When women want to have sex, it's fabulous and empowering and there can never be too much. When men want to have sex, it's threatening and terrifying and gross and disgusting and OHMIGODOHMIGODRAAAAAAAAPE!

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The whole world is populated by real women. Everyday men live, work, eat, drive, shop, etc. surrounded by hundreds, sometimes thousands, of real women in all sizes, colors and ages. This overwhelming reality of women has not yet been enough to convice the majority of men that women are human beings. Pornography's ascendence to the top of the media pyramid as an influence on how men view women has only made the objectification situation much, much worse.

The suggestion here is what, to make more films of real-looking women getting fucked in order to get through to men that women are human? Sister, if men being surrounded by an entire world's worth of real women is not enough to convince them we're not all ever-ready whores gagging for sex with any man who wants a poke, some niche porno only a handful of feminist consumers with too much faith in free markets will ever see is not going to matter one whit.

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help protray the 'idealised' women's body is worse than porn because their images reach almost everybody on a constant basis and they are protrayed as totally normal. Whereas in porn most people realise that it is fake (fake tits, fake pleasure, the people are paid, etc.) Also in porn there are various 'genres' and 'actresses' in which the 'non-traditional' vision of 'beauty' are found. Go to any porn place and you'll see that just about every type of 'body type', 'race', and 'activity' you can think of, and some you can't, is represented. Having said that, porn still has many problems with it, particularly on younger people who are just learning about sex and proper way to behave, treat each other, etc. Not that there is 'normal' behaviour is sex necessarily but porn protrays a lot of 'extreme' and aggressive behaviour that is not normally enjoyed for most women, or men for that matter.

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I'm Naomi's age. I'm 40. I grew up sexually repressed as a man and when AIDs was the fear in the late 80s and early 90s, well, my sex life never actually was. Right now, I room with a blonde 21 year old girl.

She's sweet, smart, and a terrifically empathetic person. Really, she is far to beautiful with her giant blue eyes and perfect body to be such a kind person.

She can't get a date. She sits on my computer checking dating sites as the bar scene in our town has made her cry.

The last boyfriend my roomie had demonstrates Naomi's theory about todays youth and their "cyber-sex" disfunction. The guy was a goof, not really handsome and was just a pig. Treated her like a bitch and even tried to get her and her sister into a porn scene while, I kid you not, he put on porn tapes. Yea, when I was young I always entertained my new, beautiful, girlfriends and their sister with hard core porn.

Yikes.

She still fucked him for two weeks after that. I couldn't believe it. She only broke up with the ass when she asked him where this relationship was going and he answered he was just being friends, just casual.

Someone explain to me when some local bozo who picks up his dates in his rotten work sneakers (I kid you not), treats a world class girl like a whore, and still gets his cock sucked for it?

And to add, my sweet roomie dresses like a porn star. She wears thong underwear all the time. ALL the time. With low-cut jeans and gym pants. The expected tatoo on the lower back, of course. All the girls are like this. Competeing for guys who know these girls are accepting of their role as just throw away sluts. It's disturbing as the girls have no self esteem left and will slut themselves to whatever guy/guys are rich, popular, whatever. How many girls accept group sex to be popular? How many get tatoos? Piercings? Designer vagina???

At least my roomie is smart enough to know this isn't right, and I offered all the ego building help to her i could (yea, the guys a asshole, you deserve better, hellooo!!!). But really, do I have to tell a 21 year old girl a guy who makes you get out of the car to buy him smokes at the gas-station is NOT acceptable on the first date? Do I? Yea, I did have to tell her about three times too. Why didn't she get this right off? I tried very hard to tell my roomie she is wonderful and deserves more than being treated like a porn throw-away.

The sad thing is, everyones expectations are mutated. No one connects. I'm not sure if Naomi, or the other articles and books showing up on this subject, have a real understanding of it. But reading Naomi's words suddenly made me think of the problems of my young roomate. Really, the thong she wore all the time freaked me out. I thought I was just being ... old... guy... I'll shut up now. :D

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Female porn dominates our entire culture, from The Today Show at 7AM doing endless fakeup and beauty segments to nighttime soap/crap like Desperate Housewives or Gray's Anatomy or Sex an the City at 11PM. (And that's not even mentioning the man-as-bozo sit-coms.) It's funny that no one looks at the effect of all these shows on women, their expectations of men, how they view men, the boys growing up and seeing what sorts of men women want, etc. It's so pervasive and mainstreamed/normalized it's like the fish not knowing how wet they are. The real "porn myth" is that this is not true.

