iffering from the other porn articles about human sexuality, this one focuses on how women react to and deal with porn, as discussed from my personal experience, as well as culled from news items on the subject.

While the stereotypical female reaction to porn (and reaction to the Pavlovian male reaction to porn) falls somewhere between disinterest, loathing, and confusion, in real life it's a lot more complicated.  Some women hate porn, some like it, and most tolerate it, to one degree or another.  True, perhaps 1% of women on earth like the stupid garbage that passes for porn these days as much as 90% of the men on earth like it, but that's not to say that women have no interest in porn.  Most are interested or curious or willing to indulge in it from time to time; they're just not the simple robotic creates that men are, and can't therefore go from zero to orgasm in two minutes, based purely on looking at a couple of naked people pretending to enjoy sex. Whether this is a strength or a weakness of the female gender remains open to debate.

So while this page is about women and how they feel about porn, don't expect a uniformity of content, since women don't all feel the same way about the stuff.

Most of the material on this page was culled from various daily updates, and the most recent additions are added on top.

March 23, 2003

On the subject of porn, Malaya sent me a text message out of the blue Saturday asking for a photo of my hips.  Now I wasn't even sure what she was talking about, but since it was a hot afternoon and I was nekkid and I have my digicam sitting on the desk all the time, and she's seen um... everything in photos by now, I figured what the hell.

I set the digicam on the 15 sec timer, put it on my desk, pointed it towards the snake aquariums, and took two shots of each side.  Then cropped them to the same height and put them all on a page, 1-4 in order.  She loved them, as I had hoped, and talked much of kissing the hips and working her way around to the front and kissing everything else visible.  And yes, everything was visible.  I am such a slut.

Anyway, I censored one shot with a black box over the naughty part and let another female friend see it and she liked it, and then Starina had happened to mail in about something else and was sympathetic and as a reward I sent her (Starina being the flaming gender-switching alter ego of a normally sensible male reader/emailer) the censored shot. The interesting part was later when Starina mailed in asking to see the uncensored ones, and I had to think about it.

See if you follow me here:

Women (the vast majority of them, anyway) do not like to see nudity or porn, or even men in revealing outfits or poses.  However they love to see a man they know and lust for in virtually any sort of photo. They sometimes like to see strangers, or celebrities, but always on their terms, which are virtually impossible to predict or determine. They are very selective, and they want to see it when they want to see it, and the rest of the time they do not want to see it and will think you an insensitive piggish brute for forcing such an image into their personal space. And yes, it's taken me months of examples and careful questioning to learn this. And no, it's not fair.  And yes, it will be held against you if you, foolish man, send them a sexy picture when they aren't in a mood to see one.

However Starina isn't a woman, a fact that no doubt vexes her at times.

I know how men are about nudity.  I would say "female" nudity, but that's not what I mean.  What I mean is nudity of a person of a gender they are interested in snogging.  This is usually a female, but sometimes a man, depending on the preference of the viewer.  Anyway, we (men) are always eager to see it, whether the nude individual is a friend or relative or total stranger.

So I've got female friends who wouldn't like to see me nude, and homosexual male friends who know I'm not gay and not interested in them, or any man, in that way.  And yet they would love to see me naked, since that's just how men are.

I tried to think of a parallel, like if a woman was doing a website I liked, and I thought she was cute and had traded emails with her a few times, but she was in no way ever going to be interested in me.  She's married, or I guess I should say that she's a lesbian, just to make the parallel as exact as possible. Would she care if I saw her naked, assuming she trusted me not to post the pics everywhere, or her face wasn't in them, etc?

I have no idea, I'd assume she would not want me seeing that, but that's not really the point.  The point is if I would want to, and of course I would.  I would knock widows and orphans out of the way to get a better look.  Even though I knew I had no shot at ever doing anything with her, and knew that she had no interest in me.

Again, that's just how men are. And how men and women differ.  I know gay men aren't any different; I know less about how lesbians would judge the issue, both in terms of looking and being seen.  Perhaps one would be more interested in seeing a man naked, since they would have no potential desire for him at all, and it would be just like a science project, or a way to satisfy their curiosity.  Any lesbians reading this want to mail me their thoughts, I'd be glad to hear them. I love this sort of stuff.

