"The Porn Myth"

Originally posted by redmage


The fact of the matter is that guys enjoy seeing the nude female form in all shapes and sizes. You generally don't see obese women in "glamour mags", or hollywood blockbusters, yet the porn industry has categories devoted to just that. Why? Because there's a market out there, and there are men who will buy it. Likewise, there are categories for all body-types. Not all porn models/actresses are 38/22/36, and not all men are looking for that.

Yes, but what you need to realize is that these are fetishes, not mainstream pornography which is emulated and amalmagated into mainstream culture, i.e. magazines, movies and tv. Most people do not find BBW attractive, which is exactly why it is a fringe fetish, otherwise BBW would be mainstream porn.

Women need to learn to be happy with themselves, and less cruel to one another. Honestly, it really doesn't matter what a woman looks like; there will always be a guy out there who thinks she looks absolutely perfect.

[edit on 8/5/08 by redmage]

It's nice that you're so optimistic, but I think you need a reality check. If men liked to see average looking, normal looking, unairbrushed women, those are the women who would make up the male fantasy that is porn. But clearly that is not what they want to see because it's not what sells.

Originally posted by RogerT
Another is that 'foreign' women are more in touch with their femininity than 'westernised feminists' who are often more like men in skirts than actual women

It's just a personal observation of mine that this is just not so. It is one made by someone who spent their life in Hawaii and the Pacific. I grew up with kids whose mothers were Asian or Filipino nationals and whose fathers were Caucasian (military mostly) and their mothers were no more submissive around the house (far from it) than the American women. (Caucasian or otherwise) In fact, many of them were pistols, and absolutely ruled the home.

I also worked in construction overseas, and quite a few of my co-workers would take "sex vacations" to Asia or the Philippines, and some of them married, and were quite disappointed when their docile and accommodating girlfriends turned out to be normal women after the ring and citizenship were established. I also know some of these wives and girlfriends, and so I have had the chance to talk with them. I have heard first hand that how you get a man, and how you live with one, (in their opinion) are different things.

I went to college with a Russian mail order bride and also had the chance to hear her own experience and the ones she related about her friends and their marriages. Although my schoolmate loved her husband and they stayed together, it was absolutely not always the case. Economic concerns were her main reason for getting into the marriage, and only because he was supportive of her desire to better herself as a person did the love grow between them.

Originally posted by RogerT
The essence of woman is yin, which is yielding, soft, quiet, receding and nurturing. Western culture now requires the modern woman to be aggressive, 'successful', driven and competitive. these are yang qualities, more suited to the man.

1 Almost all the Gauls are of tall stature, fair and ruddy, terrible for the fierceness of their eyes, fond of quarrelling, and of overbearing insolence. In fact, a whole band of foreigners will be unable to cope with one of them in a fight, if he calls in his wife, stronger than he by far and with flashing eyes; least of all when she swells her neck and gnashes her teeth, and poising her huge white arms, proceeds to rain punches mingled with kicks, like shots discharged by the twisted cords of a catapult.

The above is an account of the European female as seen from "Western" Roman eyes. The whole history by Ammianus Marcellinus can be read here.

penelope.uchicago.edu...*.html

Originally posted by RogerT
Unfortunately, the feminist evolution has resulted in the emasculation of the male, and he is now taking on the yin qualities, perhaps as a balance. Now we are all confused and becoming androgenous - just like the fashion models we see daily on the bill boards.

A man who can be "emasculated" by a female being herself, (whatever that may happen to be, as we are all, male and female alike, a range of shades of gray, not black and white) is already having an issue with his masculinity. I have been fortunate in that the males in my life by and large have been so secure in their masculine that they did not feel it was necessary to suppress any female in order to feel so. My grandfather, my father, my foster father, and many of my male co-workers were never threatened by anything a female did (or didnt do) and they were secure enough in who they were to not only allow me to excel, but to encourage me to be the best "me" I was. I havent a diminished view of their masculinity. To me, that is the embodiment of it. Of power in general. No one powerful needs to belittle another. Power is internal, and inherent, or it is a lie.

