But @_Markmccormack is Wrong: Homo love in pop music is nothing new

Remember the Libertines and that explosive, intense, doomed love affair between Doherty and Barat? This photo of them, topless, sweaty, lips touching over the mic (dick?) sums their homo love up beautifully. I don’t care if they fucked or not, the sexual tension that powered their music was enough for me.

I’m mentioning this because according to tumblr, One Direction that squeaky clean British boy band, have also done some mic -licking recently. You can see the animated gif here.

According to ‘gay academic’ Mark Mccormack One Direction are an embodiment of a new, ‘inclusive’, ‘softening masculinity’ that allows for ‘playing with sexuality’ even if they’re straight.  Softness v Hardness aside, I and @lindygeek reminded Dr Mccormack on twitter, that this kind of homosocial flirtatious bonding between men in pop is nothing new. See Bowie, Prince, Little Richard etc:

And, who is it who is headlining Glastonbury this year? Yes, some kings and queens of ‘omnisexual’ rock and roll: The Rolling Stones.  I rest my case.

Cock In My Pocket h/t @mrrohrer #QRGMassive

‘I got my cock in my pocket
And I’m reelin
Down the old highway
I got my cock in my pocket
And I’m reelin
Down the old highway
I’m gonna whip it on you honey
Taste your blood today
I got my cock in my pocket
And I’m shovin it
Through your pants
I got my cock in my pocket
And I’m shovin it
Through your pants
I just wanna fuck
This aint no romance
I got my cock in my pocket’

This Iggy and the Stooges track is new to me. What I like about it is how it reminds us of the potential for the ‘masculine’ ‘active’ expression of sexuality to be available to anyone. Detaching the ‘cock’ from the body and putting it in one’s ‘pocket’ is what many pop stars, men and women, do when they perform. For the phallus, as Iggy, a doyenne of ‘feminine’ ‘passive’ display knows so well, is far bigger, harder, and more powerful than that pink delicate fleshy member most men carry round in their trousers. I got my cock in my pocket, and I’m reelin’ down the old highway.

Happy New Year #QRGMassive !!

Metro Boys Have More Fun

http://lawandsexuality.blogspot.com/ Chris at the marvellous Law and Sexuality blog, seems to have the hots for Philip Oliver, actor, ‘gay mag pin up’ and as Chris calls him, ‘metrosexual cock tease’. He is fit it’s true though I remember him as a scrappy kid in Brookside with a whiny voice which ruins the metro macho image for me, a bit. Anyway, Chris seems a little bit disgruntled that this ‘straight’ young buck is ‘playing with the gay boys’ but not actually, you know, playing ball.

‘He’s repeatedly said he’s straight in all the gay magazine interviews (of which there are many) that he’s done. In 2005, he was a national judge on Mr Gay UK and he’s appeared at various gay pride events and in 2010 appeared in a BBC soap, Doctors, playing a gay yoga teacher so he’s a straight guy who likes playing with the gay boys.

This is a metrosexual who has apparently made some money from the gay community and so it perhaps helps if men keep thinking there’s a possibility of some sexual liaison. In that sense, he is the professional cock tease. He is very very good at it.’

I responded to this particular remark by reminding Chris that the ‘gay community’ (is it a community of shopkeepers and bar tenders by any chance? It is certainly commerical) has also made money from metrosexual men’s ‘desire to be desired’. The gay magazine and gay porn industries profit from men’s narcissism and from their  newfound ability to show off their assets without automatically being labelled as ‘gay’.

Chris continued: ‘It wasn’t therefore a total surprise to learn of his latest ‘escapade’ (pictured below). He’s on Twitter as @officialoliver and had been interacting with out gay Coronation Street (huge Brit soap tv show) actor Charlie Condou via twitter. A curious thing to do you might think, but happily the Charlie Condou fan site ‘Charlie Condou Confidential’ caught the relevant tweets.

Oliver later tweeted: ‘Noooooooo! Note to self. Stay away from twitter when intoxicated. Noooooooooooooooo! xx’.

Condou replied: Charliecondou: @officialolivier ‘Mate, can’t wait to see that photo in Heat xx’.

