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It's funny. A couple of years ago, I recall a quote from a female blogger who was very much a feminist and on the leading edge of the alternate wave of porn; this was someone who was in fact part of the adult entertainment industry and served as a vigorous defender of pornography as an agent of social change back in the heady dot-com days, when the sex.com URL was being bid on for millions. Her quote, in 2007, which I can only paraphrase, was one of just tired despair:
A woman with 'slut' written on her forehead in lipstick, being slapped across the face with a cock before being forced to deepthroat to the point of gagging. This is what we fought for?
I've carried that quote with me for a long time. I have friend who worked in the industry. I know people from the production and investment side. I've seen both the good and the utterly fucking awful that comes from that place. And, without pre-amble, I am certainly a regular consumer. But always, I've been casting about for the place inside of it where I live; the easy category on the site that fits your particular kinks, and it wasn't for a long time until yesterday that I found a place that hit it directly. I support the efforts of a lot of sites to change the dynamic; I remember reading the Abby Winters executive summary and thinking that it was 'honesty' that was the key, and her real attempts to make that a commercial viable and yet not moral compromised effort. But it never entirely sat right. Prehaps something to do with the fact I'm not a gay or bi-sexual woman, although it is occasionally galling to admit that some of them are preferable ideals of male companionship than myself.
But over the years, my own sexual/pornographic strata has filtered away until it's really come down to one thing; joy. My own teenaged fumblings for sexual identity made it pretty clear that the 'traditional' modes of sex would never entirely work. It was less of a comfortable and identifying uniform as it was an ill fitting suit; worn to meet the social requirements and not get you fired, but never settling entirely right. I'm dating a fashion designer, so forgive me if clothes metaphors seem most apt. It still isn't easy because no identifier fits right. I'm not gay, and despite my jokes about the fitness and personal hygenie requirements, it's largely due to the not well hidden obsession I have with women. I'm not even comfortable with the often twisted 'bi-sexual' label, since there is nothing approaching equality in my tastes. When your attraction is raised by nine-hundred and ninty-women and one guy, that's weekending into bi-sexuality. And, frankly, I hate the idea of appropriating a sexual identity and culture when the odds are worse than a crooked mafia roulette table.
No, that's where the idea of 'joy' fits in. The fact that sexual joy is mutable. It has long been noted that erotica often transitions the various boundaries of gender, kink or subculture. What we find arousing is very much outside of our control most of the time, and more importantly, it very often speaks to a core instead of us that is not directly linked to our sexual identities. To take this convuluted argument back to that quote which encompassed a moment of looking at the brutest expression of the ideal, what was fought for wasn't the right to change the tide; it was the chance to create the sheltered bays in which the rest of it needs to live. And in those sexual tidal pools, everything has the ability to grow in complexity and variance.
Right, long and twisted narrative comes to a point; not necessarily a profound one, but a point. Coming back to that idea of joy, a friend of mine recently posted a lovely link to a website that is essentially a tumbler blog of images and quotes; most of the images are professional. The concept appears to be challenging the notion that sex most be one of; shameful; secret; serious; political; correct; and/or carefully defined. If there was a mission statement, I'd theorize it starts with 'Fuck this nonsense'. Back to the idea of joy.
The people in the photos are young and old. They are pretty, some to the point of flat out gorgeous, and others aren't. Some are gorgeous in their unique ways. Some aren't in their unique ways. Some have bad hair, shitty tattoos, flabby bodies and the marks of rough roads travelled. Some are fat and some are thin. Some are gay and some are straight and some have too many people to figure out the twist. Some like toys and some have something to say and some do things that others are quick to call demeaning. Some conservatives would hate most of them. Some liberals would do the same. There's a hundred photos that would be called anti-women by some and pro-women by others. Fucking is a complicated thing, even when all the parties have their clothes on and a three foot distance between them.
But in this place, the common element is about joy. I don't care really what they are. It's people who are sexually engaged because it's fun. It's about separating through the bullshit and social kabuki to find the moment. Who cares if it's two men or three women or what looks like a ProgRock back-up group; what connects it all is the joy in it. Recognizing that it's more fun than anything else you can do with your time, even edging out baseball and a brand new Pratchett by an earlobe. It makes you happy, and if you do it right, it makes every one you're doing it with happy. How many activities in your life can you make that claim about?
