The internet, largely funded by porn, is the culprit for the exponential growth of porn in our lives. It has revolutionised the ability of people to access porn easily, frequently, privately and from the early years of their lives. It has changed the very nature of sex education.
The benefit of the internet over traditional media such as newspapers and television is that it allows everyone a chance to contribute in a world that was once tightly mediated by gatekeepers, media-owners and those in privileged positions or with qualifications. However like traditional media forms the internet can be used to perpetuate stereotypes of traditional gender roles. Nowhere is this more evident than in porn made for men, by men, about women.
The internet, like other media, serves a dual purpose: it creates society and mirrors society. If this be the case, how is porn on the internet creating and mirroring today and tomorrow’s society?
The first thing that springs to mind is the growth of teenage girls, celebrities (think Sandra Bullock) and women kissing other females to impress and arouse males. There has been a steady increase in the number of films with girl-kiss-girl scenes in them. This is a relatively new phenomenon that was not a peer pressure for me fifteen years ago when I was discovering intimate relationships. I hypothesise if we surveyed young women today many of them will have buckled to the social pressure of kissing a girl. I am not saying two girls shouldn’t kiss if they share an intimate moment and go for it because they genuinely want too. I am questioning the motive of two girls kissing because they believe it will impress a boy they are trying to please. I also hypothesise if we surveyed young men we would find many of them have not buckled to the social pressure of kissing a boy. After all, boys are not socially pressured to kiss each other to turn girls on.
Recently Sydney University researchers did a study that found over half of all people access internet porn and that increasingly, it is impacting on real relationships (as opposed to safer fantasy relationships). Not surprisingly it found more men access porn than women. I believe this is purely because porn is normalised for men from a very young age. The culture of boys in today’s society is to view and share pornographic images, masturbation is normalised, and dads are more likely to introduce their sons to porn than mums are likely introduce their daughters to female porn. In other words, the culture of girls in public society is to suppress rather than express their sexuality, where as the culture of boys in public society is to express their sexuality. Noam Shpancer has called this ‘the masturbation gap’ at: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-therapy/201009/the-masturbation-gap
In today’s public society, women’s sexuality is suppressed, where as male sexually is expressed. In today’s private society (particularly in porn) women are allowed to be ‘sexy’ for men, they are allowed to masturbate for men, but not necessarily allowed to be sexy for their own self-esteem, or masturbate for their own self pleasure. Just look at the gaze of porn stars. In porn for men, women gaze into the camera in seductively in an ‘I am doing this for you type gaze’. In gay porn, the majority of the men are not looking into the camera lense. What I am trying to say is that privately the loudest message heard is that men masturbate for themselves, women masturbate for men.
As a female genuinely attracted to the male body, I have found it incredibly difficult to access free female porn. The best place to access free porn for women is on gay porn sites. Intermixed in with lots of gay porn content is occasional female porn content. Heterosexual female porn is what I am from here on calling fe-porn. What is fe-porn? Fe-porn is similar to gay porn but it lacks the gay content, it objectifies the male body and finds arousal in watching the male engage in sexual acts such as masturbation. Female porn has hot guys, jacking off and looking longingly into the camera but lacks actors who are watching gay porn, showing their anus or engaging in gay sexual acts. Female porn features one average woman and multiple hot sexy men. Female porn features hairless men, men with well looked after physiques, and most importantly, men with large sexy penises. It includes close-ups of ejaculation, men who gaze into the camera and the soundtrack of enjoyment. Female porn (Like the initial Playboy pictures for men) has images for women that treat men, male genitalia, and the male body as a sexy object to be looked at and turned on by.
Eventually (in the future one day) women may be aroused by watching two men engage in sex acts (gay-porn) for the pleasure of women but at the moment most women I have spoken too will not access gay porn sites and therefore find free porn for women because they are not willing to sift through the gay content. Thus I am advocating free (not subscribe too or pay for) porn for women which makes it okay to watch men and normalises female desire to to find male bodies attractive. Without it, women are turning to porn for men, what I will call ma-porn, for their sex education.
Thus I feel that porn needs to be further categorised rather than lumped under the categories porn (for men) and gay porn (also for men). This will make it easier for people to easily locate what it is that really turns them on. I think it would be beneficial to have multiple categories of porn readily available within porn sites under additional categories such as fe-porn and le-porn. Le-porn can be described as lesbian porn – it involves two women enjoying themselves for themselves, not for a man. I also think it would be beneficial for gay porn and porn sites not to automatically assume all its viewers are male.
My issue is not with the rise of porn per se, because like it or not, porn is here to stay. My issue is with the fact that male sexuality is expressed eloquently in the public and private arenas, whilst females are still encouraged publically and privately to ‘look at women’ rather than men. If women are encouraged privately to explore their sexuality and their sexual desires for their own pleasure, if women realise it is normal and okay to look at and be turned on by the male body, then eventually perhaps women will stop objectifying women and contributing to a major cause of their own oppression.
Posted by LD on June 19, 2011 at 8:51 am
Very interesting and novel ideas K-lucid, maybe when males can see the objectification of themselves it may lead to a more ‘even’ playing field where we can stop objectifying one another and start enjoying one another more, regardless of sexual orientation.. objectification in my view is just a form of control trip. control trips make for entertaining porn, but communication is what makes enjoyable sex