‘It can only be a matter of time before such confident heterosexuals start posting pictures of them being mounted by a very well endowed porn star whilst fellating his best mate. “Just for the craic like”

I said I didn’t find Oliver’s ‘No Speedo’ antics very surprising, when men have been proving their heterosexual credentials by doing very homosexual things, ever since those categories were invented. It looks to me like good old-fashioned hazing, mediated by postmodern social media and metrosexual exhibitionism.

I suggested teasingly to Chris that he may have been jealous that he was not in the position of Oliver’s gay friend, receiving the naked pic. He replied:

‘I’m not jealous of the scenario actually. I hate teases. I like things that actually happen (so if he had been viewing Mr Oliver’s bottom int he flesh, yes, but a picture no) :-)’

I found this response odd as I have always thought that metrosexual imagery and indeed gay porn is one big cock tease. The viewer of the porn, or the sporno advert doesn’t actually get to suck David Beckham’s cock, or fuck Jeff Stryker up the arse (does anyone?) does he? Isn’t that what visual stimulation is? The promise of something that will not happen? Isn’t that the definition of desire itself?

But I think Chris may be saying that what Oliver is ‘teasing’ us with is the idea that he might, might be up for some homo action. And Chris seems to be suggesting that if he is not, then that is one tease too far. At least porn actors actually get it on and out. Even if the ‘gay for pay’ ones don’t really mean it.

Metrosexual culture is confusing. I am the first to admit that! But in that confusion there is some potential for men to stop ‘going round with one hand tied behind their backs’.  I see some playful sense of ‘freedom’ in Oliver’s photo. And if it is as far as he goes down homo lane, that is his own business. In comparison to the modern metroman, gay men could be seen to be more constrained in many ways, in terms of their sexual identities.  I sense some jealousy of that freedom from many gay men.

As for ‘No Speedo’. That has given me an idea…

Belle de Jour by Numbers

Belle de Jour, now known as Dr Brooke Magnanti, is writing a book called Sexonomics.

She is blogging about the topics that will be covered in the book: mainly pornography, sex work and the sex industry. It is a critical look at the media, research and feminist analyses of these areas. It sounds great, but I have had quite a few problems with what I have read so far on her blog.

1) Just The Facts

The first problem I have had is her attachment to ‘science’ and ‘facts’. Sex and the sex industry are a very complex area, and we all bring our own subjectivities to the table. Brooke is someone who made a name for herself writing about being a ‘high class’ sex worker. This identity is never far from her analyses. She seems most concerned with ‘women’ in the sex industry, and also with media and social attitudes to sex/sex work/porn, from a white, middle class perspective, which is her own perspective. But Brooke is also a scientist by trade, and so she presents herself as able to critique ‘science’ of sex, and offer the ‘true’ factual version of events as a scientific researcher. For me, as you know from some of my previous writings, ‘science’ is one of the most problematic areas in sex and sex research. I do not rate it above social studies or personal accounts, that is for sure.

When I did challenge Brooke on her use of one particular study by J Michael Bailey:

https://quietgirlriot.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/the-appliance-of-science-1-sexing-the-brain/

https://quietgirlriot.wordpress.com/2011/04/09/the-appliance-of-science-2-chicks-dicks-flicks/

she blocked me on twitter, sent me a rude email and basically told me I didn’t know what I was talking about, because I am not a scientist. I do have a PHD though, as does she. But just in social science. And, as she does not allow comments on her blog, her version of the ‘facts’, her ‘truth’ will always be what takes precedent. She is not allowing other voices to even attempt to enter into her writing process. How lonely it must be, being a true scientist.

2) No, seriously, what about teh menz?