Perhaps the "western mindset" (which arose in the middle east and Mediterranean) instead of being what corrupted this mythological "perfect feminine," is instead the creator first and then perpetrator of the myth. After all, in Asia, the power of Yin is used in martial combat, not only for flower arranging. Perhaps women were then, and have always been, people. Just like men. Some aggressive by birth and nature, some naturally gentle and nurturing. Perhaps we should just all be allowed to be the thing that we were born to be. Either by the decree of some God or Gods, or by nature.

Originally posted by RogerT
Perhaps this is evolution, but I suspect we do need a return of the goddess.

After all, god is feminine, I am sure of it.

From the Bible, Genesis 1: 26-27

26 ¶ And God said, Let us make man in our image, 1 Cor. 11.7 after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Mt. 19.4 · Mk. 10.6

from the Rig Veda Hymn of Creation;

www.princeton.edu...

Not even nothing existed then
No air yet, nor a heaven.
Who encased and kept it where?
Was water in the darkness there?
Neither deathlessness nor decay
No, nor the rhythm of night and day:
The self-existent, with breath sans air:
That, and that alone was there.
Darkness was in darkness found
Like light-less water all around.

I find it much more likely (personally) that the highest Divinity is undifferentiated. Neither male nor female, but somehow both and neither simultaneously.

as you say, when the public desire meets big business the result is a a complete swamping of the market with low grade tacky merchandise, just enough to keep the customer happy. perhaps mens expectations of sex based on porn is wrong but that depends on the context its applied to in a relationship.. i`m sure many couples sex lives are only heightened by a bit of porn now and then. If a man expects a woman to behave like a porn slut thats his problem and you girls should just walk because all men aren`t like that, i`m not, nor are any of my friends.
to be fair i`ve been reading cosmo in the take-away for years, i must have read more articles on how to "give her a better orgasm" than i have eaten spring rolls!.. then pehaps a little of what tickles my fancy should come my way from time to time, and if that happens to be a bit of porn inspired sex then dammit, i think i deserve it, you think i got a muscled up tongue from doing press ups on it?

This is my favorite part of the article.

I will never forget a visit I made to Ilana, an old friend who had become an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem. When I saw her again, she had abandoned her jeans and T-shirts for long skirts and a head scarf.

I could not get over it. Ilana has waist-length, wild and curly golden-blonde hair. “Can’t I even see your hair?” I asked, trying to find my old friend in there. “No,” she demurred quietly. “Only my husband,” she said with a calm sexual confidence, “ever gets to see my hair.”

She must feel, I thought, so hot.

Porn is not wrong in itself, per se. But this is what it takes away from relationships, from society, and from marriage.

Compare that steaminess with a conversation I had at Northwestern, after I had talked about the effect of porn on relationships. “Why have sex right away?” a boy with tousled hair and Bambi eyes was explaining.

“Things are always a little tense and uncomfortable when you just start seeing someone,” he said. “I prefer to have sex right away just to get it over with. You know it’s going to happen anyway, and it gets rid of the tension.”

“Isn’t the tension kind of fun?” I asked. “Doesn’t that also get rid of the mystery?”

“Mystery?” He looked at me blankly. And then, without hesitating, he replied: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sex has no mystery.”

And this is the result of a society saturated with porn.

Originally posted by _Phoenix_
Edit: oh yeah one of the best breast implants I've seen is Veronica zemanova one mmmmm. She already had big ones, but I heard she didn't eat a lot and got really skinny, and lost fat in that area, so she got implants.

Ok, this is a plot twist!

I have been defending breast implants in this thread while you say you dislike them. Then you point out an example you like so I ran a Google image search and found results for Veronica. I have to say, IMO, those look obscenely over-sized, fake, and like they would feel really hard. In my opinion, that would be an example of a poor and way overdone set. One look at those and I think, 'Obviously fake.'

Funny how that turned out. lol

I guess when people think breast implants (especially when they don't know any women with them), they automatically think of big fake obvious plastic ones that feel like rocks. I've known women who I would NEVER had known had a boob job- and I am talking about relatives I have known my whole life- and then I have had friends where they walk in the door and I yell out, "OMG you had a boob job!" Just my two cents.

