It's never too early for porn, but it *is* too early for this level of frustration

[clevermanka]

Here I was, merrily reading along in this article on porn, finding things I agreed with, things I disagreed with, and things I really didn't care about one way or the other. Then I came across this paragraph and my head exploded:

Hard-core porn, which is what Internet porn largely traffics in, is undoubtedly extreme. But how is sex, as a human experience, anything less than extreme? Not the kind of sex (or lack thereof) that occurs in marriages that double as domestic gulags. Or what 30-somethings do to each other in the second year of their “serious relationship.” But the sex that occurs in between relationships—or overlaps with relationships—where the buffers of intimacy or familiarity do not exist: the raw, unpracticed sort. If a woman thinks of the best sex she’s had in her life, she’s often thinking of this kind of sex, and while it may be the best sex in her life, it’s not the sex she wants to have throughout her life—or more accurately, it’s not the sex she’d have with the man with whom she’d like to spend her life.

1. As a past-30-something in a "serious relationship," I still want mind-blowing sex. Maybe not every single time, but yeah, I think it's safe to say I want it occasionally for the rest of my life. With my partner.

2. Hello, heterosexual bias! Jesus H., could that be more obvious/offensive?

3. I'm not an expert on the subject, but I'm going to voice my uncertainty that internet porn is "largely trafficked" by hardcore porn. I'd like to see some download statistics, please. And maybe a definition of "hardcore."

The only thing about this paragraph that I can respect is her proper use of "whom."

The author then goes on to use some Freudian analysis (yes, really), denigrating comments about "the women's liberation movement" and other feminist stances through the ages, throws in a totally inaccurate comparison to SF (oh, and uses the hated "sci-fi" moniker no I am not shitting you), and then takes note of all those poor women (past and present) who have succumbed to the call of posing for porn or participating in sexual acts not because they want to, but because men want them to.

And let's not overlook her thoughts on those dirty, dirty men!

While sexual aggression and the desire to debase women may not be what arouse all men, they are certainly an animating force of male sexuality. They may be unattractive and even, if taken to extremes, dangerous, but they’re not, perhaps alas, deviant.

Perhaps alas? Perhaps alas? What. The. Fuck. Also, news flash for you author lady: Anything taken to extremes is dangerous.

removing pornography won’t alter the unlovely aspects of male sexuality that porn depicts and legitimizes

I can't even respond to this one because my brain just hit the wall behind me with such force that it's going to take me a few minutes and maybe another cup of coffee to recover.

PERHAPS ALAS, I'll only be online until about 10:00 this morning, but if anyone else is up this early and cares to subject themselves to that article, I'd love to hear your opinion on it. Perhaps my porn-loving brain is too biased to get the good out of what she's saying with this load of crap article.

Comments

[normalcyispasse.livejournal.com]

I couldn't actually make it past a few paragraphs into the article. It didn't hold my interest and seemed both sciolistic, sophomoric, and (continuing the alliteration) soapboxy.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I have no idea why I kept reading. Masochism, I suppose. Oh, wait, that's probably because I'm a woman, and I only experience urges because I want to please men, and men are violent, so therefore I should want to like pain.

Everything makes so much sense now.

[theslice.livejournal.com]

Women = innocent flowers who only want relationships (with men)
Men = dirty scumbags who only live to debase women

Got it. I had thought the women's movement was about dispelling stereotypes, not enforcing them, but maybe I didn't go read that article enough times. Yeesh.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I had thought the women's movement was about dispelling stereotypes, not enforcing them

The feminist movement, like any other large group, has many facets. Some of those facets, perhaps alas, are just super annoying.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I think it's worse than that. I think, perhaps alas, that Ms. Vargas-Cooper (http://www.natashavc.com/) has no grasp on the subtler points of human sexuality and doesn't understand women at all. Least of all, herself.

[ms-danson.livejournal.com]

The few tidbits you posted were enough for me to mentally give it a "mimetic prophylactic recommended" warning.

edit: Read the article... well, skimmed as much as my brain could take without imploding. I think her point (difficult to determine) was that she hates men, women, and sex. I'm glad I don't live in her world; it sounds miserable.

[shrijani.livejournal.com]

I think her point (difficult to determine) was that she hates men, women, and sex. I'm glad I don't live in her world; it sounds miserable.

