The Internet is for Porn
Jul. 31st, 2007 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowNo, really. It totally is. And I will go into why this is a good thing. Later.
First, real life continues to be lovely and crazed. Saturday saw the consumption of way too much cheese (and me embracing my carnivorous side, because when I do it I do it right. This beautiful succulent cantaloupeish melon on top of the most delicate, most perfect prosciutto ever sprinkled with candied walnuts and drizzled with blueberry honey.) Plus, there was this amazing heirloom tomato tart with basil and parmesan on top (a thick, milky slice of it) which was just amazing.
We also saw The Simpsons movie which was hilarious and clever and not terribly risky, but still nicely arch and archetyple. (And if anyone is capable of walking out of there not singing Spider Pig, I'll eat one of my hats.) Bonus Points to me for going to a 10:15 p.m. showing of anything and not sleeping through it.
Sunday was Writer's Lock-In #3 at Shoemoney Haus where I finished some work, and then finished some porn for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
projectjulie who has given me notes to make the porn shareable with the internets.
As many of you know, this week is Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. Despite being terrified of sharks, I love Shark Week. I love that it strives to provide a greater understanding of them (in addition to the blood, gore and guts that draws us in from the safety of our living room.) That does not excuse the piss poor writing of last night's Tiger Shark feature though (note: sharks? not omnivores. Great Whites? Not warm-blooded. Naming a shark: stupid! They aren't pets. They aren't domesticated. They will eat your head and I will just laugh at your need to anipomorphize them. No, they don't mean it, but they won't feel bad either.)
On a final note, M. (who, it turns out, didn't want me to tell anyone he'd lost his iPhone. Oops), is planning to name the new one something different. (If anyone's followed Mike's roll playing in his head over the years, the phone's new name should be easy to guess. Regardless, it tickled me so much I fell of the couch in my fit of laughter.)
So, why is the internet for porn, and why do we care?
Well, that I don't know, but this is what I do know. As someone with a healthy sexual appetite, and lacking the means to always answer that, the fact that the internet exists with it's varying types of pornography pleases me greatly.
I started reading romance novels when I was probably 11 or 12. My grandmother always had them around, and I was completely titilated by both what I discovered in them, and by the danger of getting caught reading them. (My grandmother wouldn't have cared. My dad would have been appalled - less so by the content than by the quality of the writing. He used to forbid me to read the blurbs on the soaps I'd watch with my grandmother for the same reason).
Eventually, as I got older, and realized how much of a formula, a construct those books were, I got frustrated. I liked the idea of a romance, of sex in the midst of it, but they all had the same stupid factor (and plus, I was honestly squicked by several things: the significant age different between the protaganists in most of what I was reading; the nasty tendency to have rape/coercion as a means to a happy ending; and the inevitability of the type of happy ending.) Some of that changed as I got older - mostly I realized that many of the sex tropes - first times, virginity loss, rape/coercion, age difference, historical setting, etc - were kinks. And sometimes, I'd run across a book that hit one of my kinks, and it'd work for me, and I still rarely wanted to read the rest of the story and the set up.
I was young enough to want the romance, to feel dirty about looking for the rest of it without the emotional picture. But then, I wanted that in my own life too and it wasn't happening, so I was... a little confused, a little lost. (And about six months away from realing that love and lust weren't the same things. Didn't have to be and that there was joy in both as seperate entitites.)
When that happened, I realized that I wanted the dirty parts. I wanted characters that excited me - both intellectually and sexually. I wanted porn. So, I bought some. (Not magazines, because I think, for the most part, women don't do that. And for me, it's the words more than the pictures that turn me on, and I just... I'm sorry, I'm not prudish or repressed, but neither do I have it in me to go ask for a magazine that is primarily designed for getting off). No, I researched and bought books - the standars of erotica I guess - Lady Chatterly's Lover and The Story of O and Anais Nin and Anne Rice's Beauty trilogy - and they did what they were supposed to, gave me stories about sex and obsession and more sex. But here's the thing - in an effort to make buying stories about sex more... acceptable, bookstores print them in trade paperback, and it's an expensive habit, and much of the erotica that I knew to look for had the same kind of themes, which was fine. Hell, it was better than fine, but eventually you want... variety in your made up sex life.
