Letters to the Editor
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Issue of physical safety cannot be overstated
An issue that alarajrogers brought up that I believe is key to this discussion is the issue of physical safety. Most women who reach adulthood and sexual maturity are aware that the majority of men they encounter outweigh them and are certainly stronger. Women, especially small women, live lives of risk management to a degree that I don't think most men have ever pondered.
One of the reasons I find porn unarousing is that I simply can't put myself in the actress's place - perhaps out of sheer self-preservation. Even if the "action" appears to be consensual, I can't turn off the part of my brain that questions the cirumstances which led the actress to appear in the movie. That, and the fact that some of the sex acts appear to be downright dangerous, and painful for the female involved.
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porn consumption
Porn consumption takes time, even in the internet age. If you want to consume porn you have to go looking for it. The more selective you are, the more time it takes. While looking for and acquiring porn there are several costs. Time certainly and maybe money. There is also the cost of wading through a lot of material that is either useless or offensive or, in some cases, pretty upsetting.
Men are simply more willing to bear these costs because their incentive (desire) is greater and because, for the most part, their sensibilities are less liable to offense.
If you wade into the sewer that is the porn industry and spend some time looking, you can find pretty much anything you want. Sure it may only be 2% of the material that really appeals to you, but 2% of the porn industry's output in any given year could keep you busy for several lifetimes.
There is porn with attractive men. There is porn with story lines and semi-plausible acting (plausible enough to tolerate if you are trying to be into it, not if you are trying to find complaints). There is porn with couples that make some remote sense (both partners attractive and seemingly into each other). There is porn with realisticly attractive, not too surgically enhanced women.
Because women are disinclined to invest the time required to find the better, more acceptable, stuff, they form the generalized impression that all porn is of the tackiest, most exploitative variety.
If any women are genuinely interested in finding good porn, but can't stomach the shopping experience, then you might find a willing guy to undertake to locate material that is likely to meet with your approval. I'm pretty sure most guys would be willing to undertake this distasteful task. Most men would do this for their partner. Many would do it for a good friend, if you have such a good male friend where no sex is happening.
Also there are sites strictly devoted to "couples porn," some of which is anything but women oriented, but a lot of which maybe is.
Don't worry too much about bruising your man's ego, either. Any guy invited to watch porn with his partner would be too busy being pleased with his good fortune to even notice the male performers, much less compare himself to them.
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Good fortune....
"Don't worry too much about bruising your man's ego, either. Any guy invited to watch porn with his partner would be too busy being pleased with his good fortune to even notice the male performers, much less compare himself to them."
I hope he doesn't mind watching gay porn then, because that's where the attractive men are!
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Rillion
that may be generally true, but there is also hetero porn with attractive men. Maybe not too common, but findable with effort.
As to watching gay porn with his woman, that is for each guy to decide on his own. I am sure there are many who might go for it.
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Good Porn =Expensive Porn
I did also say that in the blog post of mine that I quoted: that for porn that is appealing to women would be more expensive to make and either the industry would not find it worthwhile or the extra cost would be passed on to the customer, which would then affect sales.
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I like Porn.
"Don't worry too much about bruising your man's ego, either. Any guy invited to watch porn with his partner would be too busy being pleased with his good fortune to even notice the male performers, much less compare himself to them."
That's been my experience. I don't compare myself to the women either; they're obviously made to look that way, though there are some spectacularly hot natural women in porn too.
'Pirates'. 'Eternal Curse'. Both with plot, women in charge, and hot sex. Some of it is a little too close-up for my liking, yes. But by and large, so long as it has some sort of storyline, it's a lot more fun for me.
I would highly recommend that people making judgements on quality, effects, storyline and so forth give Pirates a watch, as it's a fun movie even without all the fucking.
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Flawed Study
The study has the same problem that many studies do--it sample people that are willing to participate in a study. In particular, this was a study of men and women who are willing to participate in a study where they watch porn.
I'm guessing that there is a greater range of reaction among women to porn (relative to men), and that the reaction would be stronger among women willing to participate in a porn watching study than women not willing to participate in a porn-watching study.
Not to mention the study was done in Montreal, which usually ranks high in the "sexual liberal" category when the CBC does a study of sexuality in Canada.
So we're probably looking at a skewed study here.
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Rillion: Plenty of Pleistocene jewelery
Granted, ostrich eggshell beads ain't Tiffany's, but hey. I'd be willing to bet that some dude 70K years ago did in fact give a string of difficult-to-manufacture status symbols to his desired sex partner: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/03/0331_040331_ostrichman.html. Not a lot changes.
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Regarding Laurel's reference to "unsafe sex" in her letter
I know that at least one male star of the adult cinema died from AIDS, and there was a "scare" a few years ago about a possible HIV epidemic that actually shut down production a few years ago.
But...has there ever been a verified, documented case of a baby being born exactly 9 months after the parents performed for the cameras? (IMHO, if true, that's gotta be one really messed-up kid.)