So the end result, if you remember what I began talking about here. Malaya, my cyber-sweetie, got to see the full on pics and loved them.  Another woman who is a friend didn't want to look but did eventually and admired the view but didn't want to see the full on pics (which I wouldn't have shown her anyway).  And Starina, hobbled with a man's indiscriminate sex drive, got to see the censored version and wanted desperately to see the full on shots, and assured me it wouldn't create any difficulties in our friendship, etc.  All the sort of stuff I'd say if a cute chick had such photos and wasn't letting me see them. And yes, I now feel like a cock-teasing bitch.

In a very immodest way I can now imagine how so many pretty girls get to be such cock-teasing bitches. It's a lot of fun to have people, even men, interested in you, and wanting to see you.  Hot for your body, to put it bluntly. And you don't really want them to see it, but you like the attention and it's an ego boost, and you want to give them some reward for their attention, but you aren't going to show them what they really want to see.  So you dress sexy or show them a censored pic, and of course that just makes them more interested and makes them tell you how sexy you are, and then you want more of that, and so on.

I'm a goddamned slut after about 3 weeks of thinking I'm semi-hot from the right angle, and with 2 or 3 admirers.  Pretty girls have a world of admirers and have this their whole lives.  So have some more sympathy for that pretty girl in the tight top who looks at you like something she fished out of her drain when she catches you staring at her magnificent body that she's obviously dressed up to show off.  Just not to you, you filthy animal. She wants to show it off to hot guys.  How dare you lay your slimy eyes on her toned belly.

Try not to hate her, and try to understand the circumstances and events over the course of her life that have turned her into a vain, self-centered, teasing little bitch.  Okay, on second thought you can still hate her, but hate her with compassion...

February 20, 2003

A topic that I have posted about several times in the past, and will no doubt post about again, is women and porn.  Not women in porn, which I post about every other day, but women and porn.  By which I mean how they react to it.  Few are horribly offended these days, but almost none of them are interested in it, for any purpose.  Men can understand that, porn is pretty awful, but men have small, easily-excited rat in wheel brains, when it comes to naked bodies and sex, so we can watch porn and enjoy ourselves, if you know what I mean.  For about five minutes at a stretch anyway.

Besides not liking porn, most women aren't even into eye candy.  They don't crave a nice unobstructed view of the male anatomy, nor even want to while away their time staring at a good looking guy in cool clothing.  They'll look at a perfume ad, or sigh over a hunky guy on TV or in the movies, but they almost never flip through or surf hot guy pictures.  Maybe a specific guy or some celebrity, but it's a diversion for them.  They don't compulsively check sites every day the way men often do, and women don't have a direct line from their eyes to their sexual organs either.

I can accept and understand both of these. Yeah, it would be cool if women were as eager to see nudity and have sex as men, but at the same time that would sort of ruin the fun and challenge of meeting a woman and getting to know her/convincing her she wants to have sex with you.  Not that it's so manipulative (most of the time), but the flirting and dating and growing trust that leads to a relationship is a lot of the fun, assuming you are successful often enough to wash the painfully-bitter taste of rejection out of your mouth.

The thing that I struggle to understand is why women react so strongly, and so negatively, to casual male semi-nudity.  I don't mean "no pants" nudity, I mean "no shirt" nudity. If that's even nudity (I wouldn't normally consider it as such.)

As you may remember from a week ago, I was talking to a new female friend and she mentioned her hunger to see a guy in chain mail as a dream outfit. As I've got a big swatch of it lying around here, and she'd been viewing some pics of me (that were already on the site), I quick like snapped half a dozen shots of me holding it, or it on my shoulder. As usual when I take pictures of myself, most of them were unfocused or poorly-aimed, and I ended up with one shot that (I thought) was pretty good.  You can see it at the top of this update, along with the female reaction, which is what I'm really talking about here, or will be once I get through this endless introduction/summation.

The actual woman I sent it to liked it and was very kind.  At the time I didn't think this was in any way unusual, though I'd heard from another woman a few weeks before that she hated when guys tried to send her topless photos when they were first getting to know each other.  I thought she was being melodramatic, I mean it's a guy without a shirt on... so what?  Every guy on the beach looks like that, half the guys in the hot summer are walking around like that, and anyway, it's a guy without a shirt.  It's not all that different than a tank top, really.

