"The Image of Men in Pornography: Man-as-Raging-Beast"

I would like to share with you an article I just found:

The Image of Men in Pornography: Man-as-Raging-Beast//The Uncelebrated Beauty of Men's Sexuality. A Reality-Check

It is by Shere Hite, author of "The Hite Reports".

good quotes:

"What about the other sexual states that men experience which are not seen in porno? Are men as singularly mechanical and aggressive 'by nature' as they are depicted? Society has tried to insist that a real man should 'get hard' at will, whenever 'appropriate', meaning in a private situation with a reproductively-aged female, but it is impossible to will an erection into being. In truth, the penis is a delicate part of the male being, one that responds with exquisite sensitivity to every nuance of emotion a man can feel. Erections come and go in men, during sex and during sleep. Most men report that it is desire they seek, not the mechanical means of orgasm or creating erection. Desire and arousal are the pleasures that spread through the body; orgasm, after all, can be attained alone during masturbation."

"most men do not allow themselves to explore the various feelings they wish to express during sex with a partner, especially a female partner, but instead try to follow as 'perfectly' as possible, the reproductive scenario depicted in most pornography. Our sexual acts have been channeled into too limited a form of expression; sex could be more interesting if it was not always focused on one scenario: 'foreplay' followed by 'penetration', the high point being 'fucking', coitus or 'the act'."

I disagree with an implied fact in one statement:

"How do men feel about how they are depicted as treating women in pornography and about the violence to women shown in most pornography? Most men feel perplexed, and wonder why this can excite them. Although pornography frequently denigrates women - showing women beaten, black and blue, and so on -- and liking it - it also denigrates men, cheapening and brutalizing their sensibilities, destroying their possibility of personal sexual discovery, implanting clichés such as 'a real man is the one with the biggest, hardest erection', and so on, blocking their power to express themselves with others."

While pornography does frequently denigrate women, there is an implication of physical violence and beating in the sentence above that is not entirely accurate. The emotional violence, and the power imbalance violence in pornography is entirely there, but i do not believe that physical violence depictions are that common. If the line were: "even to the extent of showing women beaten, black and blue, and so on" I would be happier.

Otherwise, and in intent, it is a brilliantly written paragraph.

Thought you might be interested in the article.