Is Porn A Reflection On How Men See Women?

[Green]

I am aware of those cheesy 70s porn flicks with the horrible music and where every man seems to have a mustache but not all porn is like that. You can get any type of porn you want so the world Porn is way too broad a term to determine whether or not it is degrading. You have to break it down into certain types. Besides there is nothing wrong with a little fantasy misogyny for a man as a form of therapy. I have a misogynistic songs tracklist on my iPod and it helps when I am in one of my moods so I imagine degrading porn is the same. Also Oprah and Lifetime are way more hateful towards men than porn is to women.

 

haha that oprah lifetime joke cracked me up... because it is so true

[norajane]

I am aware of those cheesy 70s porn flicks with the horrible music and where every man seems to have a mustache but not all porn is like that. You can get any type of porn you want so the world Porn is way too broad a term to determine whether or not it is degrading. You have to break it down into certain types. Besides there is nothing wrong with a little fantasy misogyny for a man as a form of therapy. I have a misogynistic songs tracklist on my iPod and it helps when I am in one of my moods so I imagine degrading porn is the same. Also Oprah and Lifetime are way more hateful towards men than porn is to women.

 

Types of porn? Let's see. There's the porn where:

 

- girls give pizza delivery guys blowjobs as tips

- girls get pulled over by policemen and have sex with them to get out of tickets

- a bunch of guys have sex with one girl and cum all over her and in her

- bukkake porn

- girl has sex with a bunch of guys in (pick one): sports team locker room, frat party, the office, etc.

- girl is late on her rent and pays the landlord with sex

- golden showers porn

- bdsm...which, oddly enough, is usually the only kind of porn where the submissive is in control

- double penetrations

- the latest fad: ass to mouth

- etc.

 

which of these is not degrading to women?

[Woggle]

I don't see how any of that is hateful towards women. Hateful towards women would mean simulated rape or simulated violence. What you describe is just good old camp.

[Green]

you worry way to much about women being degraded. Men are degraded far worse as a sex by the media every day. Every other sitcom has the father being a retard, every other comercial has dad being a screw up. I mean just look at the way men are portrayed in the media. what I'm trying to say is its like its mainstream aceptable to degrade women

[Trimmer]

But guys like that stuff. And they often want to do some of that stuff with their own wife/gf.... Maybe it's just me but I tend to think that there is a perception from men that the fake young woman with the fake boobs, the arch stereotype of most pornography, is the eptiome of female beauty to alot of men. Personally I find it cartoonish but that seems to be what alot of men enjoy.

I can only speak for myself, and say that that stereotype is not what I prefer, nor would I wish for any woman in my life to aspire to.

 

It's completely dispressing and makes it hard for me to trust men. Sometimes when I am out in public I will see a man with his family and think: "that guy probably watches porn of S*ut Cheerleaders From Wisconsin 5". And it's a completely let down of respect to his wife and family in general, for me at least that's how I see it.

If you look at a man out in public with his family, and what you see is a disrespectful porn user, then that is your issue, not his.

 

I still don't feel as if some of you in your responses directly addressed any of the questions I ask. Most of the men totally avoided going anywhere near the objectification and degradtion name calling that is a major theme in porn movies towards women, not men.

Perhaps because the direct question you asked on this subject assumes a premise that I do not accept. You ask:

Why do so many men accept and themselves enjoy seeing women treated like that?

I cannot answer "why" because I myself do not enjoy it. That's the best answer I can offer.

 

I tend to struggle with this issue but often think that porn is an outlet for men on how they really want to see women treated deep in their heart.

The only porn that I've seen that is the least bit appealing to me is where the characters are portrayed as intimate, willing, and interested in each other - basically the way I would like to be with a partner. I don't accept or enjoy seeing characters portrayed in disrespectful or objectified ways. I don't presume that my perceptions and tastes speak for "all men," but neither should you presume that your perceptions are sufficient to characterize "all men."

 

And lest you stand on the semantic issue that you didn't actually say, literally, "all men," I'll point out that you have stated that you have trouble trusting men because of these perceptions, so I think it reasonable to say that you are characterizing men, as a group.