As you can see by the quote from the 13th, another woman was a bit less pleased by me sending her, or anyone, the pic.

"I do not want to see you without a shirt on. Ever. Fairly sure most would agree."

And that's about the nicest thing that she said.

This incident, as well as some other discussions of the topic in the past, piqued my interest.  Why are women so annoyed by a guy sending them or making available a topless photo?  If you look at the one I posted, it's not even topless. I mean you can't even tell for sure that I don't have a shirt on.  I could have a tank top with the right strap pushed way over to my shoulder to get out of the way of the chain, you can't see anywhere near down to my nipple, etc.  Why would any woman be annoyed at such an image?

I'm not saying they should masturbate furiously, or inquire as to my mailing address for soiled panty shipment, but what's the big deal?

Well, I asked three women, including the one who was the source of the quote on the page, and have at last come to see their point of view.  I don't agree with it, and I think they are being unreasonably-uptight, but I do see their point, at least.

Here's a quote from one woman, after she was annoyed by my repeatedly asking why it was anything upsetting.

You don't even understand and you bring up excuse after excuse to justify your behavior, its hopeless. Since other men do it as well its a condition with some. I'll tell you one thing, my BF would NEVER do that and I appreciate it. I wouldn't want to see a man without a shirt (picture wise) on without me being in some relationship with him. If I came to your house and you answered the door without your shirt on (say I didn't call you to tell you that I was coming over so it was a surprise) then fine, I can deal with it. But to send me a picture in an e-mail when I haven't ASKED for it, yuck.

Okay, so that's how she, and a lot of other women feel.  Buy why?  I mean it's a bare chest (or a bare shoulder, in my photo's case) and these are grown women, accustomed to full male nudity.  What's the big deal?

The third woman I asked finally gave me an explanation I could sink my teeth into. 

Yeah, but women know that men think about the physical all the time...so all of the issues and tensions are there even though you think it's no big deal.

Most women don't want to see their male friends with their shirts off. Ever. File under "Too Much (visual) information."

Women like to be in control of the situation and men jumping the gun like that by forcing a pic unto them is considered bad taste.

It's complicated. Women like to look, but don't like to be forced into it. Men sending those kinds of pics implies a familiarity that's not there (yet).

If a guy sent me a topless photo and I neither wanted nor asked for it, I'd be irritated as hell. "Stupid males, always thinking with their penis. Self absorbed bastard."

It's because sending an unsolicited pic that is that personal crosses the boundaries. You might as well force your penis into her hand on the first date.

It's like "Damn, why does it always have to be about the physical?" "Why do men think they'll get me just with their looks?" "Is this guy that self absorbed?"

Sounds like I got lucky then, since she was the one I sent the chain mail pic to, and she wasn't upset about it.  Not mad since it was relevant to the discussion we were having, and also since she was digging me and enjoyed the photo, pale and stubbily though my chest may be this time of the year.

Upon reviewing all of the evidence, I think a factor in this that none of the women are considering is how they think compared to how men think.

Women are much more thought out than men when it comes to male/female interaction, relationships, etc. They (women) often consider how their every move will be read and judged, and say and do things carefully, with consideration to their feelings, their goals, the man's feelings, and where the relationship is going.

Men, on the other hand, generally plan their relationships and the dynamics and the politics in them with all the subtlety of two dogs greeting each other in the park. The man will routinely say things that drive his wife/gf mad, or into a depression, or a fury, and have absolutely no idea why she's upset.  And generally the woman pulls out that, "If you don't know I'm certainly not going to tell you." which just perplexes the man further.

Women have a lifetime of training in subtlety and nuance and tact, and they don't realize how foreign and alien all of that is to the typical man.  This is a topic for another blog, but it ties in with the topless photo thing since a man will snap and send off such a picture without really giving it any thought.

