That's because you're a man.Most women DO NOT OBJECTIFY MEN SEXUALY when they respond to erotic films and images.
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Well sorry I don't see that from the responses from women on this forum or other forums. Most women who watch porn objectify the male performer as a sex machine. Since, women sexually objectify men's performance outside of direct sexuality (i.e. Mick Jagger), I see no reason why they couldn't or wouldn't objectify men's sexual performance in erotic material. Unlike men, they are less concerned about what the male performer looks like.
huggins293 wrote: That's because you're a man.Most women DO NOT OBJECTIFY MEN SEXUALY when they respond to erotic films and images.Rather, they sort of become the woman in the sex scene or image;that is,she imagines herself as someone men react to sexually.This ability to identify with other women is a real evolutionary adaptation,one that allows females to manipulate men to their advantage.
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So when men react sexually to the women in the scene she is not enjoying it or is she just faking it. If she is enjoying it, it is because of how the man is reacting to her sexually. Bottom line: If the man is giving her a good fuck she is turned on. I really don't see how your true theory negates the OBVIOUs fact that women who view erotic material and enjoy it objectify men. NO QUESTION.
P.S. I imagine myself as the well-endowed man in the sex scene manipulating the women to orgasm. I am sure most men do to. This is not unique to women.
Renee wrote: I don't care about anyone's theories of brain centers or arousal rates. I think the photo below is HOT!
Licker wrote: Thank you for the example Renee, and your later thoughts about it. I wish there was some way you could record your emotions and play them directly into my mind as I looked at the image. It feels like that's the only way I could understand.
Let me see if I can put into words what my reaction to the photo above was, and why. My first thought on seeing it was, "Rocco has never looked so good". I hardly glanced at the woman, though I know who she is, the main actress in the film.
It's the expression on his face, and in his eyes, sort of serious and pensive. The lighting of the scene helps to highlight the dark mood. I also like the slight beard that he's got going. Plus, he's lying in a bed, something that you don't see much in porn, a man actually lying down, and in a bed. Overall, I like the way the director Breillat is letting the camera linger on him.
This is rather different from the Rocco persona portrayed in his porn films, even the ones that he directs. There, though he's occasionally serious during a scene, if they show any bonus or BTS footage, you can see him generally joking around with the guys, not much different than when you see a group of men at a bar, though honestly, this is often the atmosphere of most porn films I've watched.
I just like the change in mood shown in the photo, something more weighty than the usual found in porn photo stills.
P.S. At this point, I think don juan and Huggins should get their own chat room. That way, they can discuss in earnest what women look for, and don't look for, in porn. Better yet, they should both watch Impulse Pictures' Velvet Thrust, then come back to this thread and tell us how it does/doesn't meet the evolutionary/sexual needs of women.
I wonder, Renee, how much of your interest in this photo is connected with the fact it is an image derived from film stock made by a director with a good visual eye, appropriate matching sheets, clothes, and skin tones, and so forth. Can you imagine a porn film that photographed its participants as lovingly as Rocco and his lover are shot here?
As far as underwear is concerned, I have had the experience of waiting in a mall lingerie store while a lady friend tried on several items. It is the most uncomfortable I have ever been in a store--I was the only man in there, and, being alone on the floor while the person I was with was in the dressing area, I found myself the recipient of the dubious attention of the various women in the place. I imagined in my mind that they had decided the worst case scenarios about me: I had a liking for frilly red women's panties, or I was some pervert trying to peek into the dressing rooms, etc. And naturally the fact that I was clearly uncomfortable in the place amused the lady I was with to no end.
Conversely, I have found that women are quite observant of the underwear men wear, and usually have some opinion of their relative sexiness.
I am done with arguing. It is a good thing that you guys called it out before it got extremely out of line. I am against most evolutionary sexual theories towards gender. He supports it. That's the end of that discussion.