 

I feel it's germane to mention that I've had a similar discussion with this OP before (assuming that "JerseyShortie" is the same member who previously used the screen name "Jersey<space>Shortie") and I set down some rather lengthy comments in that thread, (notably posts 31, 34, and 35.) I'll summarize those comments (which, irrespective of whether this is the same OP, are still relevant in the context of this thread) simply by saying that I disagree with the OP's broad characterization of men with a single-colored brush, and I find it mystifying that the OP generalizes so confidently about "what happens to women" without sharing personal experiences of what has transpired in her own life to support these conclusions.

 

Maybe when I see men enjoy women treated with care and respect more then they like seeing women used, degraded and called names I can begin to believe that.

Try looking into the lives of real people, instead of looking at porn, to form your world view. If I could somehow show you the 18 year relationship and marriage I had with my wife, I would.

 

But considering how important porn is to men, sometimes it does seem men don't much respect or care for women beyond her spreading her legs.....

 

Which is the exact reason why men look at porn, for the type of physical women they really want; but settle for the real life women of what women really are. And this his real life woman gets screwed because he still needs the porn.

This may be true of some men, it may be true of many men. But your perception that it represents all men is just that, and that alone: your perception. Like I said earlier, if you look at a man with his family and assume, based on your reasoning in this thread, that he is a disrespectful, porn-using, mysogynist creep, that's your issue, not his. Of course it's possible. What I'm saying is that your assumption that he is all of those things is your issue.

 

If anything, and I know I'll be negated by our resident misogynists and bitter men, most men want the whore in the bedroom and the beautiful, arm-trophy madonna, outside of the bedroom.

I won't dispute that. You know, it so often gets characterized using the "madonna/whore" terminology, as if it's some kind of travesty, but is there anything wrong with hoping for a multi-dimensional partner? Someone who can be hot in the bedroom, classy in social settings, capably domestic when it comes to family and household, and maybe a little naughty at unexpected times? Now, was I talking about women or men there? Don't women want a multi-dimensional man, who can be alternately sexy, classy, a confident financial contributor, handy around the house, and maybe even show a bit of a streak of the biker outlaw occasionally? Why would a desire for a multi-dimensional partner characterized as a bad thing? Can't it work in a healthy way, in both directions, if the relationship is fundamentally based in respect?

 

Some men even enjoy brains, at least enough so they can get, thus laugh at their jokes...

Oh, I had lunch with a woman to whom I'm powerfully attracted... Yes, she's physically attractive, but I think even more of it is that she's just really intelligent, and I'm finding that extremely hot. YMMV.

 

All I can say is that decent men won't like the ideas and distaste the porn convey. and don't bother yourself with the "most men think", that can get us nowhere.

Simple and to the point. And I'll amplify it a little with the idea that not ALL men are wired exactly the same, and not every man who enjoys fantasizing and watching a couple have sex enjoys bukkake or gang-bang or golden shower porn. My point is, we're all different, but the OP seems to be locked up on the idea that we're all the same, based on the existence of porn in our society.

Edited March 23, 2008 by Trimmer

[norajane]

I don't see how any of that is hateful towards women. Hateful towards women would mean simulated rape or simulated violence. What you describe is just good old camp.

 

I do enjoy degrading women, even messing them up. But most of the girls I'm with enjoy that kind of thing. One of my favorite things to do when I get a girl back to my room is just toss her accross the room onto my bed and they love it

 

There you are, Jersey. That's two men for whom degrading porn is a reflection of how they see women.

 

Of course, one of them is a self-proclaimed misogynist, and the other is a self-proclaimed horniest man alive whose goal is to bang as many women as possible, so they may not be quite a representative sample of MEN.

[Woggle]

Porn is not how I see women. It is simply fantasy and I realize that women are a diverse and varied group of people.

[Green]

There you are, Jersey. That's two men for whom degrading porn is a reflection of how they see women.

 

Of course, one of them is a self-proclaimed misogynist, and the other is a self-proclaimed horniest man alive whose goal is to bang as many women as possible, so they may not be quite a representative sample of MEN.

