Thursday, November 03, 2005

"It's like a big Mac truck cut across three lanes of my soul"

Lindsey over at Theology & Geometry has been kicking my ass in the smart, insightful feminist department. See her take down that whiny Maureen Dowd. Watch her kick the abortion debate's ass. And today, she brilliantly takes on pornography. Lindsey, I tip my hat to you. Wow. Anyway, with all this cooter talk, I've been thinking a lot about porn, because, obviously, part of what's going on here is that all these cooters are being turned into camera-ready cooters. And I was just coming to post about porn, and there's Lindsey, smarter and more insightful. Read her first. Then let's talk about what, in the end, bothers me about porn. What bothers me about porn is that it presents such a simplistic and false notion of what it's like when we want you*. And then, it seems like, in order for you--and sometimes us--to recognize our real, complex desires for you, they have to mimic that falseness. Now, I know that porn is mostly created by men to be consumed by men** and so expecting it to accurately reflect women's desires is probably asking too much. But there's a way in which I'm like "Dudes, we're having a huge barbecue right here. Come have some beer" and y'all are like "but we really like eating these flowers. They're so young and tender and beautiful" which just leaves me dumbfounded. How is that filling? Let's talk bluntly. In most porn, the ideal girl is in her early twenties and beautiful and willing to fuck any man that comes along. Now, I don't blame you for the "beautiful" and "willing to fuck any man that comes along;" it's the "early twenties" part that just baffles me. And this is nothing against girls in their early twenties. I have been a girl in my early twenties. But god damn, what did I know about my own desire at 18 or 20 or 22? Had I ever wanted someone so much that it jolted me from a dead sleep at that age? Did I ever smell a certain brand of cigarette smoke and have to sit the fuck down? Did I ever lay there on my living room floor listening to you trying to catch your breath next to me wondering, with delight, "what the fuck am I doing and when can I do it again?"*** No. I spent my early twenties drunkenly groping whosoever would grope me back. I had a good time, but nothing as earth-movingly powerful as it is now. And, to hear my mom and her friends talk, it just gets better (or worse, depending on your point of view). And I'm thrilled and amazed by it. It's awesome. Which makes me even more confused about why your commodified fantasies feature girls who are so young. Why, in your fantasies, do you choose to miss out on this? * For the sake of this post, we're talking about heterosexual desire. **and--woo hoo--we could go into some interesting shit here, but we won't. ***In all fairness, I also thought "shit, I wish I'd vacuumed."

6 Comments:

Blogger bridgett said...

Ok, the first guy who absolves himself of culpability for taking these questions about power and culture seriously by citing a supposed evolutionary imperative for impregnating as many nubile women as he possible can should just crawl right back into the ape exhibit to do a little research on primate behavior. Wherein he will get his ass repeatedly kicked by the biggest, oldest male gorilla until he slinks off into the corner in frustration. (Probably to drink beer and sing along to Toby Keith on the jukebox with other luckless horny males in the bachelor group.) Wherein he will learn that sex among apes is as much about displays of male power and dominance between senior and junior males as it is about reproduction.

I'm just saying...

11/03/2005 10:12:00 AM  
Blogger Karan Simpson said...

*** multi-tasking at its best. You are too funny!

11/03/2005 10:15:00 AM  
Blogger Kleinheider said...

I'm like "Dudes, we're having a huge barbecue right here. Come have some beer" and y'all are like "but we really like eating these flowers. They're so young and tender and beautiful" which just leaves me dumbfounded. How is that filling?

That's funny.

11/03/2005 10:26:00 AM  
Blogger Michael Hickerson said...

You also forgot to add that apparently a lot of women in their 20s will order pizzas and then not have the money for it and then find other ways to pay for the pizza....

I mena, I've heard that's the case....

Anyway on to some serious thoughts on this subject.

I have always thought there were three levels to the nookie. Fucking which is what you've got in porn. Basically it's that parts fit together and it feels good. Not much feeling or emotion behind it. Then you've got sex which has some more feeling behind it and you might acutally know her name and spend the night...this is the kind of stuff you get on Skin-o-Max late at night. Then you've got making love which it feels good and parts fit together and you know her name, but it's more than that...it's a whole other level of stuff--souls combining, a physical and emotional intimacy if you will. I'd almost say this is like the sex scenes you see on a night time drama like Party of Five where we waited forever for Bailey to have sex with Sarah and when they did, it was so much more than the first two....

Anyway, I think in some cases, we start out in our lives wanting the first two...esp. men. Cause as soon as you find out about sex you're like--damn that sounds good. You don't care who it's with really so long as you can do it. But as you grow up and mature, you realize you want something more. As Bill Cosby once said in a routine, the older you get and the longer you're with someone the better it gets. Cause she knows that in the bathroom, flossing and getting ready to come into the bedroom is the greatest lover in the world....

As for why they have 20 year women....well, men are shallow createres who are visual and if it's gonna be a fantasy universe anyway, why not have the allegedly hot 20 year olds? Honestly, i can say this-my body is not perfect. And I'd rather dream of an attainable woman who would want me for me rathre than some allegedly hot woman who wants me for the length of my manhood as it were.

OK, I've rambled on a long time here about nothing....I'll wrap this up.

Good post.

11/03/2005 03:09:00 PM  
Blogger Lee said...

I once heard Dr. Drew of Loveline fame describe Pamela Anderson, who looks pretty much like your stereotypical porn star, as a "female female impersonator."

I think the same men who truly find your average skank porn star hot are the same type of men who watch wrestling (not for the comic opera that it is) and actually write fan letters.

11/03/2005 05:53:00 PM  
Blogger Kleinheider said...

I think the same men who truly find your average skank porn star hot are the same type of men who watch wrestling (not for the comic opera that it is) and actually write fan letters.

Oh, good point!

11/03/2005 07:04:00 PM  

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