You mean because the French director didn't use a blazing yellow couch, and dress the woman up in dayglo fishnets? Yeah, the lighting and the upscale furnishings do have an impact, but also, notice how it's Rocco who's closest to the camera, and who fills up most of the screen space. That's not something you see often in porn films, unless it's a DP scene, and you see mainly two male asses grinding into a barely seen female body.Yeah, I'm not surprised. I used to work part-time in the lingerie section of a dept. store, and if a man came in by himself, and didn't say he was looking for a gift for a woman, we had some pretty wild speculations about what he was doing there. Even at Christmas or Mother's day, when the men came in for gift shopping, most of them looked mighty uncomfortable, and wouldn't even touch the lingerie themselves; we always had to help them.
Now, imagine how the average woman feels going into Bubba's XXX Parlor, surrounded by boxcovers screaming out "Gaping Interracial Assholes, Vol 23". Not exactly the most conducive atmosphere to make a person feel comfortable.
RobHammer wroteSorry Rob, I negelected to thank you for this and other cute images you were able to conjure up.
On the lingerie topic, you know we have the biggest lingerie store in the Southern Hemisphere in one of our department stores here in Melbourne and they used to have a lounge, seating area or at least a few seats where a guy could wait without feeling like a complete dork...they refurbished and now there are very few seats, who knows maybe they had too many lurking "spectators" waiting indefinitely.
I can see the things you describe in the picture. I can also sense the mood. There is a definite feeling of pensive sadness between the two characters. The woman seems to show a mix of yearning and disappointment. I admire the direction and photography that can produce this kind of result, and I wish I could create an image half as good.
Where I get lost is understanding how erotic feelings can come from these things. ( I take it that's what you meant by "hot".) The image inspires other emotions in me, but not that.
Well, licker, part of my reaction is owing to Rocco being one of my favorite male performers to watch. And one thing I wish was present in his own movies more often is a little seriousness. He is coming out with a movie called (I think) Rocco: the Darker Side, so maybe that will be it. He's also coming out with one called "Rocco and the Princess"; what could that be about?
Zartyr, you are right, he wore a similar suit in 'Romance'. I think Breillat the director likes those colors on him. In his own movies, he's often wearing black.
Speaking of romance and Breillat; Leroi claimed that "Baise-moi" was a females look on sexuality with her "balls", whereas "Regarde-moi" was a male's look on sexuality with his heart.
BTW, isn't it a funny thing, that violence-laden "Baise-moi" - which contains nearly as much or even an equal amount of sexually explicit scenes as "Regarde moi" - is located in the normal region of video rental stores, where kids can at least see the cover, but a movie like "Regarde moi" is banned behind the adults-only curtain?
Going into the adult section of the video store together has made my wife comment, "This is all for men, there's nothing here for women!" Her choice on rentals by looking at box covers is worse than mine, so now she just relies on me to pick something.
Not only does she have me pick out porn but she often has me get her personal items like tampons, hair color, pantyhose and underwear. It doesn't bother me. Occasionally the thought crosses my mind to ask the clerk if she thinks they will fit, just to see her reaction. There is a corner boutique at the mall where I bought her a top and panty sleepwear set. I'm not sure what the passers-by thought as I was holding it up to myself to size it.
I particularly liked your review of Rocco Invades Poland. I know that I enjoy many of the things that you liked about that movie, so it is definitely on my "must see" list now.
I hope you like the Poland movie. That review is the second most read of the one's I've written; the first is Holmes and Ferrara's Euro Girls #3. Anyway, Rocco seemed to be in rare form in that movie. The casting call is pretty funny, even with some of it in Polish and Italian.
Rob Hammer, that is also my reaction when I go into a XXX store or the adult section of a regular video store - there's nothing here for me. Or if there is, I'll have to first sift through thousands of Anal/Group Sex/interacial/Fetish films to find something worthwhile. In fact, I feel like I'm in some weird form of porn purgatory, with all the exaggerated poses on the box covers, the lurid language screaming out at you, the garish colors, and so on. Even the so-called features/couples films look cheap and tawdry, though maybe it's just where they are being displayed. Besides, these stores/rooms have all the ambience of a conveniance store. I'd rather do my shopping/renting online.