And during this time, I generally had sexual partners with varying degrees of frequency or enthusiasm. But not always, and usually with long stretches in between, and honestly, you just get different things from getting off in your head than you do from getting off with another person.
Words and sex are intimately tied together( for me, at least)- there's a reason that talking dirty is both a kink and vaguely embarrasing. When it's done well, it works as well as a touch. Words race up your spine, across your thighs, around in your brain, and words about sex are just something entirely different than sex itself. Both worthy things, worthwhile and transformative things.
So, here comes the internet, and I discover fic way before I discover other pornography. (Yes, I knew there was porn on the internet, but really, I wasn't sure if it was the kind of porn I wanted. Tits are relatively easy to find and they aren't my cup of tea.) And then, I realize, because yes, I have been living in a cave, that there's porn in fic. In fact, a whole bunch of the reasons for fic involve porn. And sex. And porn. And lo, a whole world opens up to me because I'm already emotionally invested in the people the story is about. And then they get off. Sometimes spectacularly, and my emotional investment can translate to me getting off. Not necessarily sexually, but... intellectually, emotionally, and with that engine revved, the sexual side becomes a different beast, and I can answer it in different ways.
And that's just me. It's not that I see fic as a masturbatory vehicle, at least not more than metaphorically, although it can be. It's that I see it as prep work, as something that can rev the engine and hit the sweet spots of words and emotions and storytelling that are sometimes more potent than words about fucking. It answers my needs for words, and then I can answer other needs in a different way.
When I started writing pornographic fic, I felt very dirty indeed - for a lot of the typical dirty fic writing reasons, and then for the dirty sex writing reasons, and then for the 'whoa, I think this is totally turning me on' reasons, which I think most fic writers don't experience, but really, if you can't turn yourself on when you're writing, what's the point? Eventually, writing the porn was enough of an experience - that rush of good (when it was good) storytelling is equally powerful as orgasm, and can be more deeply satisfying. And it was a good thing to learn.
And the internet, bless it's pointed head, gives all this away for mostly free. You don't have to ask a greasy clerk for a porn rag. You don't have to bring the Story of O up to the bespectacled (and much younger) earnest college student and decide if you're going to brazen out the purchase, or ask for a gift receipt or buy other "legitimate" books and try to hide it in the middle. Nope, you can simply log in to your favorite site - whatever that may be - and get off, when and how you need to. And honestly, I think that's a beautiful thing. (On a final note, I realize the inherent risk factors in accessing pornography online - the ease with which predators can find victims, the ways in which it becomes an obsession, all of the very real, very dangerous drawbacks. That isn't what I'm talking about though.)
ETA:life_on_queen mentioned that the monogamy/commitment part of romance novels is also a kink, and that frequently women buy them for that as much as the sex and I'd love to generate some discussion on how women seek out their fantasies in words and porns differently than men, and differently than each other.
First, real life continues to be lovely and crazed. Saturday saw the consumption of way too much cheese (and me embracing my carnivorous side, because when I do it I do it right. This beautiful succulent cantaloupeish melon on top of the most delicate, most perfect prosciutto ever sprinkled with candied walnuts and drizzled with blueberry honey.) Plus, there was this amazing heirloom tomato tart with basil and parmesan on top (a thick, milky slice of it) which was just amazing.
We also saw The Simpsons movie which was hilarious and clever and not terribly risky, but still nicely arch and archetyple. (And if anyone is capable of walking out of there not singing Spider Pig, I'll eat one of my hats.) Bonus Points to me for going to a 10:15 p.m. showing of anything and not sleeping through it.
Sunday was Writer's Lock-In #3 at Shoemoney Haus where I finished some work, and then finished some porn for
projectjulie who has given me notes to make the porn shareable with the internets.As many of you know, this week is Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. Despite being terrified of sharks, I love Shark Week. I love that it strives to provide a greater understanding of them (in addition to the blood, gore and guts that draws us in from the safety of our living room.) That does not excuse the piss poor writing of last night's Tiger Shark feature though (note: sharks? not omnivores. Great Whites? Not warm-blooded. Naming a shark: stupid! They aren't pets. They aren't domesticated. They will eat your head and I will just laugh at your need to anipomorphize them. No, they don't mean it, but they won't feel bad either.)
