'Why is there no porn for women?'- 101 clichés about females and sex

Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I want to watch
'A Woman, Her Cat and a 19-Year-Old Boy'.

While hardly original, the lament in the post title features again and again amongst female media employees. The latest one to get my goat is 'CityKat', the poor man's Sam Brett of 'Sam and the City' fame, who features on the Brisbane Times website. I avoid these 'bloggers' even more religiously than I avoid opinion writers, and for good reason.

'Why is there no decent porn for women?' is just another way to inject a sex/porn/rape headline that attracts clicks. Lots and lots of clicks. The women that write these things are inevitably as fond of pigeonholing female sexuality as any of the 'patriarchy' they believe they have left behind in the process of writing about sex.

The usual reaction to this question, leaving aside the fundies who believe that all porn is abhorrent and evil, is to point the person who asked it in the direction of a 'female porn director' like Candida Royalle. That's what Cosmo did years and years ago before I gave reading it up (and probably before I had ever encountered porn). But to do so is to stoop to the time-worn cliché that 'what women want' consists of soft-focus, stocking-over-the-camera-lens depictions of sex featuring lots of female orgasms and not too much cock.

'CityKat' (a.k.a. Katherine Feeney) manages to avoid mentioning Candida Royalle (who must be just about producing porn for the nursing home demographic by now), but can't resist the bread and butter of the 'what women want' sex cliché:

... pornography encompasses a range of visual material (videos, photos, animations, peep shows, etc). All such examples are still squarely aimed at men...

As opposed to visuals, women are told they respond better to invisible, intangible motivations like feelings and emotions and smells and other 'girly' gear. We're readers, not viewers. We enjoy erotic text, not pictures. Well that's what we're told.

As a woman, I concur with this dominant theory - fragrant candles, a sensual massage and the sounds of a throaty French chanson piping through the house turns me on like you wouldn't believe.

But so too does sex with the lights on. Or catching my reflection when wearing garters, stockings and heels. And the male body by moonlight? Well, you get the picture.

Basically, she buys the stereotype. 'CityKat' seems to think she's blowing the stereotype of women not being 'visual creatures' because she likes to see the male body by moonlight.

Maybe that's fair enough for someone who's never been tempted to opt out of this common form of social stereotyping. Maybe, to someone glued to such an outmoded mindset, being turned on by a 'male body' bathed in moonlight seems totally outrageous. "I was, like, turned on by something I saw. With, like, my eyes! And they said it could never happen. Take that, stereotyping!"

Anyone who's read about the so-called research behind the 'why women aren't aroused by porn' theory would know that it went something like this:

1. A bunch of men and a bunch of women are hooked up to plethysmographs that measure the amount of blood going to their bits.

2. They are then shown a bunch of naughty pictures and a bunch of benign pictures.

3. The data from the plethysmographs show that both men and women experienced increased blood flow to their bits upon viewing the naughty pictures- evidence of physiological arousal.

4. Men agreed that they were turned on by the naughty pictures, but the women denied it.

5. The researchers happily concluded that women aren't turned on by naughty visuals but by more subtle things like soft music and candles (maybe even a deep-throaty French-whatchamacallit).

The reality is probably closer to what research has shown about what women report when it comes to the number of sexual partners they have had. Namely, men report a bazillion and women report "I'm a virgin... okay, maybe just one... or two". People (eventually) concluded from that that maybe the women just weren't telling the truth about the number of sexual partners they'd had. Why? Because there is (was?) a social perception that it was unacceptable for women to engage in sex with a large number of partners (one at a time, mind- the alternative wasn't even contemplated!). Strangely, no-one seems to have jumped to the same conclusion about women and porn, and how it's much more socially acceptable for a woman to be turned on by the idea of glasses of wine over a candlelit dinner followed by a long sensual massage than by some hardcore fuckfest. To me, they both sound like a great recipe for a good night's sleep, but only the latter would ensure some fun before the Zzz's set in.