I had been told by one woman how annoying she found it when guys sent her personal shirtless photos, and then less than a week later I turned around and sent one myself, without giving a thought to how it would be received.  After all, I'd enjoy a photo of a woman showing some skin, and I was just out of the shower when the chain mail topic came up, not wearing a shirt since I was hot. Plus if I had a shirt on the chain would slide down my chest, and the whole point of the photo was to get me, with the chainmail.  I cropped it so just my shoulder was visible, and figured that would be that.  Ooh, my bare shoulder! Sexy!  Um, no.

A tip for the ladies: We men really don't mean to piss you off all the time.  We're just operating on a totally different wave length and have no idea why you are angry or hurt half the time, even if we seem quite clever in other areas of life.

February 21, 2003

Yesterday's essay discussed the female reaction to nude pictures, or more specifically to unwanted topless photos of male friends or potential boyfriends.

All three of the women that I talked to about it, and quoted in the update, were of the mind set that it's terribly rude and stupid for a man to send along a photo of himself.  Like "forcing your penis into my hand on the first date", was how one of them put it.

I received an email from Laura, who has a somewhat different point of view on the subject.

I just wanted to put my cents in. I am female, and my fiancée reads your site. He showed me your article about women hating seeing men without their shirt on. I don't know any woman who would object to a naked man. My fiancée, in fact, has a penchant for taking his shirt off at the slightest provocation, and at parties I tell women to go up to him and tell him to take his shirt off. Nobody minds, in fact, they dig his hot body.

Of course, he is fantastically hot. Big fat slobs are better with their shirts on, but you certainly didn't look disgusting in your picture. It could be an age thing (I'm 25) or a cultural thing. I tend to hang with the grown up rocky horror type people, who are prone to lots of touching and flirting.

My fiancée got most of the girls in his life by taking off his shirt. His first girlfriend walked into the house while he was doing pushups and she was hooked. We love the male body, its just that so many of them are ugly that we have to lie to ourselves about our desire for "eye candy". 

If Laura were say, 17 then I'd consider that maybe it's an age thing.  However the woman who liked my shot but didn't like that sort of thing in general was 27, and another disapproving one was early 30's, so close enough Laura's 25 to make no real difference.

The thing with yesterday's update, as Malaya is right now pointing out to me rather forcefully (and you know I love that) is that the comments by her and the other women were based on a guy sending an email with the picture.  The point being that they don't dislike seeing the male body, they just want to see it on their terms. Asking a hunky guy at a party to show off is one thing; having him send you a shot out of the blue is another.  It's the context and the rudeness and the forwardness that are at issue, not just the visible skin.

If a guy has a good body that helps, but even if he's a body builder, if the woman doesn't want the picture, she's not going to be real happy to find it in her inbox.

At least that's what they've told me.  If Laura comes back with a clarification, I'll let you all know.

I posted about something quite similar to this some months ago, asking some women I know if they would want to see a guy they knew naked.  Most of them said no.

I'd link to it now, but despite my semi-exhaustive archives, I can't find it.  The gist of things was to ask if the women would want to see a nude photo of a male co-worker.  They could say if he knew or didn't know, and even if he wouldn't know neither of the women I asked wanted to see. And surprisingly to me, neither of them wanted to see it. I wasn't speaking hypothetically with a shot of me ready to go either, I was being totally hypothetical.

I just asked another girl and she had a more manly reply.  "Sure, why not.  Curiosity if nothing else."

So the vote is split on this one, and I would suspect most younger women would be interested to see... curious even.

The lack of curiosity some/most females have about the male body is something that men can never understand.  Why don't they want to see us naked, or as close to naked as possible, all the time?  Especially if we're in decent shape?  Don't they like penises?

Men really have no reason to want to see a woman naked, since after all, you can pretty well figure what she's going to look like through her clothing, unless she dresses like a nun at all times.  Pretty much tell how her butt will look, legs, back, boobs, etc.  I'm leaving out gyno-type views, in this analysis.

But a man is a big mystery under his clothing.  Most guys wear baggy stuff all the time so there's really no telling how built they are, if they are thin or pudgy, how much body hair they have, and of course how their penis looks, since there can be a huge (literally) difference from one guy to another in that area.

Of course logic has nothing to do with it; men want to see every woman naked, curiosity or lust or both, and some women want to see some men, but you'll go broke in a hurry trying to bet which is which.