On a final note, M. (who, it turns out, didn't want me to tell anyone he'd lost his iPhone. Oops), is planning to name the new one something different. (If anyone's followed Mike's roll playing in his head over the years, the phone's new name should be easy to guess. Regardless, it tickled me so much I fell of the couch in my fit of laughter.)
So, why is the internet for porn, and why do we care?
Well, that I don't know, but this is what I do know. As someone with a healthy sexual appetite, and lacking the means to always answer that, the fact that the internet exists with it's varying types of pornography pleases me greatly.
I started reading romance novels when I was probably 11 or 12. My grandmother always had them around, and I was completely titilated by both what I discovered in them, and by the danger of getting caught reading them. (My grandmother wouldn't have cared. My dad would have been appalled - less so by the content than by the quality of the writing. He used to forbid me to read the blurbs on the soaps I'd watch with my grandmother for the same reason).
Eventually, as I got older, and realized how much of a formula, a construct those books were, I got frustrated. I liked the idea of a romance, of sex in the midst of it, but they all had the same stupid factor (and plus, I was honestly squicked by several things: the significant age different between the protaganists in most of what I was reading; the nasty tendency to have rape/coercion as a means to a happy ending; and the inevitability of the type of happy ending.) Some of that changed as I got older - mostly I realized that many of the sex tropes - first times, virginity loss, rape/coercion, age difference, historical setting, etc - were kinks. And sometimes, I'd run across a book that hit one of my kinks, and it'd work for me, and I still rarely wanted to read the rest of the story and the set up.
I was young enough to want the romance, to feel dirty about looking for the rest of it without the emotional picture. But then, I wanted that in my own life too and it wasn't happening, so I was... a little confused, a little lost. (And about six months away from realing that love and lust weren't the same things. Didn't have to be and that there was joy in both as seperate entitites.)
When that happened, I realized that I wanted the dirty parts. I wanted characters that excited me - both intellectually and sexually. I wanted porn. So, I bought some. (Not magazines, because I think, for the most part, women don't do that. And for me, it's the words more than the pictures that turn me on, and I just... I'm sorry, I'm not prudish or repressed, but neither do I have it in me to go ask for a magazine that is primarily designed for getting off). No, I researched and bought books - the standars of erotica I guess - Lady Chatterly's Lover and The Story of O and Anais Nin and Anne Rice's Beauty trilogy - and they did what they were supposed to, gave me stories about sex and obsession and more sex. But here's the thing - in an effort to make buying stories about sex more... acceptable, bookstores print them in trade paperback, and it's an expensive habit, and much of the erotica that I knew to look for had the same kind of themes, which was fine. Hell, it was better than fine, but eventually you want... variety in your made up sex life.
And during this time, I generally had sexual partners with varying degrees of frequency or enthusiasm. But not always, and usually with long stretches in between, and honestly, you just get different things from getting off in your head than you do from getting off with another person.
Words and sex are intimately tied together( for me, at least)- there's a reason that talking dirty is both a kink and vaguely embarrasing. When it's done well, it works as well as a touch. Words race up your spine, across your thighs, around in your brain, and words about sex are just something entirely different than sex itself. Both worthy things, worthwhile and transformative things.
So, here comes the internet, and I discover fic way before I discover other pornography. (Yes, I knew there was porn on the internet, but really, I wasn't sure if it was the kind of porn I wanted. Tits are relatively easy to find and they aren't my cup of tea.) And then, I realize, because yes, I have been living in a cave, that there's porn in fic. In fact, a whole bunch of the reasons for fic involve porn. And sex. And porn. And lo, a whole world opens up to me because I'm already emotionally invested in the people the story is about. And then they get off. Sometimes spectacularly, and my emotional investment can translate to me getting off. Not necessarily sexually, but... intellectually, emotionally, and with that engine revved, the sexual side becomes a different beast, and I can answer it in different ways.
And that's just me. It's not that I see fic as a masturbatory vehicle, at least not more than metaphorically, although it can be. It's that I see it as prep work, as something that can rev the engine and hit the sweet spots of words and emotions and storytelling that are sometimes more potent than words about fucking. It answers my needs for words, and then I can answer other needs in a different way.
