One of the really interesting things on the "Cambria list": Black men with white women.
I've no idea how that got there, but if it's really meant as phrased rather than a euphemism for plantation scenes or something... that sounds an awful lot to me like some kind of racist "black men are bruisers who'll hurt the poor WHITE LAYDEEZ!"
One of the really interesting things on the "Cambria list": Black men with white women.
Probably there due to the fear of the old racism; many old-school prosecutors of porn would resort to playing to the most rawest racist appeals of evil Black male rapists threatening pure White women. A lot of convictions of interracial porn during the early 80s were a direct result of this kind of bigotry.
Interestingly enough, the opposite senario (White men with Black women) weren't even affected, let alone prosecuted....why, it has always escaped my logic.
Can we talk about that at some point? racism w/in porn as well as in anti-porn campaigns? It's a subject that doesn't get covered nearly enough, I don't think; the only people I see really addressing it in any depth at all are the radical anti-porn WOC feminists.
I guess what I'm saying is: right now y'all are establishing the basic groundwork for a defense of porn at all, which, i get.
but i wonder if at some point we could get into a serious critique (i mean in the real sense, a cultural analysis) of the content of some of what's out there in mainstream porn, the conventions and so forth, what you think it all Means dear, the same as you'd do for any other media. and if you like it, or if you're bothered by it; and what you'd rather see more of, if anything.
"many old-school prosecutors of porn would resort to playing to the most rawest racist appeals of evil Black male rapists threatening pure White women."
*nods* Yeah, exactly what I figured.
And Belle: I totally hear you.
But part of the reason I singled that out to bring up was that I think it may offer another side to the examination of racism in porn. Here it's not that WOC are being used for white men's fetishes, but that MOC are denied participation in particular scenes due to a racist stereotype.
And I think it's interesting that, well, I've never even seen THAT brought up.
no, definitely I'd like to see it looked at from all angles.
I think that the most objectionable stereotypes in pr0n are a direct funhouse mirror/unprettified expression of the seedy underbelly of our collective consciousness about such things. if you really want to -change- that consciousness, as opposed to just going, tsk, tsk, seems to me you have to:
1) engage it on its own terms, neither glossing over or tarting up the parts you find objectionable, and examine -why- -you- find it objectionable as well as the material itself.
2) think seriously about what you'd like to see instead. Nature abhors a vacuum, after all.
which, btw, i think the same thing of every other sociopolitical critique of popular media.
but so anyway yeah: of -course- the reason, say, interracial still has a -frisson-, or at least is expressed in the way that it often is, is because it's riffing off the bad! wrong! illegal, even! (but o so exotic) attitudes that were there to begin with.
Would people fetishize "interracial" in--to take a page from your "utopia" question at the SM blog, Trin--a non-racist society? Possibly; I think that there's a way in which people might take pleasure in the aesthetics of pale skin against dark skin--but the stereotypes that often inform the fetish, well...yeah, that's obviously based on the culture, so...
anyway, the "purity of women" thing is still huge, of course, and you don't have to dig very deep to find it being specifically about the purity of WHITE women, absolutely. oh, not nearly as front-page blatantly of course; but, well...there's a reason why the discourse of radical anti-porn WOC feminists and radical anti-porn white feminists can often diverge, well, rather radically, even if they come to similar conclusions (say no to porn).
"Would people fetishize "interracial" in--to take a page from your "utopia" question at the SM blog, Trin--a non-racist society? Possibly; I think that there's a way in which people might take pleasure in the aesthetics of pale skin against dark skin"
Yeah, I think so too.
CONFESSION TYME: I have something of a, well I don't want to call it a fetish, it's nowhere near that strong, but an attraction to Asian men (I am white.) Examining my consciousness, I can see a few reasons. I think they are all true, and I do think some of them reveal some influence of societal racism or at least stereotypes upon me.
1) The big bad one: Transposition of "Asian women are submissive" stereotypes in my head to Asian men for some odd reason. So since I like submissiveness, my proverbial ears prick up at seeing someone encoded this way to me -- even though I know that's totally stupid. This is not a good thing, but I do think it's there on some level.
2) Certain people's looks. Dark fine head hair is hugely hot to me, especially cropped short (more likely on men than women.) I don't know how much of that is exoticization and how much isn't. I'm willing to concede that some of it may well be, but I also think I might find this sort of hair attractive anyway in utopia.
3) Another hair thing -- a lot of the people with features like I'm describing tend to have less body hair. I have an attraction to smooth bodies and to neat trimmedness to what is there -- and I see that much more often on guys with certain features. Since that is also a turn-on for me, this makes me stare too. I don't like bushy men -- well, not that I don't like them, I like *them* just fine. But I don't like their *pelts*.
Now there are all kinds of issues with this and assumptions bound up in this, and I know that. But I don't know what that means I DO. I mean, I know better than to talk to people in gross exoticizing ways, know better than to assume they want the scripts playing out in my head, etc.
