I believe that sex noises are voluntary and culturally socialized rather than involuntary or naturally occurring. Based on popular imported pornography, it appears that asian women tend to make incredibly whiny, squeaky noises during the act when compared to Americans, who tend to make the “porno ringtone” sound that we’re all used to (“uhhh!”).
Do other cultures have different sex noises? Are there viking grunts, prussian warbles, and mesopotamian moans? What happens in the arab world?
What do you propose as the social transmission mechanism, and why do you think that porn is an accurate depiction of how regular people have sex?
I’d say that humor and imitation are probably the #1 social transmission mechanisms prior to porn; everyone has seen a kid jokingly do an “Uh, uhh, uhhh!” gag to another kid. I assume this could easily be picked up from overhearing an adult’s joke or even overhearing parents or relatives getting it on.
Though porn obviously isn’t an accurate depiction of normal sexual behavior, the noises are. You don’t see porn with people making elephant or clown noises instead of regular moans and groans.
I take it you aren’t familiar with the porn genre known as “clown porn”? Hint required by board regs: Googling would be NSFW.
Oh, I’m sure. What I mean is that in the grand scheme of things, porn noises are probably the element most accurate to their real-life counterparts.
Well, according to an American boyfriend of mine, I was to scream my lungs out (definitely Not Done in Spain, where most people live in apartments or townhouses) and “oh dios… oooOOO Dios… OH DIOOOOOOOX” was not acceptable.
Of course, whether screaming one’s lungs out is normal among American women or he just watched too much porn, I cannot tell.
We’ve had previous threads about for example “why women in Japanese porn scream a lot less than American porn actresses and use high-pitched voices” (I’m lazy); I recall that several people gave examples of different cultures expecting different behaviors.
Vocal pitch is only partially the result of anatomical differences between men and women, and the remaining factor is due to culturally expected norms. Gender expectations and manipulation of the vocal tract are normally learnt early, though sometimes later in instances of gender change. Other mannerisms such as nasalised delivery and ‘baby-talk’ registers are associated with a burikko performance (Japanese language, gender, and ideology: cultural models and real people).
Take it from someone who knows: What you see (or rather, hear) in porn is not the truth.
Yup. The sounds you hear in porn from different countries are NOT the sounds that people from those countries make during sex. They’re the sounds that porn producers from those countries think their home audiences will find particularly arousing.
You’d be better off asking “What is it about the way that Asian cultures construct gender roles that would make Asian men tend to find squeaky voices more arousing?”
I don’t watch porn, but I watch normal Hollywood movies, and I would say that movies standardize behaviour. There’s a standard Hollywood kiss (and American women lifting up one leg) that occurs in almost every movie or TV series. How often do you see different behaviour in real life?
Oftentimes, other off-screen actors are adding more pronounced sound effects. The sound sometimes doesn’t even sync up with the onscreen action. Perhaps a better question to ask is does American phone sex sound anything like Japanese phone sex. Anyone know the answer to that?
Alternatively, the movies could be depicting what people actually do.
I have been with a grand total of one Japanese woman, and she definitely didn’t do the “Squeak squeak, oh, my what’s happening? squeak squeak” routine that is typical of Japanese pornography. Contrarily, she opted for cowgirl and punched me hard enough in the chest to leave a bruise when she climaxed. (Both times, dammit.)
And the one time a Canadian girl started giving a typical North American porn performance during the act, I laughed out loud and she went into a deep sulk.
That sort of stuff is great for porn, but relating it to actual sex is just silly.
I used to live above a Chinese couple that spoke very little English. The woman made the same sounds having sex as most Euro-American women I’ve been intimate with. YMMV.
From what I can gather, German women make a noise that roughly sounds like what I assume a cow would make if kicked in the udders.
It had to be English, he got angry any time I said anything in Spanish. No, we didn’t last long.
Kinda begs the question…why would the home audience find a particular sound arousing? And why is this sound different between different cultures?
What’s more annoying is when they use different slang for the target audience. I’m a fan of the “Gonzo” video producer Ben Dover. He’s a Brit, shooting other Brits. So why are they using the American slang terms for body parts?
What a wonderful term! I hate that sound that all the San Fernando Valley porn actresses all make “mmmmYeah!” in a whiny voice. That’s why amateur porn tends to be more enjoyable - the people involved haven’t learned how they are supposed to sound, so it’s far more believable.
¿Cómo te va