I'm afraid the remainder of CityKat's post wobbles off into the land of blogtwaddle... resorting to exhorting commenters to provide their own incredible insights into some really vapid stimulating questions, including:

If we were all encouraged to find middle ground between having sex and making love, might we all be a little more satisfied?

Huh?

Leaving aside that anticlimactic finish, and without intending to diss 'CityKat' or any woman turned on by scented candles and all things French, well sure I may scoff because it's not to my taste, but I don't care if someone gets turned on by furniture- good for them! Nope, I just want to reiterate once more that aside from a bunch of people sharing the common characteristic of having two X chromosomes, there is no such demographic as 'women'. 'Women' don't find scented candles and moonlight any more arousing just because some of them claim to find it sexy any more than 'women' love porn with lots of cock and hot manly grunting just because that's what I go in for. So please, scrap the crap about 'porn for women'. It's just as insulting as it would be to claim that porn of girls giving themselves milk enemas and squirting it out of their arses is 'porn for men'. It's not. It's for people who get off on seeing enemas, just as vaseline-smeared camera lenses and fake romance is for people who get off on stereotypically 'sensual' and 'romantic' fantasies.

Anyone complaining that they feel there's nothing out there in the porn world that caters to their tastes may just have a point. Saying that there's no porn 'for women' is just sexist rubbish- it's just a shame that it always seems to be women spouting it.

Dying with dignity, beauty and love is... wrong?

When I read about the death of the death of British orchestral conductor Sir Edward Downes and his wife, as sad an event as it is for their families, I couldn't help thinking that, of all the ways to die, that's the way I'd choose to go. So when the New York Times and every other media outlet that has reported the news does it like this:

... even among those who support decriminalizing assisted suicide, Sir Edward’s death raised troubling questions

... I'd just like to tell them to fuck right off.

I mean, an old married couple, incredibly close, one of whom is dying and the other an invalid, choose to die a peaceful death together, holding hands. How can anyone pretend there's something wrong with that? How can people keep pretending there's a debate?

The only thing wrong with what happened was that they had to fly to a foreign country and carry out this last act in a grotty anonymous building somewhere instead of being able to die at home.

I really hope that by the time Gam and I are that old that we will be living in a more civilised society that doesn't believe in forcing an agonising death and unbearable grief on people who've lived together to a ripe old age and can't bear to be parted. The way we do things now is cruel.

National Day of Action for Same-Sex Marriage

August 1 is a national day of action for same-sex marriage in Australia. Every capital city is hosting some kind of event or rally (including Brisbane, for once!), so everyone who's not a bigot should show up and lend their support.

Join the Facebook group, sign up to email updates or whatever- just find out where your nearest rally is being held and head on down on August 1 :)

Dear Liberals

Two Australian citizens are captured and detained without trial by a foreign government. They are charged with serious crimes and look set for a decidedly unfair legal high jump. What should the Australian government do?

A) Jump up and down in a disgusting, arrogant orgy of grandstanding with only the barest concern over the welfare of an Australian in dire straights.

B) Assume they are guilty and abandon them to their fate, they've been arrested by a major ally and trading partner after all, we support their right to defend themselves by any means necessary. If possible, slander them in the media.

C) Work quietly and diligently through established channels to get the best outcome for the person, there are established protocols for this sort of thing and we don't want to go off half cocked.

D) It depends which one is David Hicks and which one is Stern Hu


- Edit: I just want to point out that although my name is at the bottom of this post, Gam is actually the author... I (naughtily) signed on using his computer because my own was temporarily dead and forgot to sign out! The inherent cleverness of the post ought to alert everyone to this fact anyhow :)

-S

Creeeepy

My goodness. When a mother starts complaining that a man’s girlfriend has stolen her place in his life, that’s evidence that mum has issues. Apparently Mitchell Johnson’s mother is getting antsy that he takes his girlfriend Jessica Bratich on tour instead of her. No joke- to the point where she's yapping to the media. Of course a girlfriend gets treated differently from a mother, sweetheart, and it’s creepy that you think it ought to be any other way.