But beyond that, like I asked on SM-f: does this have implications for what I should not look at, porn-wise or otherwise, or does it not since I know it's all frought and would never intentionally make someone privy to any of this who would feel hurt by it?
but actually in my long comment I lost my own point, which is that in utopia I think I might have grown up to have less of a response (since the submission stereotype, transplanted across genders, is part of what my brain is responding to), but I also suspect that I would still find these people sexually attractive, etc.
I think "interracial" as a specific fetishized category is going to exist as long as the cultural meme of big bad dangerous and oversexed black man exists. And unfortunately, that might be for a few more generations. Given that, I think its going to show up in porn as long as its around.
In "utopia", or a more racially egalitarian society in any event, I could still see there being a fetishization of a black person's physical features, the same way redheads or blondes get fetishized, but with a different meaning than todays interracial porn. Hell, I think somebody could make porn specifically fetishizing black men today without playing into stereotypes – perhaps that's even being done.
And damnit, at a certain point, I think if you really like the physical features of certain kind of person, you just have to let yourself go with it, rather than beat yourself up about it being racist or "looksist". Personally, I watch a lot of East European and Japanese porn for a reason – I happen to think those peoples have really nice features and I like looking at those kind of womenz.
because, well, education, yeah, so I or someone else don't turn into entitled Pinkerton (or whatever) from hell.
or like, the things I mentioned on another blog about someone (you can see who if you want to search, but I don't want to sidetrack again) with a Black Guy fetish, who at least for a while used to talk about it frequently enough and in such a sweeping way that it got a bit squicky even to me.
but why I at least was squicked was not "you should never want to fuck black men" but rather "don't loudly fling stereotypes about."
and so, yeah.
once I know what a Pinkerton is and know what not to bring up and am not going "oh HIIII, you have such cool HAAAAAAAIR, MAY I TOUCH IT?" to random people on the bus, and would not think someone was "prejudiced" against me if I mentioned "yeah, I like you because I LUV AZNS OMG" and he ran screaming...
...well, after that, is there really more that needs "fixing", somehow? and what would "fixing" consist of, exactly?
One of the really interesting things on the "Cambria list": Black men with white women.
ReplyDeleteI've no idea how that got there, but if it's really meant as phrased rather than a euphemism for plantation scenes or something... that sounds an awful lot to me like some kind of racist "black men are bruisers who'll hurt the poor WHITE LAYDEEZ!"
Trin: That and the no man on man sex are really out there, aren;t they?
ReplyDeleteOne of the really interesting things on the "Cambria list": Black men with white women.
ReplyDeleteProbably there due to the fear of the old racism; many old-school prosecutors of porn would resort to playing to the most rawest racist appeals of evil Black male rapists threatening pure White women. A lot of convictions of interracial porn during the early 80s were a direct result of this kind of bigotry.
Interestingly enough, the opposite senario (White men with Black women) weren't even affected, let alone prosecuted....why, it has always escaped my logic.
Anthony
Can we talk about that at some point? racism w/in porn as well as in anti-porn campaigns? It's a subject that doesn't get covered nearly enough, I don't think; the only people I see really addressing it in any depth at all are the radical anti-porn WOC feminists.
ReplyDeleteI guess what I'm saying is: right now y'all are establishing the basic groundwork for a defense of porn at all, which, i get.
ReplyDeletebut i wonder if at some point we could get into a serious critique (i mean in the real sense, a cultural analysis) of the content of some of what's out there in mainstream porn, the conventions and so forth, what you think it all Means dear, the same as you'd do for any other media. and if you like it, or if you're bothered by it; and what you'd rather see more of, if anything.
and of course, ayep, why "man on man" is a separate category whereas "woman on woman" is just par for the course.
ReplyDelete"many old-school prosecutors of porn would resort to playing to the most rawest racist appeals of evil Black male rapists threatening pure White women."
ReplyDelete*nods* Yeah, exactly what I figured.
And Belle: I totally hear you.
But part of the reason I singled that out to bring up was that I think it may offer another side to the examination of racism in porn. Here it's not that WOC are being used for white men's fetishes, but that MOC are denied participation in particular scenes due to a racist stereotype.
And I think it's interesting that, well, I've never even seen THAT brought up.
no, definitely I'd like to see it looked at from all angles.
ReplyDeleteI think that the most objectionable stereotypes in pr0n are a direct funhouse mirror/unprettified expression of the seedy underbelly of our collective consciousness about such things. if you really want to -change- that consciousness, as opposed to just going, tsk, tsk, seems to me you have to:
1) engage it on its own terms, neither glossing over or tarting up the parts you find objectionable, and examine -why- -you- find it objectionable as well as the material itself.
