Sex In The Public Square - Where are the guys? Men's concerns in porn & sex work. - Comments

What an interesting idea

CelticWarrior — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:22:56 -0700

Having spent my life in research, I found myself an observer. In the process of going blind (a field of study I had only the experience of the sighted to observe) very interesting. I am now inside the experiment and am the experiment as it were. I am the stable isotope looking out at me trying to make inferences about me from observations of me and sniggering at me for my vague conclusions (is that too much a Rumsfieldism?)

Let's suggest a work with aspects of general 'run of the mill' porn production, i.e. woman-man, woman-woman, woman-man-woman, man-woman-man, dominance (implied), fetish (impolied), oral, vaginal, anal... Gather overall impressions and specific impressions. The data can reduce in both a pure statistical nature and weighted by 'feelings' as a value.

I 'think', hali...

CelticWarrior — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:55:33 -0700

cogni ergo sum

I think you orbit around what I wonder. Your argument is good, and I think, correct. The hetero sex industry is an effect rahter than a cause. This is a patriarchal society. In the case of the dominant sex industry, I find art imitating life.

The focus on this society is one of male dominance. A place where women have been seen, and existed for the most part, as objects. The market is not focused on a female or non-patriachal audience. Thus, the object d' art is the female form in the perception of the target market. You will never sell a lot of cars designed to cross the atalntic because the market does not perceive a car as having theat function.

Still, I wonder. Is the form and function of pornography a function of the market? I wonder if there is an intrinsic difference between men and women based on some inate quality of maleness and femaleness in a Men are from Mars and Women are from Venuse sort of way, or is the difference based on social perception/training?

I wonder how male and female would develop in their attitudes about sex in the absence of conditioned response in upbringing? Is there a difference in pornography in a matriarchal society? Does pornography exists in a matriarchal society?

I hope you don't find this a nonresponsive post. In my career in research, I have discovered that any answer that does not ask more questions than the original question is the wrong answer.

Is it the way we raise our sons and daughters

CelticWarrior — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:19:11 -0700

Stop me if I'm off track, or just skip to the next comment. Pornography, in the public mind, seems to bring images of nude (or nearly so in the more restrictive mind) female bodies with any male body or part being an adjunct to the central image.

Does that come from the way we raise our sons and daughters? When little Johnny got out of diapers, he was put into jeans and a T-shirt and sent out to face the world. When little Suzy got out of diapers, she was put into a dress and frills, told how to sit and how to keep her skirt down, and led by the hand to be protected from the world.

Worse, when little Johnny needed new tennis shoes, he was sent out to mow the lawn and clean the garage to 'learn the value of money'. Conversely, when little Suzy came home depressed because litttle Sally just got new shoes, she climbed into daddy's lap and cuddled and whined her way into new shoes, a new skirt, a new blouse, and a new ribbon for her hair.

Little Johnny got bigger and got the keys to the car and a nod and a wink from dad when he introduced his new girlfriend. Immediately after, growing up little Suzy's boyfriend pulls up for his weekly lecture about what will happen to him if he so much as touches the Vestel Vrigin.

Now that Johnny and Suzy are no longer little, Johnny is looked at by all the Suzies like a dog. He is just a creature of instinct and available at the drop of a hanky. Somehow, little Suzy wins the game. How many men in a relationship have had to wait 'to get lucky', because Suzy has been trained to surpress her natural human desire and make its expression a treasure to be hoarded rather than an experience to be shared.

I might be off the mark when it comes to the question, but I don't think I am far off the mark. The sex industry is mostly female in nature because society, at least American society, wants to insulate itself from it the same way they insulate thenselves from everything else, with money. Culturally, American society is patriarchal, men control the money. The American society that is visable outside the closet is predominantly straight. Thus, the sex industry is predomimantly female.

A side bar: Ever wonder why this homophobic society is willing to pay more for proscribed sex/pornography such as woman/woman etc?

Just my nickles worth.

you are so right i have so

katy — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:43:04 -0700

you are so right i have so many friends who want fit guys in porn. i am from England and we are desperate for it. We go on the amateur sites to find the fit guys we like and we watch a lot of gay porn.

people always bring out porn for girls that loads of girls dont like like romantic or softcore stuff. Where is the hardcore for girls with the fit men? if someone did this they would make a killing because there is nothing in this market to cater for us!!

