God help me, I want to post to their board… but I just don’t have anything constructive to say.
I dont feel opressed.
I feel angered at their ability to convince women that they have problems that we really dont.
But I will not troll. I WILL NOT TROLL!
I will also not start referring to men as myn just to fuck up their whole jargon.
I will not explain how far back in my head my eyes can roll when I read the word “shero”.
No, no. I won’t,
Must…resist…
Another great quote:
“It seems to me that some of Cecil Adams’ followers are doing everything possible to promote ignorance and this is tolerated and encouraged on their board. They seem very self-satisfied with their ignorance and only a few have actually bothered to try to comprehend what we have actually been discussing. Their rude and judgemental participation on our threads and their assumption that they are entitled to respect and deference epitomizes the concept of pompous ass for me.”
Ugh. I should stop going back there and following that thread; it’s making me too angry.
What? They insulted the Master?
DIE DIE DIE!!!
I think it’s more than that. When I look at the site stats for my website, I’m always finding that someone has typed in “women eating shit,” or “shit-eating women,” and it takes them to an essay site were I talk about wearing one’s shit-colored glasses (as opposed to rose-colored glasses). The people, and I frankly assume those “people” are men, looking for such images are definitely interested in seeing women being demeaned. Porn producers know this, hence degredation of every sort, including magazines and websites where women are referred to horny sluts, and cum sucking bitches. Almost the only time one doesn’t see such things, to ANY degree, is with women-produced porn.
Ever take a look at some of the pictures at rotten.com? They are disgusting, violent (both in overt and covert ways), and some are just flat out disturbing and sick.
You think that it’s only about the woman in the flick wanting to see the wonderful result of that beautiful lovemaking??? Give me a break – it’s the guy jerking off all over her and saying, “yeah, lick it up.” Nice. It is an extension of the very thing I just wrote about, just overt than making her drink his piss or something like that.
The fact is, if they really cared about the woman’s orgasm in those movies – and I mean to say the woman’s orgasm that she might really feel and enjoy in her own way, not in some Hollyweird scripted, overtly moaning just from the dude thrusting (give me a break), kinda way, they’d be totally different movies.
Those movies are for men, make no mistake, and to minimize the degree to which men are being catered to, at the societal expense of women’s sexuality and sexual satisfaction, is really taking the lazy, easy way out, and burying one’s head in the sand.
So, in a nutshell, Tinaah, your problem is that pornography is made to appeal to the demographic expected to be the largest purchaser of pornography?
No, the problem is that in doing so, they are negatively affecting women. And in many ways, they are negatively affecting men, too. Ever wonder how much a part of your ideals regarding women’s responses and your own particular taste in women has been guided by porn and the media? Men’s preferences regarding body size and style, behavior and sexual relations (and
I don’t mean just the act, but the whole relationship), has been formed for men and women by the media. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t free thinkers, but to think that one can grow up untouched by societal expectations regarding what men find attractive and what women must do to live up to that is in denial.
Tinaah, I’m guessing you’re a visitor from the Ms. boards? If so, welcome! and I hope we treat you better than we’re getting treated over there ;).
The few porn movies I’ve seen were ones that an ex-girlfriend copied from Good Vibrations, a sex shop in San Francisco. They were supposedly woman-friendly porns.
And they were pretty icky. I never really got the appeal of the money shot – it does seem kinda gross. And the movies, for the most part, didn’t focus much on female orgasm: the women seemed, more than anything, resigned. They were working a crappy job that may or may not have beat working at McDonalds.
Acknowledging that, however, is a far cry from claiming that (let me pull up the quote so that I’ll get it right) “I don’t think any woman can have an orgasm anymore (if we ever could) without it being some sort of performance for a male audience.”
That’s the overstatement that really bothers me, and it is, as near as I can tell, the thesis of the Original Post.
Daniel
(PS. I feel I should point out that she’d gotten these tapes in the mid-eighties; women-friendly porn may have improved since then)
Tinaah, welcome. =)
We’ve had countless threads on “What makes a person attractive.” One even went so far as to try to understand the metrics behind what society perceives as a perfect female body.
It was rather interesting and as soon as I’m less lazy, I’ll link you. 
As close as I can tell, almost every male here has a pretty average taste in women. You know, breathing… mobile… has most of her teeth… doesnt smell too bad. Pretty basic standards, really.