Like the Veronica case, it all comes back to personal preference. I love implants, you don't. You think hers are nice, I don't. lol

reply to post by sc2099


sounds like your judging the book by its cover. i personally love that bit, the tenseness between two people before they`ve slept together.

Originally posted by sc2099
Yes, but what you need to realize is that these are fetishes, not mainstream pornography which is emulated and amalmagated into mainstream culture, i.e. magazines, movies and tv. Most people do not find BBW attractive, which is exactly why it is a fringe fetish, otherwise BBW would be mainstream porn.

Now you're getting into the "chicken or the egg" argument. Personally, I'd argue that "porn" emulates the mainstream, not the other way around.

For ages BBW was the way to go. Just look at the nude models in classical art. Back then a full figure was a sign of wealth and beauty. Quite literally, it showed that one could not only afford to eat, but to also over indulge. Being skinny equated to being impoverished and undesirable. As mainstream tastes changed, so did the chosen models.

Originally posted by sc2099
It's nice that you're so optimistic, but I think you need a reality check. If men liked to see average looking, normal looking, unairbrushed women, those are the women who would make up the male fantasy that is porn. But clearly that is not what they want to see because it's not what sells.

You may need a "reality check" of your own.

If it didn't sell then the industry wouldn't make it. The fact of the matter is that they do make it because it sells.

I once held similar misconceptions until one of my female friends wanted to buy an adult natured "gag gift" for one of her friends; however, she was too afraid to go to the local shop alone. I was shocked to find that the vast majority of magazines actually featured "real women".

Honestly, if you're looking for airbrushing, then the biggest culprit would be the glamour mags that women buy every day. Sure there's some airbrushing in the "big 3" (Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler), but the vast majority of "porn" has very low standards when it comes to their photography. They either don't have the budget, or simply don't care when it comes to post-production. Grainy, bad lighting, blemishes, you name it; it all gets published, and it still sells.

[edit on 8/5/08 by redmage]

reply to post by sc2099


its kinda sad that kids now think that way: sex --- just a means to get rid of tension. porn definitely cheapened the whole thing.



[edit on 5-8-2008 by DuneKnight]

Originally posted by whatukno
Ah porn versus the real women.

At this point I do want to remind everone that pornstars are just people like you and me. It's just a job. In fact there is a porn star who lives in my town. I've bumped into her many times. I guess my point is: Porn stars are Real people too.

Vas

To answer the inevitable question. The porn star in my town is Gina Lynn. Hot, but a terrible actress.

Originally posted by Vasilis Azoth
I've bumped into her many times.

dude what did u mean by that exactly? lol
but seriously are the town folks okay with it.

[edit on 5-8-2008 by DuneKnight]

Originally posted by Illusionsaregrander

Originally posted by RogerT
Another is that 'foreign' women are more in touch with their femininity than 'westernised feminists' who are often more like men in skirts than actual women

... I grew up with kids whose mothers were Asian or Filipino nationals ... and their mothers were no more submissive around the house (far from it) than the American women. ...

Project much? Illionsaregrander didn't say ANYTHING about "submissive", he said "femininity". I wondered how long it would take before someone brought up the "men just think foreign women are submissive" argument.

What's feminine about seeing two chicks kissing in a bar? (And that's not limited to lesbian bars, either.) What's feminine about seeing chicks dressed pretty much like men? What's feminine about a woman (and this is true ESPECIALLY of career women) who thinks she has to be in control all the time? What's feminine about women thinking they can do EVERYTHING a man can do, and not only that, but do it better?

You know why guys like porn? Because it gives them a little fantasy that the chick is just as in to sex as him, wants him just as bad, and is willing to put the sex before just about anything else. That's why guys like porn.

Women, if your man likes to look at porn, odds are that you aren't keeping him satisfied in the bedroom. My wife (now deceased) put quality (and quantity!) sex before just about everything. In other words, WE were the most important thing in our marriage. Not the bills, not the (*GASP! SACRILEGE!*) kids, not the pets, not the chores. US. Because of her willingness and enthusiasm in the bedroom, I have no real desire to look at porn to this day. Think about that the next time you catch your man looking at porn.

reply to post by kosmicjack


I don't see why this is a problem. Porn encourages women to be more desirable by raising the level of their competition. Instead of competing with a few real women, they now have to match an endless supply of ultra-sexed, enhanced nymphs. It's a win-win.