I just had this great blog brought to my attention: http://noseriouslywhatabouttehmenz.wordpress.com/

It is a question I should like to pose to Brooke: what about men in porn, in sex work , in sex itself? Her focus, for example in this set of posts about porn, is all on women. As porn actresses, as potential ‘victims’ of porn, as the people most qualified to comment about the role of porn in people’s lives. The newsnight debate she took part in recently that she refers to, included only women guest speakers, but she does not comment on this. I expect she would if it had have been all men! Brooke distances herself from ‘feminism’ as a dogma, but her analysis is ‘feminist’ in that it is women-centric. This, for a forthcoming book aimed to be a serious study of sex in the economy, is a huge oversight in my view. When she does mention men, e.g in the post ‘does porn make men see women differently?’ it is always in relation to women, and nearly always (with one brief exception)  with men cast as consumers of porn, women as subjects/objects. And again, in these posts she seems to be aiming to reveal the ‘truth’ about pornography as opposed to the ‘myths’ put about by the media. But I do not think there is one truth. It is a very complex area. One which includes men!

http://sexonomics-uk.blogspot.com/2011/06/porn-by-numbers-1-does-porn-objectify.html#more

http://sexonomics-uk.blogspot.com/2011/06/porn-by-numbers-2-is-pornography.html

http://sexonomics-uk.blogspot.com/2011/06/porn-by-numbers-3-does-porn-make-men.html

http://sexonomics-uk.blogspot.com/2011/06/porn-by-numbers-4-is-porn-taking-over.html

http://sexonomics-uk.blogspot.com/2011/06/porn-by-numbers-5-on-feminist-porn.html

3) You so heteronormative, girl!

Brooke Magnanti is not stupid. In fact, she is very, very clever. Much cleverer than me. She is actually making money out of writing about sex. I am the stupid one in many ways.  She is also clever in that in her current writing about the sex economy, she is using a lot of the ‘right’ words, that make people think she is a good, liberal critic of draconian attitudes to porn and sex.

For example, in her recent posts about pornography debates above, she mentions ‘queer’ porn, and how a lot of the discussions are very ‘heteronormative’ in approach. She also discusses ‘feminist’ pornography and mentions some big names in the field like Anna Span and Jiz Lee. These people have currency not just in the industry but in the ‘critical’ industry of how we talk about pornography. She gives them a nod. They will think she is covering their interests and their work.

But is she? I have found all Brooke’s essays so far completely and utterly heteronormative in themselves. In her post on whether or not porn ‘makes men see women differently’ for example, she does not once refer to gay porn, or the fact some men are either not heterosexual or do not watch exclusively heterosexual pornography. Or, the big, bulging pink elephant in the room that I like to bring up every now and again, that when ‘straight’ men watch ‘straight’ porn they are not just looking at women but also at naked big-cocked men and their naked big ejaculating cocks.
The studies she refers to in this piece also fail to mention that not all men are heterosexual.

http://sexonomics-uk.blogspot.com/2011/06/porn-by-numbers-3-does-porn-make-men.html

So, to summarise, I am very impressed by Brooke Magnanti. She is convincing a lot of people whom I respect, that she has a balanced, ‘scientific’ and politically sound approach to critiquing pornography, sex work and the sex economy.  She is doing this despite (or because of?) her unquestioning acceptance of the value of ‘science’ in the study of sexualities, her complete focus on women in the sex economy, and her heteronormative perspective.

I am sure she will sell lots of books.

But will she bust the ‘myths’ about sex in consumer capitalism? I don’t think so. She is reinforcing them.

Hello, Kitty – Stryker responds to my ‘female gaze’ critique

http://androaperture.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/poll-whatre-you-looking-at/

This is Kitty’s comment in full from the previous post below. I have added some notes in response in bold. Anyone else got anything to say on it?

‘Theory does turn me on. And it turns on a lot of my friends.

QRG, I’ve seen that you’e had this argument with other people doing similar projects for at least a year now. As those projects have also moved on and become more successful, my guess is that there’s a market for it. So regardless of whether or not the theory fits that, people *are* buying it more and more, which would suggest there is a niche there that people don’t feel is being met elsewhere. How do you account for that?

First I’d like to see the evidence of the ‘success’ of these projects as people measure success in different ways. If you mean bottom line profits then I’d like to see people’s annual reports.  Or at least numbers of copies of magazines/films sold, by gender of the consumer. Also I would say that just because women buy more porn, that you and people you know market ‘to women’ does not mean there is a ‘female gaze’. Men buy porn and I do not think there is a ‘male gaze’. So the theory is not relational to porn consumption but to how we interpret how people look at each other (and themselves).

