Porn objectifying women...

[MrStockings]

Hi all,
I was reading an article recently that blamed easy access to porn for a trend in the way that young men are treating women sexually, and the expectations on them to act like porn stars. The article basically said that men both expect women to act like porn stars and that women, in order to please men, feel they have to.

I thought this was a little unfair as I don't think it's the access to porn that is the problem, it's the type of porn that most younger people see, and it's also the reason I don't like modern videos and images. I think a lot of modern porn does objectify women compared with vintage porn, which is odd as we are supposed to now live in a more equal society, so really it should be the other way round.

In my opinion:

1. Vintage porn sees the woman's body as a beautiful thing in its own right. It's not embellished, shaved, pierced or otherwise altered to fit a stereotype of what men like. There are women of all shapes, sizes and (legal) ages too.

2. Vintage porn (with a few exceptions) shows the woman enjoying the sex, being an equal partner, not being used solely for the man's pleasure. She usually has to be shown that she is cumming (even though it is fake).

3. Vintage porn shows more realistic sex, it's not overly long, consisting of totally unrealistic positions, many of which would give the woman no pleasure at all, and with unrealistically hard and huge cocks (a slight diversion into perceptions of men's self-image there which is a whole other can of worms).

4. Vintage porn shows not just the physical aspects of sex but also the psychological ones too, control, undressing, power-play, teasing, foreplay, all the 'added value' to the physical act itself and often the things that make it worthwhile doing.

5. Vintage porn rarely shows the woman being used as a piece of meat, solely there for the man's pleasure, a thing for him to use. This often seems to include physical violence to the woman. Where it does show the woman being used, it's often in a more fantasy/psychological setting where the use is for the benefit of her fantasy pleasure rather then his physical pleasure.

There are obviously exceptions to this in vintage porn, and also in good modern porn but I just felt the need to vent my spleen about this.

I feel better now. Thanks for listening.

[Steady Eddy]

I have to agree with you MrStockings. If you look at some of the classic movies like "Taboo" and "Insatiable" you will see women seeking their own pleasure and taking great delight in pleasing men, too. Not all classic porn does this, but there is a strong sexual equality theme to the movies that echoes Hugh Hefner's statement saying "Nice girls like sex, too." Much of today's videos lack this quality and just focus on sex without any balance of needs between the partners. This is particularly true of some of the teen/women abuse videos.

[cyrax]

Modern porn and classic don't objective women. In many ways it cuts through the image a generation of women try to portray. It's laughable when you read in rags women read where one article is about perfect blow job and the next is how men are dogs.

[Penguin250k]

I wonder if the problem is in the more conservative views (in the West at least) that people take now and that this has twisted (most) modern porn away from the merits of vintage porn as you describe.

What I mean by that is that in the 60's, 70's and even into the 80's porn was considered less shameful than it is now to the mainstream. Makers of erotic films in France, to give just one example, were able to attract the same amount of government funding as makers of mainstream films could get hold of. Meanwhile in the UK the top shelf magazines were not concealed in opaque sleeves and even allowed nudity on the front cover as far as the early the nineties. This liberation wasn't just apparent in porn but in sex in general - shows about sex on the television were not the puriant tit fests that they are today but rather proper mature discussions and documentaries, where (indeed) women were treated equally.

I don't know what changed exactly but certainly sexually explicit media was banished to the margins of society some time in the late 80's/early 90's. From there onwards most decent artists, film directors, script writers and so forth would not associate with such things and so it was left to the baser elements of the industry - an attitude of "If we can't be part of society any more then why should we bother trying to be?"

Once seperated from mainstream society, however, porn stops reflecting it and thus deviates (pun intended) into modern extremes. The advent of broadband internet makes such material much more accesible, but it does not make it better, and those of us too young to remember relaistic erotica have no choice but to learn sex from the modern equivalent, and do not realise that it is unrealistic fantasy (it is all that they know). Hence they assume women really behave like that sexually and that objectifying them is not only okay, but probably what they want.

We need to get sex back into the mainstream and not in the artificial porn-lite sense of 50 Sodding Shades. Great mainstream films like Betty Blue, the Story of O and even the original Emanuelle would easily start to redress the balance; but of course nobody would make them today because without a subsidy they woudln't make any money.

As such as long as erotica remains banished to the margins, it is doomed to remain excessive and cause these problems.

[Butterboy]

I don't think women are objectified in porn, they are revered as godesses and worshipped through sexual congress. Men are clearly objectified, all you see of them is their penis.

[Terrentius]

Originally Posted by Butterboy

I don't think women are objectified in porn, they are revered as godesses and worshipped through sexual congress.

That IS objectification. You are objectifying them as sexual beings.

Porn does not objectify women, people objectify women. The idea that porn is received and digested in exactly the same way by 100% of men, is in itself, sexist. Because some Neanderthal sees woman as biological fuck machines and nought else, so therefore I must also think likewise is, quite frankly, bullshit. If you think men are a generic mass of sexist, ignorant pigs incapable of complex thought and nuance in their observations, then you are sexist.

[Butterboy]

I don't see how revering and worshipping someone is objectification. All the women I've known like a man to be a man and treat them like a woman. Then you get the less attractive feminist types who can't get laid and decide to project their misery onto society in the form of "all men are bastards, therefore porn is bad". You can't give them an inch.

[dudics]

Where I live (Finland) easy access modern porn is seen as an good and healthy thing for couples and singles alike.

Womens magazines now are now pro-porn.

I don't like this. I liked it much better when porn was dirty to look at.

[GalahadQuestl]

Wow. Whoever thought that VEF would stimulate the mind as well ... ? Thanks a lot, everybody.

I object to most accusations of 'objectification'. Why would anybody look at any living, breathing, warm-bloodied, wonderfully fleshed woman (or man) and want to make an object out of her?

Page 3 was often accused of 'objectification' -- or at least tabloid readers (I take your point, Terrentius) were. Yet we knew the names of our favourite models, their alleged ages and their home towns, their hobbies and other incidentals. The tabloids gave us these details because they knew their readers wanted to know.

Meanwhile women's magazines were and are using beautiful women (and men) merely as clothes horses ...

[Terrentius]

Originally Posted by Butterboy

I don't see how revering and worshipping someone is objectification. All the women I've known like a man to be a man and treat them like a woman. Then you get the less attractive feminist types who can't get laid and decide to project their misery onto society in the form of "all men are bastards, therefore porn is bad". You can't give them an inch.

It is objectification, but the narrative is that this kind of objectification is bad. It isn't. If a woman wishes to an object of desire, then it is fuck all to do with any body but her and feminist propaganda can only rely on emotional blackmail to convince people otherwise because there is zero proof that pornography causes sexism, only self serving, opinion based "studies" by vested interests. No proof, only opinions.