 

um excuse me, I've said time and time again I don't think banging a bunch of women is true criteria for being the HMA, I've turned quite a few women down for casual sex

[Trimmer]

Of course, one of them is a self-proclaimed misogynist, and the other is a self-proclaimed horniest man alive whose goal is to bang as many women as possible, so they may not be quite a representative sample of MEN.

That's all I'm trying to say. I'm not denying that there are men "out there" for whom the OP's concerns ring true. I'm just saying that she seems to be fixed on the idea that porn represents men as a group, to the degree that she is unable to perceive individual men in any other way (e.g. the guy out with his family.) Funny, that's kind of her point in reverse - she insists on seeing the entire opposite sex as a charicature, instead of acknowledging the diversity of its members as individual human beings.

 

I still have to wonder if there is some root fear or life experience that the OP hasn't worked out, and this fixation on porn-as-reflection is just a defense mechanism that validates her mistrust of men as a group.

[Green]

That's all I'm trying to say. I'm not denying that there are men "out there" for whom the OP's concerns ring true. I'm just saying that she seems to be fixed on the idea that porn represents men as a group, to the degree that she is unable to see men in any other way. Funny, that's kind of her point in reverse - she insists on seeing the entire opposite sex as a charicature, instead of acknowledging the individuality of its members as human beings.

 

I still have to wonder if there is some root fear or life experience that the OP hasn't worked out, and this fixation on porn-as-reflection is just a defense mechanism that validates her mistrust of men as a group.

 

she definetly has a root fear, She is always calling things and people creepy. And yes she has done the reverse, but its socialy acceptable for women to put men down as a gender and cite porn

[Taramere]

K, now contrast that with a woman saying "lick it, jerkwad, lick my cunt".

 

I'll guarantee there aren't many women who think of men and sex that way on a regular basis, much less have ever actually uttered something like that during sex, nor do they fantasize about doing so or watch porn where that happens pretty much all the time.

 

It's a very different mindset. Women don't often have a degrading view of men when it comes to sex. While men do VERY often as its shown in porn. So do they VERY often think of women that way in real life too?

 

I guess testosterone generally does make a person more aggressive, so there may be a primarily physical reason that some men enjoy watching women being degraded in gonzo "multiple facials" porn. And to those who disagree that that's degrading....for Christ's sake. The guys who produce that kind of porn freely admit that it's supposed to be degrading, so I don't why women get corrected for reiterating the blatantly obvious.

 

Max Hardcore talks about creating porn that incorporates revenge fantasies for men who've been spurned/hurt by women...and that brand of gonzo porn is increasingly popular.

 

I have revenge fantasies myself at times, and I also have some pretty nasty sexual fantasies stashed away in my brain. Would I want to see them made real by the use of flesh and blood humans? Absolutely not. That's where empathy steps in and draws boundaries.

 

With gonzo porn, there are no such boundaries. Real people are used in the kind of scenes that result in vomiting and bleeding. Which for me is a totally unacceptable line...and yet over and over again people use the freedom of speech argument. I don't know why people's right to turn their darkest thoughts into cinematic viewing (to a level where real, desperate, drug addled people are put through genuine physical trauma) is so bloody sacred. But apparently it is.

 

As porn becomes more mainstream and used by women as well as men, the hardcore stuff has to become more and more nasty in order to retain that "men only" aura. Tremendously cool, sexy and liberated as pro-porn feminism sounds, sometimes it's best to just stay the f*ck out of that cave instead of insisting that you're tough, horny and dirty enough to join in with whatever's going on in there "so don't shut me out, sweetie!"

 

It seems to me that the desire some women have to constantly be just like the boys (ladettes!) really doesn't serve our gender particularly well.

 

I've finally turned into my mother. It had to happen eventually.