And if I was in Johnson’s shoes, I’d be keeping my distance too. Yikes.

Stay and get executed. Go, and be crucified.

From The Australian:

FEARS that ex-Tamil fighters may be passing themselves off as refugees will lead to the latest boatload of unauthorised arrivals - believed to be Tamils - being subjected to a particularly rigorous security screening process

WTF? What threat do they pose here, exactly? Given that ex-LTTE fighters are typically executed on the spot if identified by the Sri Lankan army, how can they not be considered refugees? When some top LTTE officials tried to surrender, a move negotiated by a top UN official, shortly after the end of the official fighting (but surely not the brutality), the Sri Lankan Army shot them in the head.

Until the Sri Lankan government is held to account for its behaviour and is forced to clean up its act, any Sri Lankan who makes claim to being a refugee upon arriving here should have their claim accepted.

Adopting a cat? Consider UQ.

From the most recent staff newsletter:

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Finding a loving home would be the cat's whiskers
UQ's School of Veterinary Science has a number of cats desperately looking for loving new homes. Rescued from the pound, they have been cared for by University researchers while they have taken part in a study and now it is time for them to be adopted. There are both male and female cats of all ages. They are all desexed, vaccinated, wormed and micro-chipped. Details: Renee or Nicole on 3365 3064.
==================

UQ's small animal clinic also has a profile and lists animals up for adoption on Pet Rescue, the website on which we found our lovely Xiaoxiao. There's a link in the sidebar on the right-hand side of the page :)

Media, still dumb/crooked

As usual the media only appear to be doing their jobs when a ready made, pre-packaged scandal falls into their laps. There are indications that it was known Malcopops had the dodgy email before he made reference to it and even after he did:

1) No one bothered to ask him where he got it from
2) The media, mostly the Murdoch rags, were integral in promoting the fake email as true, accepting something from the Libs and printing it as unsourced truth. No doubt as part of the seemingly endless campaign to tar Rudd with something media pea-brains can understand and don't need to do too much work to uncover.
3) There's been no analysis of how the email got from the Libs to the front page of Murdoch's cage liners anonymously. Maybe Godwin Gretch will tell the AFP and we'll find out.
4) The media are still stuck in the lazy loop of repeating other people's statements and trying to insert themselves into the story, as usual.

I read some ridiculous piece by some guy and George Megalogenis on how no one really knew Gretch, but they had the inside line on how he was a bit weird but a stand up guy. Their evidence for this? Gretch's involvement as the treasury official in charge of a Howard government pork barrel hand out to his 'favourite' footy club. He had daily meetings with Howard to report on the progress of the deal and we're to believe that it wasn't shady because he 'never accepted a free footy ticket.' Get fucked guys.

Maybe the real story here is the nature and the extent of the relationship between News Corp., the Liberal opposition and Gretch. Gretch seems to be the source of every government 'scandal' from Fuel Watch onwards, scandals that News Corp. always seemed to have an inside line on. I wonder if having a mole on the inside might explain the smugly confident 'we'll get him eventually' tone of News Corp. reporting on Rudd. The fact that they were willing to throw down with Malcopops and attack Rudd on a single email of dubious origin, when the 'evidence' (evidence that Swan talked to Mr Free-ute, who wound up getting no help from the government) pointed to Swan seems to suggest a lot of investment in one side of politics.

The whole issue is a massive I-told-you-so from this blog which declared when Rudd took office that he should begin immediately by purging the public service of Howard era inbreds, nepotism appointments and water-treaders. Perhaps the image of Godwin Gretch (whose cronies have already started the 'health concerns' stuff) going on a retreat to involuntary accommodation behind bars and showers with soap on a rope might encourage some of his contemporaries to think twice before ringing Malcopops or make them change jobs.

We need a definition

For the feeling that you get when you think: The only thing that makes Malcopops' own goal sweeter is that it happened a week after Peter Costello gave up waiting for the leadership to fall into his lap. Peter Costello: whenever opportunity knocked, he had his door dead-bolted.