Since FetLife’s isolationism is increasingly dangerous—a topic I may expound have expounded upon at KinkForAll Providence 2—I’m cross-posting the following from this thread in response to Suraya’s article over at Good Vibes:

Wow. For a thread on FetLife, this was unusually good. Of course, we can’t have a thread about women’s porn without someone saying something stupid like this:

The 800 pound gorilla in this room that no one likes to talk about or admit is that MOST (not all, but MOST) people, both men and women, prefer looking at nude females to nude males. This even crosses gender preference lines to a point, it’s part of our programming in evolutionary biology (see some of the “ideal face” studies that show even babies look for certain sets of features) which dictates that the female form is more aesthetically pleasing.

So I’m glad to see some photogs spouting the ridiculously sexist party line to preserve their precious status-quo. And not even being shy about it. “Dictates”? Really? Really? And using idiotic evolutionary psychology arguments to boot. Nicely done, @SLEPhotography, you affirmed my faith in the privilege-denying capability of so many male (and “top”-identified, predictably) photographers. Thank you, sincerely, for the reminder of my own relevance.

Then there’s this intellectual straw man:

The other point that I hear quite often is that men are more “visual” than women, men get turned on by the look of a woman and the outfit she is wearing, women are more into touch, feel and scent than looks. Of course this is a generalisation, but IMHO it contains a grain of truth.

Yup, that’s the party line without the intellectual acrobatics SLEPhotography is able to pull it off with. It’s the same bullshit, though, just easier to debunk. (An early example with commentary for laypeople. Here’s a more recent example, too.)

What’s so disturbing is that the observations most people make, such as “men and women react differently to available pornography,” are totally fair. Not even I disagree with such simple observations, despite the generalization. It’s the conclusions (“women aren’t as aroused by visual stimuli”) I find preposterous. And I’m not the only one.

As for my own theory, I grow increasingly convinced that the difficulty in finding pornography “for women,” i.e., of a “female gaze,” has at least as much to do with the flawed dialectic of “male gaze” vs. “female gaze” as it does with other cultural factors. To that end, I think Lady Porn Day is feckless at best.

Cheers,
-maymay

It should perhaps be noted that I’m told deep linking to FetLife from outside FetLife is not looked upon kindly. That’s news to me. And it’s crackbrained, so I’m not going conform to that apparent social norm.

Later, SLEPhotography returned to the thread proffering all sorts of ridiculous explanations. Chief among them, of course, was how he is not straight, as if that matters. Not willing to let the topic be changed by such shallow spin, I called it out as such:

Hey, SLEPhotograhy, good to see you have the courage of your convictions to continue digging your own hole. :) One last thing before I stop spending my time here behind FetLife’s Google-repulsing curtain:

I list myself as “heteroflexible” here and split my play between both male & female partners. In my training as I came in to this life I was mentored by female and male tops & Dom/mes, and the male tops were all gay men. I also mentioned in my post that I work with male and female subjects, as I noted

That’s all very nice for you, and all very irrelevant. I don’t give a fuck who you fuck or who you worked with. (See also, “I’m not racist. I have a Black friend!”) You get an A for effort on your redirection attempt, especially considering the blind hypocrisy necessary to do it while telling me I’m redirecting.

It’s this

I tend not to display my male nudes in wider forums because it makes larger audiences avoid my work altogether (there’re far too many people who’ll say “If there’s a penis present I don’t want to look)

coupled with this

for a majority of the audience photographers need in order for their market to be profitable those biases exist

that’s relevant. And what a steaming pile of circularly reasoned nonsense that is. Nothing personal, I understand, it’s “just business.”

As for privilege, I’d bet money on that the fact that your failure to understand why “not displaying your male nudes in a wider forum” for “business reasons” is a privilege as a photographer (not as a man) is probably why you feel the need to offer silly objections to Suraya’s Good Vibes article in the first place.

Wanna talk more about this? Let’s do it where the rest of the Internet can see. FetLife’s iron curtain is a dangerous illusion.

For those who want to literally hear more, Suraya can be heard talking about this issue extensively on Kink On Tap episode 18: Where’s the dick?

Cheers,
-maymay

P.S. Also, Arbor

IMO using terms like “the usual bullshit” and “Party Line” does nothing to enhance your arguments.

I think what you mean to say is, “using terms like ‘bullshit’…is not nice,” since the cogency of an intellectual argument has nothing to do with whether it’s described as bullshit or not, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot. On that note, calling SLEPhotography’s arguments out as the sexist Party Line is all of accurate and pertinent and, yes, not “nice.”

Gosh, that was easy.

UPDATE: Round 2 was even easier.