Edited March 23, 2008 by Taramere

[Nocturnal]

Porn is a visual stimulus, much like the "trash novels" women read are a intellectual stimulus both with the same reason for existing but tailored for the difference in the sexes approach to sex. Men are much more visual, we get much more aroused by the look of a woman than what is inside her skull, if we're talking plain raw sexual arousal, not a long term comitted relationship, mind you. When we watch sex, we're objectifying what we see and become aroused by the images flashing by, it is reptilian in essence.

 

Women are generally wired differently and need an intellectual stimulus, that is also why women are usually the ones in control of the sex in a relationship because for them it needs to feel right, while for most men it is a bitt less picky, if we're aroused we can generally just get to it no matter what. Thus, women read the novels because things are described in a way that appeals to their view of sex, so they are intellectually stimulated, it is equally reptilian but they just get it from a different set of senses than men do.

 

I am generalizing a bit to show my point, I know. But the end point is still the same, men dont consume porn because that is how we want to see women, in fact I would venture to guess that if most men where to end up in a porn-esque scenario we would most feel a bit turned off.

 

There's also a big variety of porn, not all are throat pounding, air gasping and treating the girls like daterapes. I prefer the more artistic type of porn, favoring the sensual side of it. But, some men like the harder porn, we're all different. But at the end of the day, I think most men simply view it as something to turn them on, but that doesn't imply they want to do it themselves.

 

I can give a porn-related example; they say most men would want to have a threesome with two girls. Some guys even go so far as to ask their girlfriend about it. The kicker though is that a lot of guys think they want something, but in reality, they haven't accounted for what the end result might look like. In many cases, the guy will end up being jealous of the third party, because a lot of time the girls will find it more interesting to play around and he will become the third wheel, not like in porn where the guy is the revered center of the threesome. I've heard stories of guys being in threesomes and being almost completely left out to the point where they actually ended up leaving the room. Not what they had in mind.

 

In the end, there are two points I would like to make, first is that porn is simply a means to an end, reading more into it than that is unecessary. Secondly, these days one cant really lump porn together into one category as there's such a broad variety of porn that it really doesn't do it justice. The porn I enjoy and the porn my friend enjoys are so radically different that they're not even worth comparing.

[OpenBook]

When we watch sex, we're objectifying what we see and become aroused by the images flashing by, it is reptilian in essence.

 

Gosh that's... comforting. :D

 

In the end, there are two points I would like to make, first is that porn is simply a means to an end, reading more into it than that is unecessary. Secondly, these days one cant really lump porn together into one category as there's such a broad variety of porn that it really doesn't do it justice. The porn I enjoy and the porn my friend enjoys are so radically different that they're not even worth comparing.

 

I for one appreciate your thoughtful and well-written post, Nocturnal. I think you put into words what I've suspected but couldn't verbalize -- because I wouldn't quite know how to put it, and also because I'm not a man so it would be out of place for me to speak for any of you.

 

I've just been comparing what the OP's suspicions are (about a possible link between a man's porn-viewing and how he feels about women) with my own experiences with men as SO's. In every case, how he felt about or actually used porn had nothing to do with how he felt about me. I have never suffered from his use of porn.

 

Men are supernaturally gifted at compartmentalizing. Especially when it comes to sex. All my SO's have been fully aware of their "reptilian" tendencies, and quite easily kept a lid on it with a healthy dose of humor. Of course, their safety valve was released on a regular basis, as I consistently indulged their "reptilian" side in the bedroom.

 

But that has only been my own experience. I completely acknowledge that JerseyShortie may have run into men that I have never encountered... and that (in some men) there may indeed be a link. But I don't think the porn would have caused it. The porn is simply a manifestation of it. They were already like that (reptilian, and unable to overcome it or control it) before they ever encountered porn.

[Woggle]

penBook is right. With women everything sort of runs together while men tend to seperate aspects of our life.

[Trialbyfire]

There you are, Jersey. That's two men for whom degrading porn is a reflection of how they see women.

 

Of course, one of them is a self-proclaimed misogynist, and the other is a self-proclaimed horniest man alive whose goal is to bang as many women as possible, so they may not be quite a representative sample of MEN.

That's hilarious!