Money and Opportunity: Changing Times

Sylvie66 — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:38:17 -0700

This has been a really good discussion. I just watched a trio porn film, and even though I found it arousing, I also found myself counting how many times I could see the guys' faces! On top of that, the guys I like to look at irl, and fantasize about, just don't exist on hetero porn. What's on hetero porn are guys who look like my son. um, no. thanks.

Would I pay $3.95 a month to see glimpses of young guys going at a wide variety of women? No. Would I pay twice that to see real men, a wide variety of them, going at a single 'type' of woman? You bet! Lucky for me I have a vivid imagination and a gorgeous and willing partner.

The issue definitely comes down to money, and it's harder to make now than even 10 years ago. Now, you need fresh! new! younger! kinkier! every single day, or you'll go bust. It's supply-and-demand driving each other, only at such a pace that none of us can keep up! For women like me, who really get turned on by healthy and happy middle-aged men... well, we're in the minority, and not worth enough to cater to. Hopefully, that'll change right along with pace of technology.

Off to find my camera!

- Sylvie

I think these two quotes

barkingstar — Thu, 01 May 2008 21:58:39 -0700

I think these two quotes from Elizabeth put this topic into perspective: "But lets face it, many people don't want really imaginative sex. Some just want to reliably get off." And "I guess my bigger concern about the depiction of men in straight porn is that it makes sex look like a lot of work and not really a lot of fun."

So what are the connections between these two quotes? I can make my own observations, but I would be interested in seeing what connections others make. Really my original questions reflected as much (if not MORE) about me than about men in porn. Frankly, I don't think the porn industry really gives much of a shit about intellectual observations or considerations about the industry. It's basically down to MONEY. But I'll hold off my cynical rants for now.

Re: men and women in hetero porn

hali.liana — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:59:02 -0700

The observation I was trying to present was not implying, but centered around the question of women's sexual agency in porn. So yes, referring to "takers and taken" was meant to address the agency question. I want to underscore the fact that this observation is limited to the porn I have seen, which is by no means extensive, but which has impacted me strongly; moreover, in discussions with other women, the question of women's sexual agency in hetero-oriented porn has come up several times, and I have found many other female friends to have been left with the same sensation that something about the portrayal of sexual relationships in the porn they have seen feels negative, and it seems to come down to sexual agency.

Elizabeth, I am happy to hear that the porn you are most familiar with and/or taken by (no pun intended) does not fit this description so neatly, and would really like to check it out. Maybe what I've come into contact with is more mainstream, or just generally uglier, less-glossy stuff...but I've noted through group discussions and personal talks with friends that many people (women in particular, but men as well) are hurt by specific types of pornographic portrayals, but are willing and interested to talk about it. The hurt I'm referring to has to do with our society, and how pornographic portrayals of women and men's agency fit into our actual cultural practices - our characterizations in film and literature, our cultural treatment of heterosexual relationships, and of men versus women in general, et cetera.

I think I need to find some relevant reading on these topics, as I am not well-versed by extremely interested. (Any ideas, anyone?) I am also really interested in the variety of opinions, responses to these ideas, and discussions that might pop up over the Internet - hence my involvement in the forum :)

Also, I think your idea is awesome! I would love to have a discussion about a porn film. I think I'll gather some interested friends and get back to you? It's a great idea; maybe we can open a discussion page for it? So, who wants to pick the first film?

The First Rule about Porn Clubs

CodeMonkeyGirl — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:06:20 -0700

I'm actually only replying to a small part of the conversation, so I'll keep it short. I love the idea of a porn club. Maybe it's just because I'm interested in studying human sexuality and sexual culture, but it seems like you could learn a lot (both academically and personally) from these kinds of discussions.

It also makes me wonder if one reason porn is so notoriously bad is because nobody ever talks about it. If people were introduced to different ranges of porn perhaps they would know what to look/ask for rather than just accepting that all porn is bad and settling for what's easy to find. Passing up bad porn and searching out quality stuff = more demand for good porn = more supply.

Ok, done. I'm going to go look for a porn club now.

men and women in hetero porn

Elizabeth — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:03:40 -0700

One thing that has troubled me about this discussion is that my own limited consumption of hetero-oriented porn doesn't so neatly support the depictions above. I remember in grad school, for example, being very into the glossy no-plot porn of Andrew Blake. Essentially these were just strings of pretty sex scenes and as I recall the men and women took each other. True the sex was pretty standardized, and true in some scenes a woman was clearly being dominated (in a very light BDSM kind of way, though, so there would be some context). But my impression was not so much "man as taker" and "woman as taken" as it was "wow, this is sort of unimaginative in terms of sequencing: oral, oral, vaginal penetration, etc." Taking/taken seems to imply more than who is penetrating whom. It seems to imply something about sexual agency, and the women in the Blake films were depicted to have a fair amount of that.