When I started writing pornographic fic, I felt very dirty indeed - for a lot of the typical dirty fic writing reasons, and then for the dirty sex writing reasons, and then for the 'whoa, I think this is totally turning me on' reasons, which I think most fic writers don't experience, but really, if you can't turn yourself on when you're writing, what's the point? Eventually, writing the porn was enough of an experience - that rush of good (when it was good) storytelling is equally powerful as orgasm, and can be more deeply satisfying. And it was a good thing to learn.
And the internet, bless it's pointed head, gives all this away for mostly free. You don't have to ask a greasy clerk for a porn rag. You don't have to bring the Story of O up to the bespectacled (and much younger) earnest college student and decide if you're going to brazen out the purchase, or ask for a gift receipt or buy other "legitimate" books and try to hide it in the middle. Nope, you can simply log in to your favorite site - whatever that may be - and get off, when and how you need to. And honestly, I think that's a beautiful thing. (On a final note, I realize the inherent risk factors in accessing pornography online - the ease with which predators can find victims, the ways in which it becomes an obsession, all of the very real, very dangerous drawbacks. That isn't what I'm talking about though.)
ETA:
life_on_queen mentioned that the monogamy/commitment part of romance novels is also a kink, and that frequently women buy them for that as much as the sex and I'd love to generate some discussion on how women seek out their fantasies in words and porns differently than men, and differently than each other.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 09:05 pm (UTC)God, yes! This is it, that's a perfect capture!
*hugs you and twirls you around*
no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 10:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 10:27 pm (UTC)I was also not super-pleased with the special on cageless diving with great whites. I don't tune in to specials featuring people sticking their hands down faulty garbage disposals on the chance that someone will lose a limb in front of the camera, and this seemed like a remarkably similar premise. But their shark attack programming has been very heavy on shark behavior and educating people to avoid problem situations, and they're really working the conservation angle too, so that has been nice.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 10:30 pm (UTC)I admit that occasionally I like to see the people get chomped because while I appreciate the understanding and the conservation angle, I want people to remember that these are perfect predators, doing what they're supposed to do.
And dude, LOVE the icon:)
no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 11:08 pm (UTC)I think the reminders that these animals will bite you if they're hungry or curious is really valuable; the cageless diving just seemed gratuitously dangerous, and not fully respectful of that fact.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 10:41 pm (UTC)But also in fic, people have elbows and knees that get in the way. It's messy and sloppy and can be awkward, emotionally and physically. Which matches up far more with my handful of experiences with sex than any novel I ever read, even though I have no experience with being a man having sex with a man and that's the overwhelming majority of fic I read.
To conclude: yes, thank you, internet. And thank you, Thea.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 10:52 pm (UTC)Yeah, for all of the good that sexual equality and women's liberation did in bring female sexuality to light, it still left us with a LOT of misinformation and expectations for sex and our own sexuality.
I agree that fix does a much better job of conveying the range of things, the awkwardness and sweetness in addition to the heat, while still being a story where (most of the time) both parties are satisfied (because the reader needs the written orgasm too, for the most part. Since thankfully, writing isn't real life:)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 01:06 am (UTC)Things may be different with what's published now. But that's what struck me about what little romance I'd read, that even before the internet what I was reading in my mother's fanzines about love, sex, desperation, pain, lust, hurt, all that's sweet and savory, resonated as far more true and real than the treatments I read in general fiction or romance. Visceral.
Let's face it, the vast majority of commercial porn is produced by men for male consumption, even if women also produce and buy a portion. Fandom porn, front-loaded with the mental and emotional connection that a fan has with characters they've come to know and enjoy spending time with, is something produced almost exclusively by women, for other women.
It is unprecedented, and yes, amazing.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 02:28 am (UTC)I discovered general fan fic long before I found the more adult stuff. It took me an embarassingly long amount of time to discover porn on the internet. Like you though I'm emotionally invested in the characters described in fan fic. Because of my involvement in those characters these stories work for me in a way they wouldn't if it were just generic characters. I'm such a girl, but the emotional satisfaction of sex is just as important to me as the physical satisfication.