 

Porn does degrade women. There's no doubt that it does. Sex, power and control, seem to go hand-in-hand for some men. If you think about it, these are all the elements for your classic rape case.

 

I won't dispute that. You know, it so often gets characterized using the "madonna/whore" terminology, as if it's some kind of travesty, but is there anything wrong with hoping for a multi-dimensional partner? Someone who can be hot in the bedroom, classy in social settings, capably domestic when it comes to family and household, and maybe a little naughty at unexpected times? Now, was I talking about women or men there? Don't women want a multi-dimensional man, who can be alternately sexy, classy, a confident financial contributor, handy around the house, and maybe even show a bit of a streak of the biker outlaw occasionally? Why would a desire for a multi-dimensional partner characterized as a bad thing? Can't it work in a healthy way, in both directions, if the relationship is fundamentally based in respect?

I won't dispute that a multi-faceted partner, is intriguing. Keep in mind that with that kind of multi-dimensional person, will come complexities of other forms, which not all men can handle.

Oh, I had lunch with a woman to whom I'm powerfully attracted... Yes, she's physically attractive, but I think even more of it is that she's just really intelligent, and I'm finding that extremely hot. YMMV.

Trimmer, there's no doubt that some men, like yourself, prefer an intelligent woman. Many are intimidated and some, to the point of fear, due to personal insecurities.

[Woggle]

Women might not tend to go lick it and suck it but many women do view sex as a weapon against men. All in all women hate men much more than men hate women. I would rather my wife look at porn than watch Oprah or go to feminist meetings yet if a man takes an issue with those things he is controlling.

[Taramere]

I prefer the more artistic type of porn, favoring the sensual side of it. But, some men like the harder porn, we're all different. But at the end of the day, I think most men simply view it as something to turn them on, but that doesn't imply they want to do it themselves.

 

I agree with that. I also suspect that some of the nastier gonzo stuff is watched more out of morbid curiosity than in a sexual way. As Openbook said, men are better at compartmentalising, and there are some situations in which I envy that ability....but the watching of rough porn isn't one of them.

 

Whether it's a porn film or some film in which a guy is being beaten up by a group of other guys - anything with that kind of violence in it upsets me, probably more than it's the norm for someone to be upset by things like that. I can read books where these scenes are described, but watching the visuals and hearing the accompanying sounds are generally too much. Even last year, when I went to see Pan's Labyrinth with a friend, people in the seats around me were laughing because I spent most of the film with my eyes shut and my hands over my ears. I hadn't researched the film properly beforehand, and expected some sweet little fantasy tale, and instead it was just 90 minutes (or however long) of sheer trauma.

 

It could be that the OP also has a naturally distressed reaction towards the sight of living things being abused and degraded, even if it's just acting. Some people have a natural desire to protect others from abuse, and it can translate into a desire to intervene in situations where the apparently abused person doesn't actually want such intervention to take place.

 

If the OP is finding herself dwelling on this a lot - her best bet is to just avoid watching films that contain scenes of violence or sexual degradation and to try to stick with other like-minded people so that she isn't co-erced into watching or doing anything that upsets her. Easier said than done, as that rescuer instinct can motivate people to actively seek out things that will end up just throwing them into a negative frame of mind from which they can't achieve anything useful.

 

We live in a fairly desensitised society. Learning to move out of that rescuer "I want to make the world a gentler place" mode is probably essential for certain personality types if they want to avoid slipping into depression. I know that's something I battle with, and tackling it is easier said than done.

Edited March 23, 2008 by Taramere

[Storyrider]

Taramere made me think of something, comparing violent movies to porn. In a sense, highly violent movies denigrate all of us because people are gratuitously mutilated for the sake of entertainment.

 

My parents have a problem watching movies together b/c my dad likes highly raw, violent movies like Fargo and Reservoir Dogs. My mom gets really upset, like Taramere, and can't watch them.

 

My dad always says he is completely aware that the film violence is fabricated and unreal, and that he is able to enjoy it as entertainment because of that fact. In real life my father is a peaceful person, doesn't own any guns, hunt, or anything like that. He views the violent action as pure fantasy and would be disgusted to see, let alone participate in anything like that in real life. This is compartmentalization of a kind my mother cannot do. I think, for her, seeing it on the screen evokes a lesser version of the same horror she would experience at seeing it IRL.