I think also of Candida Royale's work, which I watched a certain amount of during my Andrew Blake phase. That too seemed to present women as possessing sexual agency even if not always presenting a wide array of sexual imagination. But lets face it, many people don't want really imaginative sex. Some just want to reliably get off.

Tristan Taormino's Chemistry films, also very hetero-oriented, also come to mind. Again, perhaps not the most mainstream of hetero porn, but it is certainly hetero porn. (If you're interested you can read our interview with Tristan Taormino about her third installment in the Chemistry series here. It was a great conversation.)

So when we talk about hetero-oriented porn, what set of material are we really talking about? And when we talk about takers and taken are we talking about penetration or are we talking about depiction of agency or are we talking about some combination of those things or about something else altogether?

I'd agree that the range of depictions of men in hetero-oriented porn is pretty narrow, but again my own viewing is too limited to say much here. I can recall in the handful of videos I've seen scenes where the man is "overtaken" by two women who initiate the sex, but it doesn't take long before he is being responsible for fucking them both in some way or another. I guess my bigger concern about the depiction of men in straight porn is that it makes sex look like a lot of work and not really a lot of fun.

Does porn made for gay men show a wide variety of masculinities or does it tend to reproduce a narrow set of roles albeit perhaps different ones than make up the tropes of straight porn? I can't say, having not made time to watch.

By the way, and only tangentially related: How many of you look at the IFeelMyself.com videos? How do they change the discussion of porn? Are there corresponding sites showing men getting themselves off?

It strikes me that it would be interesting, in the way there are book club discussions, to choose a porn film for people to watch and discuss. Discussion could center on depictions of men and women, on imagination and sex, on production qualities (pet peeve: bad lighting), plot, characterization, you name it, how successful was it as porn (e.g, did it get you aroused). Anyone want to try it?

Re: Where are the guys?

hali.liana — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 06:04:40 -0700

I find this question extremely interesting because, frankly, it is the depiction of men (as sort of detached objects symbolic of virility) and, contrastively, the depiction of women (as mindless vessels who can't wait to be penetrated or taken) in heterosexual pornography that turns me off to hetero porn. What eats at me, whenever I come across these images on the internet, is that they provide support to the image of men as takers and women as givers, an image that rears its ugly head in so much public media that it is an implicitly-reinforced assumption - in hetero sex, men are the takers.

I'm not sure about your (barkingstar's) points concerning "most women" - I can't say I have a statistical knowledge of this - but I certainly feel as an individual that the men portrayed in hetero pornography are men I would want to stay away from, and those images certainly don't turn me on. I think that the inflated market for that kind of sex depiction is the result of the message to heterosexuals that our culture provides, that women should make themselves attractive and sexually open, and that men should 'have at 'em.'

So, in terms of "Where are the real guys," I think by real guys you mean a variety of types of guys, as opposed to just one, whose personalities and sexual interests are visible in the sexual act in porn. As you say, you "certainly DON'T fit the image of "male" portrayed in most porn." I think you can find a wider variety of types of men in gay porn, but in hetero porn, sadly, stands to support messages of male dominance, so I think many men will not find images of themselves there. I think hetero porn makes it easy and, in fact, desirable, for young men to model themselves (sexually) after those images, instead of wondering, as you did, where the real guys are.

Please, everyone, tell me what you think!

Re: Where are the guys?

Iamcuriousblue — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:14:47 -0700

Why would they even need to identify as feminist? I'd be interested in hearing the perspective of any male porn performer who's up for some honest talk about his work and his perspective. And I think there is some "behind the scenes" or beyond just porn talk interviews with male porn performers. I've seen Mr Marcus intervewed in one of Tristan Taorimino's videos and he comes across as a smart, well-spoken guy – I'd like to hear more from him. Also, the documentary "Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy" is quite good and goes a long way toward humanizing somebody who could be dismissed as a mere caricature.

I think the perspective of gay performers is something that's not heard nearly enough. The gay porn world is actually very large, though very segregated from the straight porn world.

As far as male prostitutes who service women – they're in a minority, but they do exist, and are pretty common in some places. In fact, heterosexual female sex tourism is actually a very widespread phenomenon.