Originally posted by sir_chancealotWomen, if your man likes to look at porn, odds are that you aren't keeping him satisfied in the bedroom.

In reality some guys prefer their hand over the effort of sex with another. That includes married guys, they spend their lives with their own "private time" and sex with another is NOT the same, they don't want to give that up exclusively just because they are in a relationship.

Sex is often work, porn is NOT work. Sex is thinking about the other, porn is just focusing on one's own pleasure. A guy could be married to the sexiest, most pleasing woman on the planet and still want his alone time. By himself he can make it 2 minutes or 20 minutes, however he wants it. If he beds his "sex goddess" it will require a LOT more effort, time, and energy.

So don't try to say men only use porn because the women in their lives aren't good in bed. That is just silly.

Originally posted by sir_chancealot
Women, if your man likes to look at porn, odds are that you aren't keeping him satisfied in the bedroom. My wife (now deceased) put quality (and quantity!) sex before just about everything. In other words, WE were the most important thing in our marriage. Not the bills, not the (*GASP! SACRILEGE!*) kids, not the pets, not the chores. US. Because of her willingness and enthusiasm in the bedroom, I have no real desire to look at porn to this day. Think about that the next time you catch your man looking at porn.

damnit, i had a big huge reply but my internet failed and i lost it..oh well, try again time.

I know some guys who use porn for masturbation 5 or more times every day.
Do you expect your women to keep up with that? Most of us would run out of bodily fluids on any but the very best of days with that much activity.
Not to mention, there are some days ANYONE, man or woman, just doesn't want to have sex.

As for us not doing well enough, if I were told I needed bigger breasts by a boyfriend he would get a swift kick in the nuts, followed by a snide comment about if I have to make myself bigger so does he. And by no means am I a size-enthusiast, but it's the same type of self-conciousness about our breasts as men have about their penises. Except you can see ours even when we're wearing almost all outfits, and judge us even when we are fully clothed.

On a related note, while my current boyfriend is considerate, I have been in the kind of relationship where theres 2 minutes of humping and then he rolls over and falls asleep, so don't you dare tell me I'M the one not doing enough in bed.
The same guy once told me I should "improve" my performance. I informed him I would get tips on how to do better once he repaid me all the orgasms he'd had in our relationship. Needless to say, I didn't need to improve a damn thing, as he never got even 1% of that debt repaid.
It just goes to show how selfish some men (notice how I did not say all, I know that there are some who are not selfish, or at least not as much so) can be, thinking that the sex that they get isn't "good enough"
But let me tell you, you could be getting none at all. Always remember that, because I can tell you we know where you'd be without us.

Let's not forget that statistically, almost every man will have an orgasm every time he has sex (not counting if you get interupted by the phone, the kids, the emergency, etc) and many women will never have one in their entire lives. So count yourselves lucky that you can, and lucky that there's a woman out there willing to help you get there.

reply to post by Sonya610


Completely true.

Also, it doesn't matter how attractive his wife is. After a little while, it's all old hat to him. Porn gets old too, but you can always freshen up your supply with new movies and magazines or whatever. Even if you make your wife get a bunch of cosmetic surgery and dye her hair and dress up in a costume, she's still the same person.

Originally posted by sc2099
This is my favorite part of the article.

“Can’t I even see your hair?” I asked, trying to find my old friend in there. “No,” she demurred quietly. “Only my husband,” she said with a calm sexual confidence, “ever gets to see my hair.”

She must feel, I thought, so hot.

Hiding your hair for a man's pleasure, to me, is no different than doing anything to please a man. I just dont think one should let someone else in anyway dictate the person that they are. I think your own preferences should. I think one should be the person one is, have the hair YOU like, wear it how YOU like, dress how YOU like, behave how (within reason, harming none) YOU like, and let those who like YOU, like you.

If you need to maintain a "mystery" to be arousing, that strikes me as still being a game.