You are not alone.If it comes to sex stores there seems to be a trend to set up stores which attract women. Surprisingly - or rather not surprising - a woman owning such a store said in an interview on TV, that she does not only have female customers, but also plenty of male customers, who thank her because her store does not portray this sleazy/filthy/forbidden-desires image of the "classic" sex store. AFAICS also many "classic" sex stores are getting more boutique- or sports-store-like during the last years and you don't think you are entering some dark cave anymore. It seems video rental stores have to learn a few things still.
Loraine sent me this article from the NY Times by email (thanks!), and I thought I'd post it here in this thread - yet another attempt to crack the porn-for-women market.
What Women Want to Watch
August 29, 2004, New York Times By SUSAN DOMINUS
WHEN Mark Graff, a longtime veteran of adult entertainment, founded Playgirl TV in 2003, he wasn't necessarily interested in liberating women to enjoy the pleasures of erotic entertainment; he was more interested in exploiting them, as an underserved market.
Mr. Graff, who had created Spice Entertainment, a raunchier alternative to Playboy TV, had always believed that women were among Spice's loyal viewers, although the content, like most pornography, was made with men in mind. "When we moved Spice from 10 o'clock at night to the middle of the day, the buy rates went nuts," Mr. Graff says, sitting in his office the in the East 40's. "It couldn't all be out-of-work truckers. It had to be a lot of housewives."
Never mind that these days, the name Playgirl is most widely associated with a magazine of mild gay pornography; Mr. Graff thought the brand was familiar enough that he'd be able to sell cable distributors a video-on-demand service under that title. In the meantime, he would revive its initial intent, providing sexually provocative material that women - and perhaps some gay men - would enjoy.
Mr. Graff, now 53, thought he had retired back in 1999 when he sold Spice to Playboy TV for a neat $100 million, moved to a small town near the Berkshires and took over an old country store. "I sliced bologna, sold mice traps, penny candy," he says. "It was my Norman Rockwell moment." And then? "I got utzy," he says. "I got bored." And he got to thinking. If women were watching Spice, then he could only imagine how many more would be interested in a product tailored specifically for them. Especially if the format, too, was tailored specifically for them: video on demand, which is less public than buying videos in a store, less depressing than visiting an adult Web site. He approached the publishers of Playgirl magazine about a licensing deal, and they agreed. "So then we had to figure out, `O.K., what does this look like?' " he says. "I had no idea what adult films for women would even be."
And with good reason: there aren't a lot out there. Femme Productions, a company started in 1984 by the adult film actress and San Francisco-bred feminist Candida Royalle, has answered that question with movies featuring more plot and emotion than traditional pornography. (Characters have been known to announce that they're in love midway through the story). But though Femme has been a success, it has not put a dent in the mainstream pornography market.
In any case, Mr. Graff, a bearish man in jeans, a gray suit jacket and black Adidas, would seem an unlikely successor to Royalle. (A copy of "My Secret Garden," Nancy Friday's 1973 collection of women's racy sexual fantasies, that he keeps in his thoroughly unremarkable office looks more than anything else like an unconvincing prop. "It's my bible," he swears.) But his profit motive and her political motives are not so far apart as they once would have been. Today, though some feminists still decry the dehumanizing products of this male-dominated industry, others unabashedly declare their love of the stuff and call for the production of more material that women might enjoy.
After licensing the Playgirl name, Mr. Graff started raising funds from a collection of private investors. It took a year to get enough to start production. "Everybody loves the money from adult entertainment," he says, "but no one wants to tell their wife." From his home office overlooking the hills of the Berkshires, Mr. Graff started calling women off the Playgirl subscriber list to sound them out about the kind of videos they thought they wanted to watch.
"Porn for women," he says. "It's a blank page. So you ask questions: What is it that you like? Are you orally oriented? Do you want to see good-looking guys close up?" Hetta Eisenberg, the marketing director of the new venture, and Kelly Holland, a film director who also came on board, were making the same calls, and eventually the three hit on some basic themes. "We'd hear, `I want to see better-looking guys, more loving, more communication between the couples,' " Mr. Graff says. "They had to have some involvement with the characters in advance of sex, with a believable set-up, for it to work. `I want to see a better set-up than the pizza man coming to the door.' For guys, wall to wall sex is fine. In fact, the pizza man is too much plot." He laughs. "Lose the pizza!"