Most male sex workers are hired by men, though, and its very interesting to contrast their position in the gay community and perception by the overall society with attitutes toward female sex workers. When Mike Jones outed Ted Haggard as his client, the media treatment of him in the press and in the blogosphere couldn't have been more different than the media treatment of Ashley Dupré . There was no rummaging through his background trying to paint him as a victim or shady character. And as much as the practically everybody left-of-center (myself included) hates Ted Haggard's guts, I don't recall anybody calling for him to be charged for procuring or as a reason to adopt Swedish-style laws against buying sex. This is definitely something I'll have to blog about more at length at some point.

And as far as pay goes...

barkingstar — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:15:04 -0700

As far as why women get paid more in porn than men, well it's sort of obvious. At least 70% of the consumer base for straight porn is MALE (maybe higher). The customers don't care about the men, they just want to see "pussy." The men are just there as props. Go read Jenna Jameson's book, or even Nina Hartley's website where she answers questions about the porn industry. They pretty much say that men are only there for props.

The industry pretty much goes where the customers are, not where they COULD be. Which means they churn out globs (yeah that entendre IS intended!) of dumbed down straight male oriented porn so men can run in & buy some cheap shit, not look at the cashier when they buy the crap, go home & secretly jerk off & then go to the Baptist church in the morning. And most women? Well they just deny whatever sexuality society deems "appropriate" for them.

Maybe it's just me....

barkingstar — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:06:56 -0700

These questions probably have to do w/ me as much as men in the sex industry, per se. I'm a fairly good looking guy, but I certainly DON'T fit the image of "male" portrayed in most porn. And the fact that I think the majority of women find me attractive, just MIGHT, point to WHY women don't watch porn. Although that just may be my stupid ego talking! ha!

I noticed that a few of the questions on the "comments" section to Diane Sawyer's 20/20 story on prostitutes were about male prostitutes & women customers. From what I know, women just don't hire male prostitutes. Most of the male prostitutes are gay, bisexual, or are "gay for pay." And, NO, there's NOTHING wrong with that. But maybe I'm wrong? Maybe women DO buy male prostitutes, but the vast majority of people are just too incredulous at the idea that women might, JUST MIGHT, get as horny as men & buy sex.

Look at the ratio of male customer oriented strip clubs compared to female customer oriented strip clubs: like 20 to 1. Why is that?

These issues sort of dovetail w/ the whole "do women like porn?" or even "do women like sex as much as men?" sort of questions. I mean we keep hearing/reading the same old cliches that "women aren't as visual/sexual" as men, yet so many feminists, sex therapists/educators seem to be saying the EXACT opposite. Could it be that women just don't like what they see being produced as far as sexual entertainment goes? Why do women go nuts for rock stars, but seem bored w/ porn?

Maybe these questions just scratch the surface of the disorientation, double standards, and sex phobic society we live in?

AT LEAST I'M ASKING & RESEARCHING!

Great questions

Juline — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:38:36 -0700

It's refreshing to have our attention directed to the men in the sex industry- too often the default "sex worker" is viewed as female. Your questions are great. I'm not an expert on porn, but I did work on a study of gay male escorts, who make about half of what women escorts make.

My little opinion is that is has to do with the cultural double standard, where women are highly stigmatized for having sex with many partners. Men are still viewed as 'virile' by this standard. It's odd that the sex industry is one of the few places where women do earn more than on average than men do. I think it is because they are paying a higher 'social cost' in stigma for their behaviors- especially when there is a permanent video record of their behavior.

Where are the guys? Men's concerns in porn & sex work.

barkingstar — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 23:18:32 -0700

I recently sent an e-mail to Elizabeth about some subjects I was interested in. I must admit I'm learning all the "in's & out's" (yeah a pun is sort of intended there, however cheesy it may be! ha!) of porn, commercial sex industry. For the longest time, I've been only a voyeur. I still am, but I'm interested in the "behind the scenes" sort of stuff now. I notice the MAJORITY of "behind the scenes" conversations about porn, prostitution, sex work in general, revolve around the women... well, WHERE ARE THE GUYS???

Where are the feminist men in porn? Are there any?

What about the messages we receive about men from porn? Is it REALLY all down to "how big is your dick?" and "can you keep it hard for 2 hours? and cum on command?" How many men's REAL sexual lives are portrayed in porn? Not many I would bet. Is there porn where the guys are just good looking, having fun, not just there for their dicks & cumming capabilities?

Why are the men paid so much less than the women in porn?