The world I live in, especially now, in Oakland, California, is definitely dominated by half-naked women. It’s on our TV screens (Jersey Shore, Real Housewives, Kardashians, America’s Next Top Model, Project Runway, Sopranos reruns, Mad Men- I think True Blood is really the one equal opportunity objectifier). It’s in our magazines and newspapers- looking in the back pages there’s maybe 1 ad with a male for every 20 with females. It’s on book covers at the publisher I work for. It’s in the popup ads my computer blocks. I’d be happy to do a photojournal for a week to show what I mean, if you need that. There’s the occasional sexualized Black male body, say, for an album release, where they look tough and angry- female album covers show them being available and seductive. Sure, there’s Bieber, and for every Bieber there’s a Miley, Jasmine, Taylor, Brittney, Christina, Jessica, etc.

Yes please do a photo journal Kitty. All evidence is good in my book.

I disagree about Jersey Shore and Mad Men which I think are all about Mikey Sorrentino and John Hamm. I don’t even watch them and I know all about those to men and what they look like.  They are the ‘stars’ of those shows. Mikey S has launched a whole brand of his male objectification based on his GTL mantra. It is all in Metrosexy! If you look at e.g. sports pages and sports advertisements you will see men’s bodies objectified more than women’s. In The Times newspaper I counted about 14 images of men to 6 of women in objectified situations recently. It depends how you categorise ‘objectification’. Look at the pic on this post – yes it is on a gay magazine, but the boyband, Blue, are not gay. They are happily showing their bodies for a mainly male audience. I don’t see how you can ignore that!

I watch a lot of porn. A lot. I do a lot of reviews. I do notice that almost all of the time, the camera is on the woman’s body, leaving a disembodied dick plowing into her. Male attractiveness in “heterosexual” porn isn’t seen as that important (starting to among some producers, mostly female ones, like Anna Span) but female attractiveness is compulsory. If, as a woman, you are not stereotypically attractive (slender, white, blonde, mildly or not tattooed, femme), you are far more likely to be humiliated, insulted, and treated roughly. Why is that, do you think?

If you see disembodied dicks, doesn’t that suggest the man is being more objectified than the woman? Reduced to a dick? And who watches the most straight porn? Men. So they are watching those dicks intently. This suggests to me their gaze is pretty queer.

Another interesting area is fancy dress, where women get multiple versions of “slutty fill in the blank”, and men get costumes that are scary or silly. If they wear something sexualized, fancy dress or underwear-wise, it will either be from a gay male shop or it’ll be a humorous novelty item. Men being sexy or seen naked (particularly if they’re heterosexual-identified) is often seen in media as hilarious. It’s a punch line.

men being sexy or naked is hilarious? 

I’m more interested in gathering data and asking questions than I am in declaring “this is what a female gaze is”. I’m more into “this is what a female gaze can be”. I’m interested to read more about the male gaze, too, to compare- if you are male-identified, is your gaze male no matter what?

I’m guessing you equally argue that the male gaze doesn’t exist, right? Maybe I’m wrong but I haven’t seen you mention the male gaze at all really, except in passing. Almost all this debate and discussion seems to center around the female gaze. I’m all for a queer gaze, but no, I disagree that *all* people have it. Perhaps there’s ways in which a homoerotic gaze is more common, but it’s certainly still stigmatized.

Yes I don’t believe there is a male gaze. But your project is about the ‘female gaze’ so that is what I was arguing with. I do not know any projects focussing on the ‘male gaze’. Obviously you think all porn is focussed on the ‘male gaze’. But if it is I’d say that gaze likes to gaze at cock as much as if not more than anything else.

I do believe that people who identify as male tend to (not all, but many if not most) look at different things for pleasure (and with different intentions) than people who identify as female. I went to the presentation of http://pornresearch.org/ first findings and it did support my understanding that, at least culturally, there tends to be a different response and intention around the consumption of pornography between those two genders. I don’t believe in a gender binary, I believe in a spectrum (maybe even more complicated than that, but spectrum works for now) or a bell curve. I’ve said that a lot, but you do tend to ignore it’

You say you don’t believe in a gender binary, but you think people who identify as male like looking at different things to people who identify as female? That is a binary. You said ‘two genders’. Two = bi= binary.