No offense. I think porn in some ways is harmful, I just dont think the taking away of "mystery" is the harmful part. I personally think the harm is done by ALL media, that presents images of people, (women much more so than men) that are unrealistic. It skews the idea of "average" in the minds of men and women alike. If you see a thousand faces a day, and 775 of those faces are media images, and those are presented of women are those who are around the top 1% of all women in looks, (and oh so young) this makes you (unconsciously) skew your idea of the average looking female.

In the past, people lived in their little communities, and they would see one or two truly remarkably beautiful men or women in their entire lives. If that. They KNEW those very beautiful people were oddities, rarities, and out of reach. Today, we are barraged by images of the exceptionally beautiful, (male and female) they are the MOST common images we see, and so as our minds perform their own calculus, we average all of the faces we see, (unconsciously, media or live,) and we come to the conclusion that "average" is much more beautiful than it is. Women who in terms of their relationship to the general population of all people are above average, are below average in terms of all the images of women they see. They feel bad about themselves as they are below "par" when par is a number skewed by misrepresentation.

Since the media is more tolerant of unattractiveness or aging in males, (though that is changing) average men still feel average, they simply feel entitled to a better looking "average" female than the real population supports. That is the thing I find most interesting, not so much the delusion of women who feel unattractive when they shouldnt, but the men who feel that their level of entitlement is soooo much higher than their own looks, or status would naturally support. Some of them are just as confused by the skewing of "average" as women are, they are just on the lucky end of this distortion. I love hearing guys say a beautiful actress or model is hideous, when in person they wouldnt even rate a second glance from her. Only in their own media influenced minds, where homely male actors (or porn stars, like Ron Jeremy) have beautiful young women begging for them, would they even think for a second she might be beneath them physically (genetically) speaking.

[edit on 5-8-2008 by Illusionsaregrander]

Originally posted by EverythingYouDespise

I don't see why this is a problem. Porn encourages women to be more desirable by raising the level of their competition.

Lol, you are a sly one, trying to egg on a fight.

Why compete when there is no prize? I have never competed with another woman for a man. No man who would expect you to compete for their love or regard is worth the effort. Its quite simple really.

No woman who would make you compete for their love is worth the effort either, btw, it is all about their own ego, male or female, if there is a jumping through hoops category to the romance.

Someone who loves themselves, male or female, so much that you are merely an ego enhancement is no prize and thus, not worth the effort.

Originally posted by sir_chancealot

Project much? Illionsaregrander didn't say ANYTHING about "submissive", he said "femininity". I wondered how long it would take before someone brought up the "men just think foreign women are submissive" argument.

Actually, it was Illusionsaregrander you were trying to slam, not poor Roger.

He is the one who said femininity, where I said submissive. And the discussion was carried forth from two earlier posts. If you read them both, you would see that "yielding" or other euphemisms for what I called submission were used as feminine qualities.

Neither one of us originated the "foreign women are submissive or more desirable" line of thought in this thread. We were just a chain reaction to someone elses post that did, and debating our own position on whether or not this was the case.

With sex being one of the most gracious gifts God gave to man, it saddens me to see what the porn industry has accomplished over the years. Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate a beautiful woman as well as the next normal male. But after having been seduced by the internet and the cornucopia of visual porn images, I find myself jaded when presented with a "normal" female. I truly believe Satan devises and uses new methods on a regular basis to lure the faithful and the internet has to be one of his most powerful recent tools. I have recently installed "nanny" software on my computers to help me resist temptation. In summary, the real thing, while harder to obtain, remains far more pleasurable and rewarding than some professional display of artificial lewdness.

Originally posted by Illusionsaregrander
Hiding your hair for a man's pleasure, to me, is no different than doing anything to please a man. I just dont think one should let someone else in anyway dictate the person that they are

Well it’s a religious thing so they are doing it for God not for their husbands.

But that makes me ponder how women in Muslim countries feel about body image and all that. Countries like Iran do not allow fashion magazines or any graphic photographs of women’s bodies, so Iranian women would not spend their lives thinking “Oh no my thighs don’t look like the models in Cosmo!"

Plus they must dress quite modestly because “the hijab is the oyster
shell and the woman inside is the pearl” which has to reinforce their belief in their sensual appeal. The whole purpose of covering up is to avoid tempting men, which implies they are very very tempting indeed!


[edit on 5-8-2008 by Sonya610]