Last I checked, there's no porn for men on channel 17 at any and all hours of the day, but instead it's kept out of sight so as not to shock the children, womenfolk and kitty cats.

> the entire piece discusses the
> issue from the perspective of men

Wrong. It discusses it from the perspective of Naomi Wolf, who's been a certified dolt since she published the moronic book Beauty Myth fifteen years ago. And now she's but one step from again joining the anti-porn religious wingnuts, whose favorite bumper sticker is "Real Men Don't Use Porn".

But who knew Dworkin was full of it? (-to mention but one of the rape theorists) Gawd, I'm glad someone finally figured that one out. It was a real toughie.

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Why did the Feminist site choose to revive this from OCTOBER 2003 ?

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We live in an era where men can just grab their dick and double click. It's a good safety valve. The only reason to get married is to have babies.

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First off... I do watch porn occaissionally. I am faithfully and very happily married with the most wonderful woman for over 18 years. For me porn is only a stimulus, a visual fantasy, but never a "lifestyle" that I would be interested in.

We are programmed, both male and female, to attract and pursue. We are programmed in general to attract the attention of possible mates. It's a biological urge that nearly all of us have, although in some it's more pronounced.

In general women "pretty" themselves up with hairstyles, makeup, tanning, clothes and now it's gone to plastic surgery. Those things aren't for the benefit of the woman, but so that the woman will be more attractive to others or even more attractive than the competition. (Some of it is undoubtedly social conformity too.) Breast implants and the like are again mostly to attract attention.

Men do the same things, but in different ways. Building muscles, growing a beard or mustache, hairstyles, clothing, and these days makeup and implants aren't uncommon for males either.

Sex is just the natural offshoot of these things. The more you attract, the more the flow of hormones, and if basic personal requirements are met sex is really the natural course of things. For some sex is, or can be, a casual venture; for others something that only follows after a deeper bond is made. Life has always been this way, but in the past people were forced to hide casual sex as something dirty. I remember friends talking about their parents going to key parties, wife swapping and other casual sexual encounters in the 70's & early 80's - the days before AIDS. Now casual sex has become more of a mainstream culture, this time through porn; last time it was the hippy and free love movements.

I don't personally like all the "fake" bodies out there. I'm not just talking about porn either. Hollywood expects women to have super sized breasts, perky and plastic to the core. They don't look natural, move natural or even feel natural, but they "look" good on the screen seems to be the thought. I much prefer the natural body's look and feel.

We need to teach our successive generations that it's okay to be different from our friends. Self esteem is crucial to leading a happier life.

Once you become happy with who and what you are it's easier to resist things you don't want in your life. If you want casual sex, and it fits into your lifestyle, and you find a partner who feels the same then that's fine - it's your life. If the situation isn't right for you it's your life, so you make the choice. Porn doesn't make these choices for us, it's just a fantasy image.

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I saw my first porn movie last week and I finally got up and left!!
After 8 hours. Anyway I had to, the screen was irritating my nose.

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Forbidden makes for more value.

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and I am 47 now, struggling to keep a relationship with a man I dearly love and have been with for a little more than 2 years. I got married at 25 to a man who I didn't realize was very hung up on porn. After we married, he wanted me to dress up in bustiers, garters, fishnets, etc. I am not that kind of woman. I am very natural, and never had a problem getting interested in making love when it happened, until I had to deal with that situation. We stayed married for 7 years, then I left him because I couldn't stand it anymore, and I was to the point that I couldn't even respond properly for sex. I still cannot, and I'm about to hang it all up with relationships, because no one understands, and all I get is pressure for sex. I do try. But I work full-time, take care of a house, and run errands. And my partner wonders why I fall asleep at night! Unbelievable. My life and self esteem came to an end when I started getting involved with men.

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