Gazing at Men, Gazing.

QRG has been getting into a spot of bother-again-about the ‘female gaze’ again! This time by arguing with Kitty Stryker, who has recently set up the Andro Aperture Project.

http://androaperture.wordpress.com/

This is what she says about the project (emphasis mine):

‘Andro-Aperture is a mini-crusade for the appreciation of male beauty in all its forms- sexy men,sexy male, and sexy trans-masculine bodies of all kinds. There aren’t enough images shot for female appreciation, so I want to explore and discuss what defines (and defies) a female gaze.

I want to celebrate the diversity of the erotic male body- encouraging more sexy photos of male-identified people of different ethnicities, body sizes, ages, hairiness, and abilities.

I want to challenge the knee jerk reaction that “female bodies are just more attractive”.

And really, I just want hot porn to jerk off to.’

I have said before I don’t think there is such a thing as a female or male gaze. I have said it in relation to my problems with distinguishing between ‘female’ and ‘male’ in the first place  here:

https://quietgirlriot.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/human-impersonators/

and here:

https://quietgirlriot.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/crushed-women-no-longer-centre-of-attention-shocker/

and I have agreed with Mark Simpson when he has said it (in not so many words. He takes it as a given, that the main ‘gaze’ in contemporary visual culture, is ‘metrosexual’ or maybe seen another way, ‘Transexy’) here:

 

and here:

 

But to take Kitty’s own words on the subject:

There aren’t enough images shot for female appreciation, so I want to explore and discuss what defines (and defies) a female gaze.

I do not agree with this statement. I think it involves a number of reductionist positions. The first is that ‘men’ and ‘women’ are two distinct groups in a gender binary. The second is that those two distinct groups like to look at different things for pleasure. The third is not articulated but it is that the ‘female gaze’ in this context is ‘heterosexual’ – men being looked at by women for the women’s heterosexual pleasure.

Kitty says she wants to discuss and explore what ‘defines’ the female gaze but when I have tried to do this, she and her readers have suggested I am disrupting their project. But she has not discussed, explored or defined it. She has just said it exists and needs catering for by commercial pornography. I do not even know what defines a ‘female’ so how can I know what defines a ‘female gaze’?

She also says

I want to challenge the knee jerk reaction that “female bodies are just more attractive”.

I do not know who has this reaction. Wherever I look I am surrounded by images of male bodies. In The Times newspaper, on Wimbledon TV coverage, on buses, in magazines, on adverts, in the park. The world I see before my very eyes is saying to me that ‘male bodies are as attractive if not more than female bodies’. And that men demand to be looked at, by anyone, and that we notice them looking at us, looking at them, looking at themselves!

So I think Kitty’s project is based on a number of false premises.

I will write more soon I  just wanted to kick off my side of the debate in my own ‘space’ as I am not getting very far in her side of town. This person has summed up my objections very well indeed:

http://soccerdomme.tumblr.com/post/6979855779/the-andro-aperture-project-my-gut-reaction

Raw Sex

One reason I don’t get as wound up about the ‘lack’ of decent pornography that features men’s bodies, as some, is that I find plenty of very hot images in realms that are not officially classed as ‘porn’. AND they are free or cheaper than the vast majority of porn.

How many M/M/m S and M porn scenes have you seen that contain as much tension, power dynamics, violence and beautiful bodies as this photo from a MMA fight for example?

None? Thought not.

I found the photo on this article by Kevin Arnold on Guyism. The article is not very good but the picture is just fine!

http://guyism.com/lifestyle/on-masculinity-male-violence-and-aggression.html

And I found the erotic charge of MMA, via, of course, the Daddy of pornography that is not categorised as ‘porn’- Mark Simpson. He asked, ‘How Gay is MMA?’ and the answer of course, is very.

 

Money for nothing and the dicks for free

It’s different for girls, right? When women get objectified, it’s bad, right? Straight porn exploits women, and club nights that allow women in for free as eye candy are sexist, RIGHT??