Ms. Holland started working with writers in Los Angeles to conceptualize the company's films. She used a lot of the phone survey results - but not all. "Women say they want more plot, but there's plenty of plot out there," she says. In fact, she believes that plot is the downfall of many supposedly couple-friendly films: the more plot, the more pressure on the actors to make it work. "You know, what's embarrassing to women about porn isn't just the sex," says Ms. Holland, a tall, professionally dressed woman with long red hair who worked in documentary film before turning to editing, then directing, adult films to make money. "What makes people blush is also the bad community theater acting, the tripping-over-the-stairs amateur thing that goes on. These actors aren't Strasberg-trained - they're sex performers. Rather than try to get them to do something they don't do with these elaborate scenes, we thought we'd just add a little more context instead."
Ms. Holland, who says she's "passionate about women's right to erotic imagery," has started using her real name, for the first time since she started working in adult film, on the Playgirl projects. She oversees production and script, with Mr. Graff signing off on the basic plots and premises.
Rather than add too much plot, Ms. Holland wanted to make the sex scenes more natural. "All the sex scenes you see in Hollywood films are artificial, in the sense that you have all this buildup, and then for the most intimate, truthful moments, when people are sexual, we sort of contrive the sheets in this artificial way to hide the body, to hide that reality," she says. "With porn, it's the opposite contrivance - she has to lie with her legs spread like this" - she splays her arms open - "and he has to lean back like that so the camera can get there. I just want to shoot sex as I see it, as it is."
Neither Ms. Holland nor Mr. Graff was happy with their early results, however. "It's really hard to get people to move away from what I call P.O.P., plain old porn," Mr. Graff says. "You know, everybody's been doing it in a certain way for so long, from the lighting to the actors, it's kind of like a factory, like watching people in a bakery. It's very blasé. And it's very hard to get them to do new things." An early segment, featuring a man and a woman who start out playing strip poker on a porch, reveals, in Ms. Holland's opinion, too many "gynecological shots" to be of interest to women.
Mr. Graff and Ms. Holland began gathering their friends for informal focus groups and learned that they had been overlooking some very big concerns. "It turned out art direction was incredibly important," Mr. Graff says. "From the headboards to shoes to his haircut, her haircut, everything that was in the room was being closely examined - whether or not her nails were done, whether or not the bedspread was pretty. `Why is she wearing those shoes?' was a big thing. Not why was she wearing shoes or not wearing shoes, but why is she wearing those shoes? Shoes were like - a big deal."
For the next round of films they produced, Mr. Graff and Ms. Holland passed over stylists who worked exclusively in adult films and instead hired an art director who also works in theater, a wardrobe person who also designs hats and handbags. "Women were telling us they were really into lingerie, and it has to be at least Victoria's Secret, but better you have Prada. And they complained a lot about over-the-top jewelry, so we paid attention to that," Ms. Holland says. The results are "closer to where we're going, if not there yet," she adds.
Like most pornographic movies, they feature pat scenarios: a woman alone with the man behind the counter in a diner after hours; a woman making moves on the guy at the grocery store. But some differences are striking: the female actresses look a lot more like real people, with normal, natural bodies, than like porn stars. There are fewer close-ups on actual genital contact (in one, there's almost none). To eliminate awkward, off-putting dialogue, the characters interact very little before they make physical contact. The attention to detail shows up in the short but manicured nails, the hand-stitched lingerie and the specificity of the wardrobe: for a scene set in a 50's diner, a vintage dress was brought in from a Los Angeles wardrobe shop. Although Mr. Graff would not give specifics on budget, he says the cost of the average Playgirl film is higher than the cost of his old Spice productions. "Those shoes are expensive," he explains.
In mid-July, the Playgirl service made its debut. For $8.95, subscribers to Cablevision, which serves parts of the New York metropolitan area, have the choice of several 90-minute combinations of five to seven different short films. (For now, those segments are either sexual scenarios or profiles of male stars, featured mostly naked and in the act of self-stimulation; Mr. Graff intends to add sex advice and shopping features in the future).
