Commodification of sex

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

That's what third world counties are for

Alpine? Tehama? Plumas?

[scaeagles]

And toasters.

[bewitched]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

And toasters.

Ow!

[Morrigoon]

On the whole I suppose I don't have an issue with the existence of porn or prostitution, however, I do have some concern regarding the unrealistic expectations it tends to create in men, especially men who need all the help they can get when it comes to women, and further damages their ability to enter into anything resembling a meaningful relationship.

What I'm referring to is porn's tendency to portray women as vacuous automatons with no greater desire in life than to shove her partner's member into her various orifices. I think in the lonely young man (think your typical Mountain Dew-chugging, World of Warcraft-playing, greasy-haired mancub), who, almost by definition, is exposed to a great deal of porn and almost no real women, receives an unreal impression of how to attract and appreciate women.

Sadly, the deadly combination of those portrayals, and the not terribly improved ones in regular media, leads many men to value women solely for their sexual appeal, and not for their abilities, which ends up hurting women in the workplace.

Okay, it's a stretch, but I think it's there. There really are men who only value women in sexual terms, and as a result will always have a more favorable impression of men at work than women, no matter how hard those women work.

But regardless, I'm not against the existence of porn or prostitution. I do wish there was a way women could appear both sexy and self-sufficient, but I know many men are hard-wired to need to feel like providers, so women as equals tend to emasculate them and therefore wouldn't turn them on sexually. Well, except the men who get off on that sort of thing

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

What I'm referring to is porn's tendency to portray women as vacuous automatons with no greater desire in life than to shove her partner's member into her various orifices.

What about the equally dehumanizing presentation of men as vacuous automatons just looking to stick it in the the nearest orifice presented.

Neither one much matches my personal experience.


And if anything, my "influence" from porn wasn't thinking that all women behaved that way wondering where the women who behaved like that exist.

[€uroMeinke]

For my Birthday I received a book of Redheads - Photos from the Playboy Archives from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. The racy porn of their day, they seem mostly sweet and innocent compared to their contemporaries. Gals with tan lines reposed on a rug, a woman quickly fetching a bottle of milk from the porch - I have to expect they are off living some suburban dreamlife. I don't know how that fits here other than these images are actually quite charming in their way.

[Morrigoon]

Oh Alex, you disappoint me.. I would have counted on you to point out romance novels' tendency to create unrealistic expectations in women of men who actually care about the things women want them to care about!

Romance novels = chick porn

[€uroMeinke]

Eh, Ann Rice books seem to give people unrealistic expectations that they can be Vampires.

Much of the commodity of sex is really trading in fantasies about sex, which has it's role - even in experiencing real sex.

[Boss Radio]

To quote George Harrison in Yellow Submarine:
"It's all in the mind, you know."

[Prudence]

I think the problem with the unrealistic portrayals of women is that it recalls the not-to-distant past when sex was, essentially, the main job description for women. Well, sex and dusting.

For example, for my mom, college was considered a place for her to look and behave fetching enough to get her Mrs. degree. Her function was to land a husband with a good job and start pumping out babies. Yes, things have improved a great deal since then, but it's recent enough that it's a bad habit into which society slips fairly easily. The time where men were judged on their ability to kill some hairy animal with large fangs is sufficiently distant that I don't think the sexy = competent equation affects men to the same degree that it does women.