Meanwhile, with potential dates coming up, I'm working out and doing pull ups and sit ups like a mad man.  I just need to drop about 6 or 8 pounds to rid myself of some body fat and make my muscles show better, and then I'll send every woman I know some nicely posed and oiled nude shots.

Won't they be pleased!

February 22, 2003

In related non-news, and continuing the same "girls and how they feel about shirtless men in photographs" theme from the last two days, here is part of Laura's reply to my reply.  Her first mail was quoted yesterday, so go look if you've forgotten. I basically asked her for a clarification on things, and here's most of what she had to say.

I think that the problem is that girls have as much animal sexuality as men, but we have a problem expressing it. You guys ogle girls and talk about their tits and have no problems (generally) sleeping with hot strangers. Its not that simple for us. We aren't supposed to be sexual. We aren't supposed to like the physical aspects of men, or sex. Its all supposed to be spiritual. We are supposed to say, "he makes me laugh", not "he is so fucking hot". We aren't even supposed to like sex, we are supposed to do it for you guys. And even if consciously we can say "that is a load of bull and I don't believe in that", it gets into our subconscious.

Many of us don't like to be reminded that we are physical animals just like men, and so we have a bad reaction when we are faced with being attracted to a guy for physical reasons. We believe that we are above that.

 

Anyway, to address what you really asked, no, I don't think I would mind. Maybe if there were penises involved it might be different, but toplessness is nothing. I wouldn't mind any guy sending me topless pictures.

I don't like aggressiveness in guys either, but I don't even see how sending any picture (without penis) is an aggressive act. Its not like you are pressuring her to have sex. You would just be showing her the goods. She doesn't have to do anything with it. She could just masturbate in private and remain your friend. And what would be wrong with a topless picture on a main page? Anyone who would be offended at seeing a topless male on a page cannot be secure in their sexuality, as stated above.

Besides, as you originally stated, the picture in question is not topless. Its a really inoffensive picture. None of what was stated here should have anything to do with that picture, because it is so harmless. You see a lot more than that on the beach, or when you casually surf the web.

So basically, she agrees with my reasoning as to why a woman shouldn't care about seeing a topless photo.  However since I've asked 5 women about it at this point, and Laura is the only one who feels this way, if you guys are wondering what to do in your own life, you should probably go with the majority and play it cool.  At least unless you are really in great shape, and figure you can send your pic to a bunch of women through online personals and at least some will be of Laura's mindset and find you intriguing.

Yesterday, I mentioned a recent update with a multiple-choice question I'd posted to several women, about their interest in seeing a male friend naked. Proving that I just work here, two regular site readers were able to quickly and easily send me the URL that I wasn't able to find at all.  I was sure it was at least two months ago, and started looking in December, I think.  I do that a lot around here, totally forgetting how long ago I addressed some topic.  God I'm behind on the article-ing.

The relevant question is at the very bottom of the January 19th update.  There were four replies to the question, and all four said they weren't interested in seeing the man naked, even if he wouldn't know they had.  I see this as an enormous and insurmountable difference between men and women, as the January update makes clear.

And just since it ties into the rest of this so well, here are a couple of pics of me from Friday afternoon.  I sent them to Malaya with a warning that it was the sort of shot she'd hate a stranger for sending, but she looked anyway and had a very positive reaction, which of course pumped up my ego like a Macy's Parade float.  Another formerly "non-picture looking" woman was interested enough to see it, and she didn't exactly come out and say it made her moist, but she said that my working out was obviously paying off.  Grudging compliments or compliments from an unusual source are better than none at all, when you've got self esteem issues.  This one is for you, Starina.

And yes, I initially planned on the shot being just for the woman I sent it to, but she liked it, and another woman liked it, and I got to thinking how odd it is that men are so uptight about anything potentially showing the shape or outline of their penis.  Women are expected to wear tight tops and pants and bikini bottoms all the time, while men slouch along in sexless burlap sacks. Not that I'm complaining about this being the order of things, since I like to see girls in tight stuff, and I like to wear baggy comfortable stuff myself.  Not baggy to the point of the current fashion victim looks where guys have six inches of their boxers poking out as their pants approach "prison bitch" level, but comfy-baggy.