He also struck a deal with two companies that distribute adult entertainment to hotel chains. He says he's optimistic about signing deals with other major cable service providers within the year.
Dennis McAlpine, the media and entertainment analyst for McAlpine Associates, agrees that women are an underserved market. "But it's hard to sell the cable service providers on more adult entertainment," he says. "It's too controversial. My guess is the major players will wait and see how he does with Cablevision before signing on." Mr. Graff will also be facing competition from the upstart producer Inpulse TV, another new video-on-demand service hoping to corner the market on erotic entertainment for women.
Asked their reaction to the films, Emma Taylor and Lorelei Sharkey, sex advice authors who publish under the name Em and Lo, responded right on cue. "I was noticing how cool her hair was," Ms. Sharkey started out, referring to the film shot in the diner. "There was a 50's element to her look that I really liked. And she had this cool outfit on, and cool undergarments - and the kissing seemed to last a full five minutes, which is an eternity for porn."
Ms. Taylor immediately commented on the brevity of the conversational build-up. "At first I was thinking, I wish there'd been a little more conversation to make it seem like something that actually happened in real life," she said. "But then the dialogue would have been forced and the acting would have been bad. Improving the sex is probably a much more attainable goal than trying to get the actors to turn in Oscar-winning performances."
The filmmakers still say they have a few aesthetic choices to work out, including the display of male genitals. In those initial phone surveys, Playgirl readers said they wanted to see as many as possible. But as Ms. Holland herself admits, the preferences of the female Playgirl reader may not represent the average American woman's tastes. "I have to take women at face value when they say they want to see more penises," she says. "But I factor in, how much of that is just because they want their MTV, so to speak - their right to media and their right to those sexual images? It's sort of an expression of their process of sexual liberation. It's like those rowdy women you see at a male strip club - it's almost like they're acting out some male construct of what sexual desire is supposed to look like. You have to balance what they really want with what they feel socially compelled to say."
SHE adds a personal comment that's practically revolutionary for directors in her line of work, like hearing Quentin Tarantino say there's too much on-screen violence: "As for me, I could probably not see male or female genitals at all. To me it's not a priority." She suspects that if and when adult films for women become more widely accepted, and they have a broader sample of consumer feedback, the films may get less explicit.
Mr. Graff admits that early on they created the "male body worship segments," the male model profiles, in the hopes of capturing a gay male audience, a relatively high-income, high-buying demographic. "It's the mothership for advertisers," he said. "But now I think that most gay men will tune in once and then not come back. It's really not for them." And trying to split the programming down the middle, he says, "would be cheating, so to speak." The material hasn't been on the air long enough to yield reliable impressions of women's response to those segments.
Mr. Graff says the most difficult thing has been finding a way to wrap up the sex scenes without getting quite so explicit as male-oriented pornography. "You know, this is all part of the process, to create a set of characters and circumstances that are intriguing and make you want to come back and that also deliver the goods," he said. "After all, this ain't the Oprah Show."
Susan Dominus is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine.
Interesting article, now that I've had time to digest it. I agree with them about the shoes and lingerie; they have to pay attention to that. To a lesser extant, they should also pay attention to the decor in the scenes (I don't know why, but I always notice bedspreads, upholstored furniture, drapes, art work on walls, and so on).
One thing that was revealing was to learn that Playgirl Magazine definitely has a sizable gay male audience. And, furthermore, Playgirl TV better has got to make a decision - do they want to focus on straight women viewers, or gay male viewers. They can't have their cake and eat it too.
That was interesting that the owner of Playgirl TV thought that a lot of women were watching the Spice Network, when they started broadcasting during the daytime. It could well be that there are plenty of men who are home during the day - they work from home, or are unemployed, or are students, or work at night. It's not like all daytime TV viewers are women. Plus, the majority of women at home during the day are either those with young children, or women in the 60+ age range. I gotta ask - how many of them say to themselves, "Oprah or the Spice Network, which should I watch today?"