A few of them seem to have a thing for bookworms, redheads, and girls who wear glasses… I dont know if thats porn-induced, really.
So, I’m a clueless dupe of media and pornographers then, is that it?
Sorry, but if that’s the best you can do, your argument is sinking, and fast.
Now that you mention it, there’s far less copy-room hanky-panky in real life than there seems to be in the movies…hmmmm…could the movies have been LYING to me?!?
And your solution is not to raise children strong enough to resist those expectations and live as they feel they should, but to remove such images from popular culture?
I agree with you that the images of people we see in the media are, by and large, unrealistic, and there is indeed a lot of pressure to emulate what we see. I don’t think that bitching about the images is the answer. Ignoring them works for me.
You seem to forget that the media is reciprocal in nature. Of course the images of the popular media affect what people think, to some extent. At the same time, what people think affects the media in return. It’s not a one-way street with the Evil Parochial Mass Media World going out of its way to present unrealistic images of women, sexuality, life in general. And the media does not have quite as much of an effect on life in general as some people seem to think it does.
Tinaah, I think you’ll find that there have been many, many discussions in this community about how the media creates and perpetuates power imbalances with respect to gender, race, socio-economic status, sexual orientation etc.
I very much like the “Male Privilege Checklist” posted at Ms - it’s a reminder that many of us have advantages which we take for granted and which we have not earned (I’m female, BTW, but aware that I’m advantaged by being white).
Our backgrounds here are very different. Some of us come from countries in which porn is legal, some of us come from countries in which porn is being made by women for women, some of us come from nations in which sex workers have both legal obligations and legal protections.
As with any other issue where a clearly evident power imbalance exists, we get an enormous amount of input here from people whose experiences are at one extreme or the other of the power division, and also from those in the middle. Our own opinions and viewpoints are constantly being challenged within this community, and the rules by which the community itself operates mean that those who are not fairly self-assured don’t tend to stay here very long.
I’ve read through many of the threads over at Ms in the last couple of days, and I can assure you that the responses to many of the OPs would have been pretty much the same here as over there. Perhaps the major difference is that here there would have been as many males offering support where it was needed as females.
You might be pleasantly surprised by how much this board works towards equality and understanding (and I would submit that the first cannot exist without the second), and just how quickly those seeking to justify the oppression of any section of society meet their match; this is not a community in which women are noted for being quietly submissive. 
[Claps at Reprise’s post]
You know, I just wanted to pop in here once more to say how impressed I am with your determination to get through to at least a few people over there. (Tinaah, stick around–it’d be a sign of hope!) Gah, it’s like talking to walls. Walls covered in rollyeyes as far as the eye can see.
Good luck–keep fightin’ the good fight and all that.
bella
Okay. I’ve been polite here, and I’ve been almost completely polite over there.
But:
GODDAMN STUPID FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT DISTORTING HATEFUL HORRIBLE FUCKWIPE=Dee
Over and over I’ve tried to put forth reasonable ideas, asked questions, invited conversation, tried to steer things back on track from the ad hominem attacks that some of the folks over there specialize in.
And what do I get?
BLAAAUGH! O how I hate her! How dare she?! What a fucking stupid little exclusive club mentality she has in her awful “woe is me!” world. Stupid fucking git!
Daniel
Daniel perhaps you ought to just stay out of a discussion you are not wanted in rather than throwing a tantrum like a child. (just a suggestion)
Perhaps those who are not acting like reasonable adults should not accuse others of acting like children. (just a suggestion)
Dee (since it’s rather clear who ‘MsPoster’ is), perhaps you should learn to be more tolerant and to listen to the viewpoints of others, even when they don’t conform to your own. You might learn something. “Debate” is more educational than “bolstering”.
“If you’re stupid, surround yourself with smart people. And if you’re smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you.”
Y’know, reading that stuff makes me want to put on an apron, make dinner from scratch, meet my man at the door when he comes home from work, bring him his slippers and a drink, and give him a blow job. Just in protest.
Gah. I give up. It’s like trying to explain Samhain to Jerry Falwell, ya know?
But I have decided that I’m going to rent a Kubrick film and give head tonight to make myself feel better.
And I’m going to enjoy it too. RAWR!