I was looking at this interesting new project by Kinkster Kitty Stryker, the Andro-Aperture project. It is all about encouraging women to find/produce/enjoy images of men being sexy.

That is all well and good but it is framed within that old feminist trope, the ‘female gaze’. Where men looking at women is seen as riddled with power relations, but women looking at men is liberating. As for men looking at each other or themselves? That is not mentioned.

http://androaperture.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/link-love-inspirations/#comments

Anyway Kitty included this review of a launch party for a raunchy magazine called Candy Rain. Do you think it sounds misandrist? I do!

‘Last night I attended the launch party for the second issue of Candy Rain Magazine, a glossy little treasure trove of cock shots geared towards “ladies who love the D.” (For those playing along at home, that stands for “dick.”) There were scantily clad people gettin’ it on all over the place. There were water guns. There was burlesque. There was booty rap. And yes, there were dicks, and lots of them. In a jarring reversal of spring break culture, guys could show their dicks to get in for free. Wooooo!

“Here at Candy Rain, we have a simple policy” one of the party’s organizers yelled into the mic at one point. “Show us your dick or get the fuck out!!!” Despite the fact that the blood was supposed to be rushing to my crotch at this point, this made me think. How would I feel if some guy yelled “show us your tits or get the fuck out”? Not very good, I reckon. In objectifying men like this, one might argue Candy Rain apes the worst aspects of the patriarchy. Shouldn’t feminism be working towards a world in which nobody gets objectified?

Not necessarily! I talked with my friend Ann* about this a little, and we decided we were into it. You see, despite the fact that they were showing their bodies off for our (adult) entertaiment that night, men still have all the power. So even if they were being objectified in an uncomfortable way for a few hours, it said nothing about the underlying system in place. It’s simply not the same. It’s like that medieval holiday where the masters served the servants; it was hilarious because it was so unusual, and everything went back to the way it had been shortly thereafter’

http://thegloss.com/sex-and-dating/candy-rain-magazine-flips-the-script-on-male-raunch-culture/

I don’t know what to do. I am tired of going over to blogs and getting into arguments, or blocked and ignored as I often am. I am tired of sounding like Mark Simpson’s poodle.

Men’s objectification of themselves and their metrosexual self-love seems too much for some women to bear. So they pretend it doesn’t exist. And make up a load of shit about men and women in the process.

Maybe as Camille Paglia calls it, I have a bad case of Big Daddy Syndrome and I want MetroDaddy to come in and sort out these little madams once and for all. I know he won’t. I know too, that I can fight my own battles, and his work is just one more gun in my holster.

But I am war weary.

 

When the going gets tough…

…feminists get out their BIG HARD BAN HAMMER!

http://toomuchtosayformyself.com/2011/04/20/an-occupational-hazard/

SUCK MY DICK FEMINISM.

The Appliance of Science: #2 Chicks, Dicks, Flicks

http://sexonomics-uk.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-women-want.html

I am being patient with Doctor Lady Madame Sexy Scientist, Brooke Magnanti and her paper on What Women Want.  I think it is based on Bad Science as I showed in my previous post. But I am going to explain further why I think she is wrong, both in her interpretation of Bailey et al’s research, and her approach to ‘what women want’ in terms of pornography in general.

Magnanti wrote:

‘Previous studies of men and sexual orientation showed that in general, male responses are straightforward. Heterosexual men respond strongly to heterosexual porn, and weakly to homosexual porn. For gay men, it’s the opposite: gay porn turns them on; the hetero stuff, not so much. So for men the psychological and physiological desires are in sync – what turns them on is also what they report enjoying emotionally.’

Now I think she is referring in part to research by Bailey and his colleagues, but also to research which will have influenced them. She does not cite it as she takes it as a given, that ‘male responses (to pornography) are straightforward’. i.e. Heterosexual men who claim to enjoy hetero porn, are indeed turned on by it. Gay men who claim to only like gay (m/m) porn, are indeed aroused by that and not porn which contains-shock horror!-women.