 

Maybe porn is similar in how men and women react to it.

 

That being said, I'm not at all a fan of porn, and I don't view it as particularly valuable to society.

[Trimmer]

It's a very different mindset. Women don't often have a degrading view of men when it comes to sex. While men do VERY often as its shown in porn. So do they VERY often think of women that way in real life too?

No, but as an earlier poster pointed out, the degrading view of stupid, bumbling, incapable men is commonly portrayed in sitcoms and TV commercials. So, since this view is promoted, do women VERY often think of men that way in real life, too? I think this phenomenon has to be more "mainstream," and more widely accepted than porn. Can we paint all women with this brush, given the popularity of images presented in the medium?

 

I won't dispute that a multi-faceted partner, is intriguing. Keep in mind that with that kind of multi-dimensional person, will come complexities of other forms, which not all men can handle.

Hey, let's be honest: "...which not all people can handle." My very point is that the OP is simplifying the general concept of men to the point of saying, "since porn exists, I can't trust men." For whatever reason, she "can't handle" the complexity that exists in looking at men as a diverse group, and at individual men as being multi-dimensional.

 

Trimmer, there's no doubt that some men, like yourself, prefer an intelligent woman. Many are intimidated and some, to the point of fear, due to personal insecurities.

Completely agree. And once again, to turn the genders around, I wonder what is the source of the fear and personal insecurity in the OP that is preventing her from seeing men as potentially intelligent, diverse, multi-faceted individuals.

 

If the OP is finding herself dwelling on this a lot - her best bet is to just avoid watching films that contain scenes of violence or sexual degradation and to try to stick with other like-minded people so that she isn't co-erced into watching or doing anything that upsets her.

But her problem isn't a difficulty in avoiding seeing scenes of violence or degradation - I bet she has little difficulty avoiding porn. The problem is that in her mind, porn speaks for all men, so her understandable aversion to porn is transformed to an aversion to men. So your advice transforms to "avoid men," which is certainly one option, but an extreme and unnatural one, which would cause dissonance in most people (and perhaps some of what we are seeing with the OP... )

Edited March 23, 2008 by Trimmer

[Taramere]

But her problem isn't a difficulty in avoiding seeing scenes of violence or degradation - I bet she has little difficulty avoiding porn. The problem is that in her mind, porn speaks for all men, so her understandable aversion to porn is transformed to an aversion to men. So your advice transforms to "avoid men," which is certainly one option, but an extreme and unnatural one, which would cause dissonance in most people (and perhaps some of what we are seeing with the OP... )

 

I agree, but I can almost guarantee that although she isn't watching porn she's reading the kind of articles about it that encourage her to overstate its importance in most men's lives. In one sense, I support her right to write on a support site about an issue which upsets her - because that's supposed to be one of the aims of Loveshack.

 

On the other hand, I'm not certain that doing so will ultimately benefit her, as the most usual response to people raising this issue involves accusations of man-hating, prudishness or over-sensitivity....which probably just compounds her existing feelings rather than helping her to manage them.

 

It seems to me that yes, she's developing an aversion to men as a result of her distress over the violent porn issue...and that the main purpose of her post was to get some kind of reassurance that what happens in these films doesn't reflect a reality of how men feel about women.

 

Nobody can give her that reassurance, because nobody can speak for an entire gender. All I can contribute to this is that I understand her aversion to the notion of violent porn, and that I don't believe that in makes her a wrong or malfunctioning person. Far from it, in my view - but naturally I'm biased in that regard.

 

The difficulty is that she's advanced towards associating the misogyny of some porn with your average guy in the street (eg the man with his family). The more she dwells on that, the more she'll start seeing that misogynistic bogeyman in various peaceful individuals who - like Storyrider's Dad, enjoy watching certain things on the screen that they would never participate in real life.