But it's hardly fair to the ladies, now is it?  Though with as many of them that say they aren't interested in seeing a man even topless, they must be horrified at the prospect of an well-outlined penis through a tight pair of pants. Right?

Not that I'm offering that in this shot, but you can tell I have something down there.  And no, I'm not erect, not even a little bit, it's just poking in this one view.  And yes, I was wearing that at the time, since it was a warm afternoon. Nothing is posed or staged just for the photo, other than the photo itself.

Damn this disclaimer is long.

______________________

January 31, 2003

Interesting article about a woman and her search for some tolerable pornography.  Yes, I'd post 10 items a day about this sort of thing if given the chance.

The monotonous blur of clits, tits and dicks, delivered in vivid anatomical detail, quite frankly makes my head ache.

Really, who gets off on this stuff?

The obvious answer, of course, is men. The bulk of the run-of-the-mill porn I "researched" for this column was patently male-oriented – as in, the men were either repulsive or mercifully out of sight. So is egregiously bad porn yet another social woe we chalk up to the Y chromosome, right alongside war and poverty?

January 18, 2003

Women and male nudity, inspired by some nearly nude photos of myself.

Yes, I'm blaming everything on girls.  Again.

In this case, their weirdness comes in how they don't want to see male nudity. Oh, they enjoy it in private, and on occasion they'll enjoy a sexy guy in a perfume or jeans ad, but they don't seek it out.  I don't mean that they don't like porn, I mean that they don't want to look at guys in photos.  They just aren't visual like that.

Weirder yet, they don't have the curiosity about the male body, when the body is a man they know.  Some women do, and would like to see a nude shot of their male friends.  I'm not talking about to get horny over, just out of curiosity.  But most of them don't.  Men can't understand that.  We would kill to see every woman naked, even the ones we don't think are attractive.  There's a curiosity, and a sense of achievement once you have seen her.  Which is why so many men are voyeurs, and why voyeur type websites are so popular.  The actual images you see are far lower quality than shots on any of a billion porn or even celeb sites, but there's something fascinating about seeing real people, un-posed, or so unprofessionally posed that they're taking the shots themselves.

And anyway, it's not like seeing a woman naked is going to really be a big surprise.  You can pretty well judge how her boobies will look through her clothing, especially if you've seen her in a variety of outfits, and that goes for the rest of the body as well. And I don't mean a gynecological type view, which would be somewhat illustrative, given the wide variety of appearance of the female genitals.  I'm just talking about a normal, stand up, pubic-hair obscuring the naughty bits, nude photo.  There's no real surprise, but men want to see it anyway.  Want it desperately.

As for women... they generally don't care. They might have some curiosity, but not 1/100th as much as men do, and quite often the woman actually will not want to see a guy naked.  

I asked three women last night if they would want to see a nude picture of me, as a hypothetical.  All three said no. I wasn't going to send them an actual nude photo, nor did I have one to send, and I asked them with that as the pretext.  Not "do you want to" but "would you if it were offered". And not by me, just by any guy they knew.  They all said "no", with varying degrees of emphasis.  Part of it was also if the guy knew they were seeing it.  I think they'd have been willing to see a photo if the guy didn't know they were, but as for the guy sending it himself, that would sort of put pressure on them, or they could envision him forever after asking, "So, did you think my dick looked suckable?"

Now perhaps I should take their replies to me as a great insult to my manly manliness, but they said they were that way about all of their male friends.  Like they'd just feel weird about it, and weren't comfortable even with like a shirtless photo.  I think it's caused by men always trying to show themselves off to women, and being sexist wolf-whistling exhibitionistic pigs (as this update demonstrates), to where women get traumatized by the whole concept.  

Anyway, I don't understand it.  I'm not real curious about seeing other guys naked; my eyes don't wander at the urinal, and I haven't been in a locker room in years, but when I was I didn't find it a real fascinating experience.  Seeing an occasional dick in a porno is more than enough, thanks.  But I don't understand why women don't want to look, when in theory they like the male body.  Plus penises vary so much in size and appearance, I'd think it would be endlessly fascinating for a heterosexual woman to see them.  And you've got no idea at all what a given man's penis looks like before you see it.  I mean it's not like the ass or boobies or back or legs, that you can pretty well judge through clothing.