Ditto.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid, perhaps alas, that you're right. It's kind of sad. Maybe this is how she keeps sex interesting for her: She needs to feel she's debasing herself in order to become aroused, so she writes pieces about bad men (I noticed on her website (http://www.natashavc.com/) that she writes about this sort of thing a lot).

[bluetourmaline.livejournal.com]

Precisely. From just the parts Chernobylred quoted, it sounds like a "how I perceive sex to be for me is how sex is for everybody, or damn well should be." Alas (no perhaps about it), a common view on the Internet and in the media.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

she hates men, women, and sex. I'm glad I don't live in her world; it sounds miserable

Agreed. But it also sounds as if she likes it that way.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Personally I think she gets off on pretending porn is dirtier than it really is.

What's interesting and goes against her arguments is that porn marketing studies show that vanilla hetero porn is mainly consumed by men, but women tend to be the consumers of the weirder fetish stuff (the obvious exception being fem dom, which has an overwhelming male consumer rate.)

Even gay male porn gets about a 33 to 40 percent female consumer rate. And erotic stories about teenage gay males hits something like 80 percent female consumer rate (though this is hugely skewed by Yaoi and slash porn. Why millions of women masturbate about Draco Malfoy fucking Harry Potter up the ass will always be a mystery to me).

I wish I still had the market research report one of my clients gave me last year, but rape, Dolcett and fake snuff porn skews hugely to the female audience as does most BDSM stuff.

What I do find interesting is that FemDom could be the porn that empowers women the most, but it's actually the least interesting to female porn consumers.

[malovich.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the fact-free Media Village mindset. All jounalism is opinion and in support of 'old-fashioned values' (read: people who want to pay large sums of money for influence). It's no surprise that most of these articles seem to support Republicans the vast majority of the time.

These yahoos are about writing narratives, not reporting facts, research, discoveries or *real* news.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

These yahoos are about writing narratives, not reporting facts, research, discoveries or *real* news.

I don't mind that it's an opinion piece, I just wish people would make an effort to base their opinions on facts. Just a little. For a change. That whole notion seems to be out of style these days, though.

[verminiusrex.livejournal.com]

I got through the first page, but saw there were three more pages of opinion waiting to be shoved down my throat. Suddenly laundry and dishes seemed like a better use of my time.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Suddenly laundry and dishes seemed like a better use of my time.

Better, indeed.

[adammaker.livejournal.com]

Remember, any sexuality slightly different than yours is ICKY, and perhaps alas, IMMORAL.

Remember kids, only my morals exist, and those things called ethics are wrong because they might be different than mine.

Sheeesh.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Oh, see, I think it's exactly the opposite: This entire piece is all about Ms. Vargas-Cooper (http://www.natashavc.com/) fighting against her own disgusting (to herself) desires, and perhaps alas she'd do better to accept who she is before writing future pieces. She's having a tough time deciding on her perfect sex partner: rapist or eunich?

[slinka.livejournal.com]

Just read the article quickly but the by-line "The new world of porn is revealing eternal truths about men and women" doesn't sit right for me. Seems to me that porn doesn't fulfill biological expectations but societal ones. The line "While sexual aggression and the desire to debase women may not be what arouse all men, they are certainly an animating force of male sexuality" seems more societal expectation informing fantasy reinforcing societal expectation, not an "eternal truth". Take this with a grain of "I am not a Scientist but..."

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

the by-line "The new world of porn is revealing eternal truths about men and women" doesn't sit right for me

Wow, I didn't even see that when I read it. If I had, I probably wouldn't have bothered reading the damn thing. Of course, then I wouldn't have gotten such great responses to my rant.

porn doesn't fulfill biological expectations but societal ones

Oooo. I like that!

[shrijani.livejournal.com]

I didn't get all the way through it, couldn't, really, but it is pretty clear that she needs to be shot.

I don't consume much porn. I read my Marquis de Sade when I want to howl with laughter, not because I find it comical, but because the language is of the sort that makes me do that: howl, jump up and down, roll back on the sofa and kick my feet in the air. Some of his works include long passages about politics, atheism, and family dynamics, among other things. There's a fair amount of brutality, but I think people who've never read his writing think that it is bereft of humor or intelligence, which it is certainly not, but I digress.