[Storyrider]

Perhaps what is disturbing about porn, is the truth that men sometimes fantasize about and crave sexual outlets where real female emotion (and their own emotion) is extracted because it is burdensome. The idea that a non-emotional, empty connection would be a relief to men is a hard one to swallow (no pun). That seems like what porn is, a vacation for the man from the emotional aspects that pervade RL sex. Apparently at times, and for some men, emotion is a swamp they must forge their way through to get to the sex.

 

Is this how men feel sometimes? It is hard for a woman to face, since when a woman feels this way, she often assumes there is something wrong with the relationship or her feelings towards the guy. Maybe with some men it is normal. Men who are porn addicted and denying their RL woman sex may be avoiding the emotional aspects altogether.

[Storyrider]

I agree, but I can almost guarantee that although she isn't watching porn she's reading the kind of articles about it that encourage her to overstate its importance in most men's lives. In one sense, I support her right to write on a support site about an issue which upsets her - because that's supposed to be one of the aims of Loveshack.

 

My gut reaction to the initial post was that the OP was taking or had recently taken a college course in feminist criticism, cultural anthropology or film.

[Trialbyfire]

Hey, let's be honest: "...which not all people can handle." My very point is that the OP is simplifying the general concept of men to the point of saying, "since porn exists, I can't trust men." For whatever reason, she "can't handle" the complexity that exists in looking at men as a diverse group, and at individual men as being multi-dimensional.

I won't disagree with your statement, although I will inject that more men are intimidated by an intelligent woman, than women are intimidated by an intelligent men.

 

If conceptually, that is her focus, it's drawing a broad conclusion, based on a limited amount of detail.

 

Completely agree. And once again, to turn the genders around, I wonder what is the source of the fear and personal insecurity in the OP that is preventing her from seeing men as potentially intelligent, diverse, multi-faceted individuals.

I don't know how old the OP is but I will use some broad brush strokes myself, in that many younger men are more superficially inclined, lacking depth. They haven't been finely tempered by time or experience. Perhaps this is the environment the OP is accustomed to.

[norajane]

Human sexuality is complicated, and I don't think it's fair to reduce it to something as one-dimensional as porn = how men really think about women.

 

At the same time, entirely dismissing there is any connection between how sex with women is portrayed in porn and how men think of sex and women also seems like we'd be ignoring some valid kernels of truth, especially considering its prevalence.

 

My view is that men use porn as a masturbation tool and it's not a big deal. But when I consider what is actually depicted in porn, well, that's men's fantasies brought to vivid visual, and that can be disturbing.

 

What's interesting, though, is minds more educated than mine on human sexuality can show different perspectives on those exact same fantasies. Nancy Friday, for example, has written a series of books that compile women's and men's real fantasies as sent in by real people. She also provides analysis of the common types of fantasies. And one of the perspectives she has is that when men are cumming all over those fantasy women, and doing all these things we might see as degrading, it often stems from men's need/desire to be fully ACCEPTED by their women. Take my cum, take my cock = accept ME.

 

And when you look at it from that perspective, it's less degrading and disturbing than it is maybe needy or eager to please, or even a little sad as it portrays buried anger and frustration at not being accepted or at their sexuality being judged.

 

I don't know if that made any sense, but if anyone is interested in the subject, Nancy's book on men's fantasies is called "Men in Love".

[KidEternity]

I won't disagree with your statement, although I will inject that more men are intimidated by an intelligent woman, than women are intimidated by an intelligent men.

 

If conceptually, that is her focus, it's drawing a broad conclusion, based on a limited amount of detail.

 

I don't know how old the OP is but I will use some broad brush strokes myself, in that many younger men are more superficially inclined, lacking depth. They haven't been finely tempered by time or experience. Perhaps this is the environment the OP is accustomed to.

 

 

I don't think men being 'intimidated' by intelligent women has anything to do with it...and I don't think I'm certainly not intimidated by an intelligent woman, if anything I like it!

 

...and if we are using our broad brush strokers the same thing has to be said for young women who are just as superficially inclined as men...but I don't think it is right to say that about either sexes as we are just generalising here...