Well, I wish the owner luck. It's somewhat unfortunate the he and the people at Impulse Pictures are so focused on getting into the cable market, since it takes so much money to do that, and means convincing cable TV executives that there is a need for female-focused porn out there on TV. I can't think that these executives care all that much about the porn needs of women.
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don juan Deactivated User
143 Posts 7/04
Posted - Sep 3 2004 : 2:45PM
Rene, I explained that to you in another thread a while back(Requiem for Rocco). Women just don't get aroused viewing men; never have, never will. There has to be a woman in the scene or photo for them to identify with before they can respond sexually.
Also, try browsing the magazines at Borders or other book stores and you'll find that women's mags often feature very sensual and erotic photos of women;women naturally relate to these images in a quasi-sexual manner, not in a homosexual sense but simply by projecting their selves onto the models and becoming, in their minds, erotically alive and desirable. The few men depicted there are usually shown REACTING TO a woman as a sex object.
It's been awhile, so I went looking for Inpulses' promised second feature "Erection Services" but apparently it's not been released. I did find THIS new movie however.
gina lynn reinvented
gina lynn reinvented
gina lynn reinvented
gina lynn reinvented
From the REVIEW and the screenshots, it seems that they've gone in a new (or should I say very 'old') direction. Lots of makeup, g/g scenes, double babybirdfeeder jerk-to-pop finishes, etc. :(
Plus it sounds like there's no anal. Isn't this the kind of couples friendly porn all women love? ::ducks behind couch:: < ::ducks behind couch:: << ::ducks behind couch:: < ::ducks behind couch:: [[[[[[
too funny.... I do the porn purchasing for us(I am female)... he makes me buy underwear he says I'm too old and we've been married to long to go out in public without any under my slacks, skirts and tops.. WHY ? Ok occassionally I can understand the bra part, being big busted it can be painful or sore to go braless too often... but I don't like panties and wear them as seldom as possible ! If you're wearing "pantyhose" why do you need more undies ? We compromised and I buy these custom made crotchless ones.... HEY... unlike my long time girl friend who suffer yeast infection one after the other .. I do NOT have that problem !
So it isn't just me who is waiting, waiting, waiting??? lol The movie I was was was about the 10th movie that Inpulse had shot. So far, I think they have only released two of them...
It hasn't been released yet. I'm not sure it ever will be, or what's going on with them. They can make movies for just about any type of fetish you can think of, but one for 'women only' is too weird I guess.
I went and checked the Inpulse Pictures website a few weeks back. There hadn't been any updates to the site since early in 2004. I wonder if they're still in business.
I got the idea that they were trying to start a cable TV channel. That takes a lot of money, a lot more than putting out movies on DVD.
I was going to rent Velvet Thrust from AdultDVDEmpire, but I didn't feel like joining their rental program just to see one movie.
I agree with Dumblonde, they can make movies about every other fetish under the sun, but not ones for half the population.
P.S.: I'm surprised that don juan guy hasn't popped up yet again, explaining that women only watch porn, if they watch at all, so they can identify with the women on screen.
I am a woman and I would not watch it. It sounds too tame for me. Then again, I am more into the Animal Trainer, and Hardball series type stuff. I want to be Rocco's bitch.
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don juan Deactivated User
143 Posts 7/04
Posted - Dec 11 2004 : 8:58PM
Just Popping Up(The only question I have is, What sort of evidence would you accept that confirms the observation that the female market for visual erotica is virtually nonexistent in comparison to the enormous size of the male market? The search for this illusory object, I believe, is based more on personal feelings and ideology rather than on actual facts and data.)
"Julian knows what women want and he knows exactly how to please them!"
I'd have no problem objectifying Julian. I've got to say that I love the cover, at least they put men on the box! Has your g/f ordered this one yet, Only ;)
I was wrong, evidently Inpulse Pictures is still in business.
I've never seen any of the people in the film (Julian, Roxanne Hall, Wendy Divine, Chris Cannon, Jessica Dee, Alex Sanders, and Casey Pink). Any opinions?
It said on the ADE site that the production year for this film was 2003. I wonder why it took them so long to release it?
Posted - Aug 10 2004 : 7:22PM