As I said, women are weird.

---

Just as a quick follow to the "girls are weird" segment yesterday, I asked four women who I know online this question.

You have the chance to see a nude photo (full frontal, not porno style) of a guy you know. not a bf, just a friend. not a model, not hideous, average guy.

Do you want to see it?

1) If he offers to show you.
2) If you can see it w/o him knowing you've seen it.
3) Yes, and you'll beg if you must.
4) Not at all.

As you can probably guess, all four of them said #4, though one was wavering a bit towards 2, in certain special circumstances.  I don't think I need to say that virtually every man would say #3 to this, and #1 and #2 as well, if necessary.  I'm reversing the genders involved for that, though it's probably true of gay men as well.

Yes, girls are weird.

Or perhaps men are and women are normal?  No, I can't get my brain around that notion, not this late.

If anyone reading this wants to offer their take or disagree with my vote assessment, feel free.  My survey wasn't exactly extensive.

January 5, 2003

Related to one comment I made in yesterday's "women don't like porn" essay, here is an article about drug companies rushing to try and find a female Viagra.

Drug companies often argue that 43% of women suffer from sexual dysfunction, a figure first cited in a 1999 article from the Journal of the American Medical Association. The number is based on responses from 1,500 women who reported whether or not they had experienced a sex-related problem for at least 2 months, such as lack of desire and lack of lubrication.

Many researchers have since criticized this figure, Moynihan writes, noting that changes in sexual desire are normal, and not necessarily a sign of a "disease."

Because it's all about scalpels and drugs, and there's no way any medical issue could be easily-cured through life style or mental health changes, right?  Or you could just deal with your problems, rather than hoping for a miracle pill to make you all better.

January 4, 2003

was going to write about this a couple of days ago, but didn't get to it.  I said I was going to do it yesterday but got sidetracked and said I'd do it today if I still had the interest.

As it turns out, I don't.  I could care about the topic.  But as I don't have anything better to talk about, and aren't in the mood for surfing, I'll give it a go anyway.

The topic is porn.  Girls and porn.  Why girls don't like porn.

I don't even mean "porn", come to think of it.  I just mean eye candy of the opposite sex (assuming that's what starts their engines).  I often desire to look at comely lasses.  It usually has nothing to do with being aroused, or wanting to be aroused, or trying to become aroused.  I just like to look at beautiful women in photos, sometimes.  In real life isn't bad either, but that's harder to arrange without leaving my comfy desk chair and 21" monitor.  So photos it is, most times. You can see far better looking women on film than in real life, outside of LA entertainment parties, where you're not invited anyway.  But even if you were, you couldn't stare at them as long as you wanted, and see them in 10 different outfits with several clicks of a mouse.  Nor see them naked with just another few clicks.  Not unless your mouse at the party had modeling contracts and movie roles falling out of it.

It seems perfectly natural to want to look at pretty woman photos to me.  Celebrities in a magazine lay out, or any of the millions of supermodel photo websites.  Pick any gallery on that site, and enjoy the view.  I do, from time to time. I can't even say why I enjoy it; I don't look at those sort of photos with a sexual vibe, I just like seeing them.  It's comforting and enjoyable to view the beautiful women, and it's not like I have some elaborate role-playing going on in my head where I meet them and we get to know each other and fall in love, or at least have sex several dozen times.  It's purely an appreciation of the beautiful female form, much the same as I get in gazing upon great art work such as Van Gogh.

That polite sort of viewing aside, there is also porn. Which is unwatchable shit, 99.9% of the time.  It's that .1% when I'm horny that it's essential viewing/reading. And as soon as I'm no longer horny, I can't get rid of it quickly enough.  I spend far longer looking at pretty photos or reading vaguely-erotic fiction than I do with actual porn, since after all, porn is shit.

So why am I surprised that women don't enjoy porn?