I don't know. Maybe I'm reading more into a well curated tumblerblog because I want to. I like the naive and unrealistic idea of that kind of mercurial sexual honesty, probably far more than I'd personally be able to handle it if actually presented with it as a lifestyle principle. It simply struck me as a real attempt to try and present what it ultimately should break down to: we do it because it makes us feel good. I wish there was more focusing on that.
http://sexisnottheenemy.tumblr.com/tagged/smiles
A woman with 'slut' written on her forehead in lipstick, being slapped across the face with a cock before being forced to deepthroat to the point of gagging. This is what we fought for?
I've carried that quote with me for a long time. I have friend who worked in the industry. I know people from the production and investment side. I've seen both the good and the utterly fucking awful that comes from that place. And, without pre-amble, I am certainly a regular consumer. But always, I've been casting about for the place inside of it where I live; the easy category on the site that fits your particular kinks, and it wasn't for a long time until yesterday that I found a place that hit it directly. I support the efforts of a lot of sites to change the dynamic; I remember reading the Abby Winters executive summary and thinking that it was 'honesty' that was the key, and her real attempts to make that a commercial viable and yet not moral compromised effort. But it never entirely sat right. Prehaps something to do with the fact I'm not a gay or bi-sexual woman, although it is occasionally galling to admit that some of them are preferable ideals of male companionship than myself.
But over the years, my own sexual/pornographic strata has filtered away until it's really come down to one thing; joy. My own teenaged fumblings for sexual identity made it pretty clear that the 'traditional' modes of sex would never entirely work. It was less of a comfortable and identifying uniform as it was an ill fitting suit; worn to meet the social requirements and not get you fired, but never settling entirely right. I'm dating a fashion designer, so forgive me if clothes metaphors seem most apt. It still isn't easy because no identifier fits right. I'm not gay, and despite my jokes about the fitness and personal hygenie requirements, it's largely due to the not well hidden obsession I have with women. I'm not even comfortable with the often twisted 'bi-sexual' label, since there is nothing approaching equality in my tastes. When your attraction is raised by nine-hundred and ninty-women and one guy, that's weekending into bi-sexuality. And, frankly, I hate the idea of appropriating a sexual identity and culture when the odds are worse than a crooked mafia roulette table.
No, that's where the idea of 'joy' fits in. The fact that sexual joy is mutable. It has long been noted that erotica often transitions the various boundaries of gender, kink or subculture. What we find arousing is very much outside of our control most of the time, and more importantly, it very often speaks to a core instead of us that is not directly linked to our sexual identities. To take this convuluted argument back to that quote which encompassed a moment of looking at the brutest expression of the ideal, what was fought for wasn't the right to change the tide; it was the chance to create the sheltered bays in which the rest of it needs to live. And in those sexual tidal pools, everything has the ability to grow in complexity and variance.
Right, long and twisted narrative comes to a point; not necessarily a profound one, but a point. Coming back to that idea of joy, a friend of mine recently posted a lovely link to a website that is essentially a tumbler blog of images and quotes; most of the images are professional. The concept appears to be challenging the notion that sex most be one of; shameful; secret; serious; political; correct; and/or carefully defined. If there was a mission statement, I'd theorize it starts with 'Fuck this nonsense'. Back to the idea of joy.
The people in the photos are young and old. They are pretty, some to the point of flat out gorgeous, and others aren't. Some are gorgeous in their unique ways. Some aren't in their unique ways. Some have bad hair, shitty tattoos, flabby bodies and the marks of rough roads travelled. Some are fat and some are thin. Some are gay and some are straight and some have too many people to figure out the twist. Some like toys and some have something to say and some do things that others are quick to call demeaning. Some conservatives would hate most of them. Some liberals would do the same. There's a hundred photos that would be called anti-women by some and pro-women by others. Fucking is a complicated thing, even when all the parties have their clothes on and a three foot distance between them.
But in this place, the common element is about joy. I don't care really what they are. It's people who are sexually engaged because it's fun. It's about separating through the bullshit and social kabuki to find the moment. Who cares if it's two men or three women or what looks like a ProgRock back-up group; what connects it all is the joy in it. Recognizing that it's more fun than anything else you can do with your time, even edging out baseball and a brand new Pratchett by an earlobe. It makes you happy, and if you do it right, it makes every one you're doing it with happy. How many activities in your life can you make that claim about?
I don't know. Maybe I'm reading more into a well curated tumblerblog because I want to. I like the naive and unrealistic idea of that kind of mercurial sexual honesty, probably far more than I'd personally be able to handle it if actually presented with it as a lifestyle principle. It simply struck me as a real attempt to try and present what it ultimately should break down to: we do it because it makes us feel good. I wish there was more focusing on that.
http://sexisnottheenemy.tumblr.com/tagged/smiles