This, my dearies, is a load of old tosh. If men’s sexual responses are straightforward, and straight men only like straight porn, and gay men only like gay porn (and bisexual men don’t exist?) then what have writers such as  MS  (yep-HIM), been going on about throughout their careers? Why do straight men get so excited watching men every Saturday hurl themselves at each other on a football pitch? Why is advertising packed full of fit, sexy men showing off their packets? Why do rugby players get drunk and then get it on with each other? Why are all male boarding schools, and The Catholic church, and The Armed Forces, full of men who have sex with other men? This line between ‘heterosexual’ and ‘gay’ men is a false one.

The fact is, Doctor Magnanti, that the statement ‘what turns [men] on is also what they report enjoying emotionally’ is so wrong that the converse is probably true. Men are so anxious about their sexuality being seen to be that which they say it is (especially straight men) that even their cocks ‘lie’ about what is turning them on when they watch porn. And talking of cocks, let us not forget, that there ARE plenty of COCKS in ‘heterosexual’ pornography. So when heterosexual men say they enjoy heterosexual porn, they are still enjoying images of other men’s cocks.

But enough about cocks for a moment. Onto ‘what women want’. According to Magnanti’s report of Bailey et al’s research:

‘Participants ranked the films in order of how aroused they felt watching them. The heterosexual women in the study ranked male-male films the lowest, followed by female-female in the middle, with finally female-male films rated highest. But when the genital arousal data were compared to these rankings, something interesting emerged.

It turned out that the genital engorgement data told a completely different story from what straight women were putting on paper. They claimed male-male porn interested them the least, but looking at the physical response, male-male and female-female films ranked similarly – and very high. On paper, straight women ranked heterosexual pairings as the most arousing… but their physical response while watching these films was actually lower than with the other types of films. Straight women were getting more physically turned on watching homosexual pairings, even films with no women in it all, than they were by straight scenes’.

This ‘fluidity’ of women’s sexual responses can be explained to quite a large degree I think, by the fact that women are not as conditioned as men to worry about admitting to finding images of other women hot, or even real life other women. As Simpson has written about, ‘male bisexuality’  rather than ‘female bisexuality’ is the main cause of ‘bisexual anxiety’ in our culture. In fact when it comes to images and porn, ‘female bisexuality’ is a major aspect of ‘heterosexual porn’. You get a lot of girl-on-girl action in straight porn, but if there is any man-on-man action, it immediately gets classed as ‘gay’.

Feminist pornographers claim that this is because nearly all pornography is aimed towards men. So straight men get to see girl-on-girl films, and gay men get to see boy-on-boy films, but what about the women? Well, I think a lot of women enjoy boy-on-boy and girl-on-girl films, so they are being catered for by both ‘heterosexual’ and ‘gay’ pornography. Because, as I have tried to say before,and got shouted down, we don’t look at pornography with our genitals, we look with our eyes, and we all have those. And our eyes don’t have a ‘sexual orientation’.

http://remittancegirl.com/discussions/ladypornday-and-the-male-gaze/

https://quietgirlriot.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/the-myth-of-the-female-gaze/

Magnanti quoted Doctor Professor Scientist Mister Bailey:

“The fact that women’s sexual arousal patterns are not all predicted by their sexual orientations suggests that men’s and women’s minds and brains are very different,” said Bailey. That much we already suspected, or at least I did, because airbrushed images of men hoovering? Is certainly nice, but not exactly erotic. But who could have anticipated just how different they would turn out to be?

Well. I disagree with Bailey’s conclusion, with the methodology of his research, and with his crusade to use research about ‘sexual response’ to make rash statements about ‘male’ and ‘female’ brains. Not to mention gay brains. Not to mention, because he doesn’t ‘bisexual’ brains. And I disagree with how he turns this brain crusade into an attack on transgender people, especially trans women, and on bisexual people, especially bisexual men.

The study of sex and sexuality is the study of people. It is a human study of people in social contexts. If any kind of science is going to be used to try and understand the complexities of sexual bodies in culture, it has to be ‘social science’ surely? Psychology is a social science, but when it dresses itself up in the language and the machinery of clinical science, it becomes a very dodgy exercise indeed. Suck my dick, Science. And taste the real world for a change.