2) think seriously about what you'd like to see instead. Nature abhors a vacuum, after all.
which, btw, i think the same thing of every other sociopolitical critique of popular media.
but so anyway yeah: of -course- the reason, say, interracial still has a -frisson-, or at least is expressed in the way that it often is, is because it's riffing off the bad! wrong! illegal, even! (but o so exotic) attitudes that were there to begin with.
ReplyDeleteWould people fetishize "interracial" in--to take a page from your "utopia" question at the SM blog, Trin--a non-racist society? Possibly; I think that there's a way in which people might take pleasure in the aesthetics of pale skin against dark skin--but the stereotypes that often inform the fetish, well...yeah, that's obviously based on the culture, so...
anyway, the "purity of women" thing is still huge, of course, and you don't have to dig very deep to find it being specifically about the purity of WHITE women, absolutely. oh, not nearly as front-page blatantly of course; but, well...there's a reason why the discourse of radical anti-porn WOC feminists and radical anti-porn white feminists can often diverge, well, rather radically, even if they come to similar conclusions (say no to porn).
ReplyDelete"Would people fetishize "interracial" in--to take a page from your "utopia" question at the SM blog, Trin--a non-racist society? Possibly; I think that there's a way in which people might take pleasure in the aesthetics of pale skin against dark skin"
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think so too.
CONFESSION TYME: I have something of a, well I don't want to call it a fetish, it's nowhere near that strong, but an attraction to Asian men (I am white.) Examining my consciousness, I can see a few reasons. I think they are all true, and I do think some of them reveal some influence of societal racism or at least stereotypes upon me.
1) The big bad one: Transposition of "Asian women are submissive" stereotypes in my head to Asian men for some odd reason. So since I like submissiveness, my proverbial ears prick up at seeing someone encoded this way to me -- even though I know that's totally stupid. This is not a good thing, but I do think it's there on some level.
2) Certain people's looks. Dark fine head hair is hugely hot to me, especially cropped short (more likely on men than women.) I don't know how much of that is exoticization and how much isn't. I'm willing to concede that some of it may well be, but I also think I might find this sort of hair attractive anyway in utopia.
3) Another hair thing -- a lot of the people with features like I'm describing tend to have less body hair. I have an attraction to smooth bodies and to neat trimmedness to what is there -- and I see that much more often on guys with certain features. Since that is also a turn-on for me, this makes me stare too. I don't like bushy men -- well, not that I don't like them, I like *them* just fine. But I don't like their *pelts*.
Now there are all kinds of issues with this and assumptions bound up in this, and I know that. But I don't know what that means I DO. I mean, I know better than to talk to people in gross exoticizing ways, know better than to assume they want the scripts playing out in my head, etc.
But beyond that, like I asked on SM-f: does this have implications for what I should not look at, porn-wise or otherwise, or does it not since I know it's all frought and would never intentionally make someone privy to any of this who would feel hurt by it?
but actually in my long comment I lost my own point, which is that in utopia I think I might have grown up to have less of a response (since the submission stereotype, transplanted across genders, is part of what my brain is responding to), but I also suspect that I would still find these people sexually attractive, etc.
ReplyDeleteI think "interracial" as a specific fetishized category is going to exist as long as the cultural meme of big bad dangerous and oversexed black man exists. And unfortunately, that might be for a few more generations. Given that, I think its going to show up in porn as long as its around.
ReplyDeleteIn "utopia", or a more racially egalitarian society in any event, I could still see there being a fetishization of a black person's physical features, the same way redheads or blondes get fetishized, but with a different meaning than todays interracial porn. Hell, I think somebody could make porn specifically fetishizing black men today without playing into stereotypes – perhaps that's even being done.
And damnit, at a certain point, I think if you really like the physical features of certain kind of person, you just have to let yourself go with it, rather than beat yourself up about it being racist or "looksist". Personally, I watch a lot of East European and Japanese porn for a reason – I happen to think those peoples have really nice features and I like looking at those kind of womenz.
ReplyDeleteyeah, IACB... that's my point.
ReplyDeletebecause, well, education, yeah, so I or someone else don't turn into entitled Pinkerton (or whatever) from hell.
or like, the things I mentioned on another blog about someone (you can see who if you want to search, but I don't want to sidetrack again) with a Black Guy fetish, who at least for a while used to talk about it frequently enough and in such a sweeping way that it got a bit squicky even to me.
but why I at least was squicked was not "you should never want to fuck black men" but rather "don't loudly fling stereotypes about."
and so, yeah.
once I know what a Pinkerton is and know what not to bring up and am not going "oh HIIII, you have such cool HAAAAAAAIR, MAY I TOUCH IT?" to random people on the bus, and would not think someone was "prejudiced" against me if I mentioned "yeah, I like you because I LUV AZNS OMG" and he ran screaming...
...well, after that, is there really more that needs "fixing", somehow? and what would "fixing" consist of, exactly?