about time men catch up with us when it comes to showing their goodies, and even more for us women to tell them what we want.

She said it here.

But she’s got a significant problem.

The images she captures really aren’t what you see in male-oriented porn. Including so-called “Clothed Female, Naked Men” or CFNM fetish sites that are… also generally considered male-oriented. One thing that stands out, or maybe doesn’t, is that when penises are shown they’re almost never erect. Another is that the men might be erotically posed but not erotically poised — they look neither dominantly nor submissively ready, and they don’t look sexually needy. Instead the photos essiegabi selects are relaxed men with clear potential to be sexual. Oh yeah, and while the men are generally under age 40 (and mostly under 30) and none seem overweight, neither are they all athletically or militarily buff. In other words they tend to look the way a lot of women say they like to see men, as opposed to what men seem to think women like… or as opposed to how men expect other men to look.

I like the site quite a lot, and if you’re turned on by heterosexual men you may like it even more. But there’s a significant problem. Essiegabie explains the problem

Oh no, it is Tuesday already. Where is our new hottie?!
I have to admit it: I am running out of stock…
After hours of surfing the net and almost giving up hope, I finally found this image.

She said it here.

If she wanted images of eroticized women she could find them anywhere up to and including the covers of Sukudo puzzle books. If she wanted images of men in stylized porn-for-men situations she’d have to look a little further than the nearest grocery store aisle but such images are still abundant on magazine racks and online…

But if she wants to find images that work for her she’s evidently got to work really hard. Considering that there may be literally (not figuratively) millions of porn sites out there, with anywhere from tens to hundreds of million images, and considering that you can almost play “Pornsite Bingo” by Googling a completely random words and the word “porn” and find someone who’s already made a fetish site for it with surprising regularity, it’s a real surprise she’d have any trouble at all…

And yet…

It appears to be a significant problem.

Comic by XKCD. Used under a Creative Commons license. Click to see full-size at xkcd’s site.

XKCD tackles the gender-stereotype driven driving “Porn for Women“ book series.

Kristina Lloyd of Erotica Cover Watch has a fun post about an erotic romance anthology for women that went from a bottom-seller to best seller when they changed the title and cover art.

Cecilia Tan, editor of the anthology, got in touch with Erotica Cover Watch to tell about this ‘victory for the female gaze’. When MILF Fantasies was first released as an ebook early in 2009, it barely sold. Cecilia was informed it was one of Ravenous Romance’s worst selling anthologies. Then the book was repackaged, the pretty woman on the cover vanished and along came three young dudes baring their rock hard abs – result! Within days, the book shot into RR’s top ten.

Read the quote in context here.

She explains a bit of publisher insider strategy and adds

Ravenous Romance are primarily an erotic romance publisher. As we know, there’s beefcake aplenty on romance covers because, in catering explicitly to women, the genre doesn’t have to worry about deterring male consumers. But RR are also publishing straight erotica such as Young Studs (contributors include names familiar to anyone who reads smut: Rachel Kramer Bussel, Elizabeth Coldwell, Andrea Dale, Sage Vivant) and, because these are ebooks, again the publisher needn’t fret about passing guys going all weird at the sight of another guy with his kit off. As Cecilia wrote: ‘What [RR] have found is that the ebook audience is so overwhelmingly female that the “normal” rules of erotica publishing (you know the ones, the ones that say a woman has to be on the cover) Do Not Apply.‘

I think this is progress. Sure, we want to see men and couples on covers that exist in spaces other than those reserved for women. We want men to be sexualised in the way women are sexualised. We want het erotica for men and women to be represented by men and women on the covers. It’s called equality. And if ebooks can nudge erotica publishing in that direction, I’m happy.

I think it’s progress too. If the shoe was on the other foot I’d be pretty vexed if the cover of every erotica title for straight men featured only straight men on the cover. Not because I wouldn’t identify with the men, and not because I’d be squicked, but because… c’mon, identifying with and being interested in are pretty different things. And since men and women tend to be more alike than different, I have to assume you’d feel the same way.

Oh, one last thing, dear to my own personal, self-interested heart. Lloyd concludes here post with

Ravenous Romance are boldly targeting their erotica at women – and the strategy is clearly successful.

Look what’s riding high in their charts right now: The DILF Anthology

I mean, no one would dream of designing a book like that to market to straight men, would they?

Far be it from me to complain about that!

Via Petra Boynton, sex researcher Shere Hite, writing in The Indypendent, tackles a subject that’s very near and dear to my heart: the representation of hetero men in conventional pornography.

Pornography, it seems to me, presents a highly distorted image of men. While my research with thousands of men shows a different picture of “who men are sexually,” pornography imposes a rigid ideological view on male sexual feelings, expression and behavior. They are not the monolithic beings depicted in most porno images, nor do they find their authentic selves in pornography.

Ironically, pornography seems friendly to men — more than to women — but its underlying message makes fun of men. Subliminally, it tells men that their sexual expression is ridiculous, base, insensitive, even grotesque. Visually it frequently makes men look ugly and coarse, foolish and unappealing.

She said it here.

It’s almost cliché that women are presented as one-dimensional and cartoonish in porn. Critiques of women in porn are practically an industry unto itself. Extending that critique to men is rather refreshing.

An emerging criticism of her column and, presumably, her underlying work is that she misunderstands how men are depicted in porn. And while a quick tour this morning of popular porn upload sites like YouPorn and RedTube (we really are presented as almost voiceless, as always having and keeping erections, as uninterested in emotional contact or even non-penis physical contact) suggest she’s not that far off the mark.

But reading deeper into her column that’s not really her point. Even if everything that’s presented about men in porn was sexually enjoyable¹ to do, what’s really important is that it’s a really, really limited set of the full range of sexually enjoyable things that men can do with a partner.

Hite speaks in particular to something I think men (and, often, even our partners) tend to shy away from in real life and, evidently, avoid like the plague in porn. Here’s Hite.

Men say they enjoy masturbation because they can fantasize about whatever they want and there is no pressure on them to perform. During masturbation, in my research, men stimulate themselves in many more places than they do when with a partner.

...

But many men cut short foreplay because they are afraid they may lose the erection which they have been taught is necessary to enjoy sex and which would be “shameful” to lose. More men could reach much higher peaks of feeling and arousal if they did not feel anxious about how they should behave sexually.

The great middle of the bell-shaped curve of porn never goes there, never treats men as interesting or, especially, complicated or, quirkily, fun to play with. We’re remarkably fun to play with though.

I think it’s great that Hite has raised the question.

And hey, just in time for Kristina Lloyd’s Man Candy Monday photo over at porn-for-straight-women Erotica Cover Watch. Oh, and check out comments on this porn-for-women post by Jessica Freely.

And if you’re an adult you can click here for yet another entry.

[1: Although seriously, what’s fun about stopping everything to wank out a “money shot” when you’ve got a partner right there who, in real life, would welcome your orgasm in contact and would almost certainly enjoy more active participation in creating it? Especially when it’s done over, and over, and over, and over. And over! —fl]