I guess that doesn't surprise me, but what does is that some women seem to be able to go weeks and months w/o any sort of sex, and years w/o any wankery.  A woman I know tells me she's not masturbated since she was 14.  Not that she has an actual date for her last Jill off session, but she says she's sure she has never achieved (or attempted to) orgasm solo in her adult life, since she started having sex with men.  And she's been with a dozen or more men, the most recent/ongoing one for about 8 years, after some shorter relationships and a few one night/weekend stands when she was in her teens and early 20's.

I think that's a fairly typical sexual history for a man or woman, perhaps a few more scores than most women will admit to, but what makes her amazing to me is that she says she has never gotten herself off the whole time.  We're talking like 18 years, and she's gone upwards of 12 months between boyfriends a few times.  Said a few other times she gave in to some guy she was less than enraptured by, just because she was horny and dying to get laid.  And by "get laid" she meant, "achieve orgasm through sexual intercourse".  It wasn't like she had a burning desire to spoon, she wanted satisfaction, and was going to achieve it. By god.  And apparently did.

As an aside, I always think how silly it is when I hear about some woman who has never had an orgasm, or never had one from sex.  And they make out like it's the man's fault entirely.  Guess what girls, you've got equipment that takes a bit more work to get into high gear, but can remain there for a lot longer. Knowing that, if you just lie there and hope for the best, it's quite likely that it won't happen.  If you don't ask for or demand what you want/need, you may not get it.  If you go to a night club and don't dance or drink or make any effort, are you going to be mad later and blame others for not having fun?

As for women and wankery, I've known other women (known in a non-Biblical sense) who told me much the same thing for their life.  That they never, or almost never, masturbated when they were in a relationship.  That they always saved it for their husband/BF, and wouldn't admit to having any interest in just an orgasm.  Like it didn't count unless they had a guy there.

Which, I think, sums up why women find porn so uninteresting.  They (women) aren't generally interested in just getting off.  Porn is obviously fake for the women involved, and even in the very few cases where the woman is actually excited and possibly even orgasmic, it's just a performance.  An actor can cry on demand for a dramatic scene, but you know he/she isn't really crying.  It's a trick of the trade, calling up something that moves them emotionally enough to react, but it's not like they just heard their dog Rex tried to fetch a stick someone threw into a wood chipper.  And that their mother was dragged in after him.

Porn orgasms are much the same; and are almost a sort of second person masturbation.  The other person might not use their hands, but if they're just doing it as a performance and there's no emotion involved, it's just a form of stage tears. And women don't want just orgasms.  They want emotional connection.  Which is why girl-porn comes largely in the form of romance novels, where it's some lonely woman being swept off her feet by a handsome, rugged manly type, and they fall madly in love.  There is usually sex, but it's very softcore, and much more occupied with foreplay and deep eye gazing and mentions of "souls" and "fulfillment" and "dreams".  You'll find almost none of that in the porn that men prefer, unless you count the frantic tearing off of clothing as foreplay.

Generally, if a women does watch porn, it's only with their partner, as a prequel to sex.  To get in the mood, or maybe pick up some inspiration or fellatio techniques.  Or else with a bunch of girls, as a joking sort of thing.  You don't hear about female circle jerks, other than in male porn, and then they do a lot more than watch each other wank.

And even aside from porn, women just aren't in to starring at pictures of the male body.  Yeah, there are some hot guys in Cosmo, but count the "mens' magazines" that sell a lot of copies.  There's not even a female equivalent of that type of mag, while for men it's a whole section at the newsstand, and I'm not even counting porn.  Just softcore crap like Maxim, Details, FHM, Playboy, etc.  What's on the cover of those mags?  Minor celeb females falling out of their underwear.  What's on the cover of female mags?  Big time female celebrities falling out of designer gowns.  Not Brad Pitt in a loincloth, which would be a more direct equivalent.

How many female porn mags are there?  Well, none, at least no well-known ones. Playgirl, but it's hardly porn, and most estimates are that like half the readers of that are gay men anyway.  Probably 95% of all nude male pics are for gay male porn, when you get right down to it.  And it's more like 99.5% on the Internet.

So are women asexual creatures who need to involve unnecessary mental stimulation, lacking the ability to simply be sexually aroused without hours of work?  Or are men pathetic dick robots, pitifully unable and unwilling to control their basest impulses for more than about 12 hours at a time?

Yes.

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