Does she, at any point, acknowledge that sex which is deviant in the extreme has indeed been recorded on some medium, distributed, and become very, very popular? If not, she is forgetting our dear, disturbed Donatien, and even from the bland safety of my sexually pedestrian life, I cannot abide that kind of negligence.

Those details aside, she makes sweeping generalizations throughout the portion of the article that I read, implying that the vast majority of men are, essentially, rapists, and that's not supported by any -good- science that I know of (I've been researching this a little bit lately, since I have access to scholarly journals right now).

I'm going to stop, now, because I am writing a whole post here in your comments, which is probably a little rude. =)

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

The author is, indeed, a generalization queen.

And you could have written much more without my minding. Your opening sentence alone was worth the price of entry.

Hmm.

[shrijani.livejournal.com]

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-womens-tears-20110107,0,842631.story

Re: Hmm.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I heard about that, too, and it would seem to put the lie to Ms. Vargas-Cooper (http://www.natashavc.com/)'s thesis that PERHAPS ALAS men are rapacious beasts at heart.

[stuology.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, alas, it is my raging headache, but my impression after reading the entire thing is I have no fucking idea what her point is. I thought only my daughter was able to talk that much and say absolutely nothing.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

PERHAPS ALAS Ms. Vargas-Cooper (http://www.natashavc.com/) doesn't know what she really wants to say. She appears to be a big fan of the Mad Men TV show, too. I suspect that, more than anything else, this piece is about her own conflicted sexuality.

How much you want to bet that, deep down, she's really Marla Singer of Fight Club?

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I started writing a response to her article, but perhaps alas I realized it would become its own article, and I don't want to honor this opinion piece quite that much. It's an interesting free-writing emotional dump about the author's apparent approach/aversion to certain kinds of sexuality and sexual acts (wow, but is extreme anal sex all she thinks about...), but she uses no facts or evidence to support any of her claims... oh, wait, except about the rise of anal sex.

When I finished the article (yes, I couldn't look away - perhaps alas supporting her claim about how the internets lure us into an inescapable trap), I was left with the feeling that here's a person who is so conflicted about her own sexuality that she feels the need to summon various feminists in order to try to come to terms with it... but that ultimately she has abandoned her desires and that this is a long argument about how such desires were implanted by the internet and sick male-monkey brains and, golly but she can't wait to reach her 40s when she will no longer feel such desires!

Whatever. Ultimately, it's a nihilistic piece, because she offers no solutions to the scourge of internet porn nor to the disease that is Male Desire. Perhaps alas this monologue needs a bit of refinement. Could be interesting if it were a bit more honest.

But what do I know? I'm a human male.

[solan-t.livejournal.com]

....

Wait, what were you saying? I got distracted by your icon.

[redheadfae.livejournal.com]

Just from the bits you posted, I can't do it. I can't, perhaps alas, subject myself to what passes for opinion, because hers certainly isn't informed opinion.

I'm going to call for my sexually debasing partner now, and see if we can't summon up some of that mind-blowing extreme sex, that I'm sure at our ages and in this marriage, we're not supposed to be having.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

YOU'RE DIRTY AND SUBJUGATING YOURSELF TO MAN'S DESIRE.

[jimmy-hollaman.livejournal.com]

what a horrible article, all i got out of it was bla bla bla. What a bunch of horse crap.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I understand when some people dislike porn and the effect it can have on people who cannot control their use of it. But it's like anything else: food, drugs, heck, even exercise. If you use it as a tool to cover for something else in your life, it's unhealthy.

Hoever, saying the thing itself is bad because some people have a problem with it is unhelpful and stupid. Also stupid is saying it's a bad thing based on absolutely inaccurate data.

[amjhawk.livejournal.com]

I found this - I just had to search:

"Part of what makes The Witch of Exmoor so boring is its author's obvious boredom, not just with her material, but the form of the novel itself. This is an author who seems to be stymied by self-doubt: she can't even write "alas" but must instead use "perhaps alas," and though the average reader shouldn't be expected to ask what plagues Drabble so, the question - and its answer - is more interesting than Drabble's novel suggests."

My new favorite phrase, too!