i may die with this image in my head

So in a bout of truly useless self-improvement, I sat grimly down at my computer and decided it was about time to break my aversion to visual porn. Of all the things in my life that need improvement, I honestly dont' think this actually qualifies, but in certain circles, it is theorized that society conditions women against visual representations of sex (and also, most porn is hideous aesthetically), so if anyone asks, I'm totally doing this for greater freedom from the patriarchy.

But again, most porn is, for me, really hideous and weird and there's a really questionable amount of semen involved that seems to get everywhere, and you may not know this, but that sort of thing bothers me, because I worry they have some kind of ball-related overproduction disease and porn is how they're paying for medical treatment.

...yes, I almost wrote porn possibly-rps/fanfic and I do hate myself just a little. But not that much.

So I reviewed all my sex-watching related experience--in media, thank you--and decided to start off with something that didn't require pausing for me to get over my hideous embarrassment, and something familiar enough that I've read porn about and so could deal with the reality. Then I thought, oh right, Gravitation Remixes, that'll work! Neat pages, all stills, I know the storyline and oh, look at all those pairings! And threesomes, foursomes and possibly a fivesome there.

Perfect.

NSFW observations below. Possibly more so than any porn I have ever written, tbh.



Okay, while I know I didn't actually ask any of you for recommendations, I feel enough of you know me to have sensed through the Fangirl Force that this would happen and maybe warned me about what I was getting into. Okay, so apparently the semen thing is like, necessary and amazing how you can convey everyone dripping with it in black and white--I'm very impressed. That's fine. The dialogue--okay, I have an actual thing for the porny dialogue that I'm not even ashamed of (much) anymore, and also, not like they both weren't in character! Because that really matters.

I think--maybe--this went all wrong when blankly staring at the small but intensely detailed internal anus-eye view of proceedings in all it's many states of empty, not empty, what the fuck is in there now? and then the part where far too many things were in there and you could see them all--imagine, if you will, a tiny bobbing string of anal balls--and by tiny, I mean, quite large when they weren't residing in the physics-defying confines of Shuichi's ass--drowning in a vast, vast ocean of semen before a penis also took up residence and I had to stop and go back two pages because the balls were quite large and Shuichi isn't, though I guess now some kegel exercises for men might not go amiss.

The thing is, I've seen hentai and related on Redtube due to bet-losing and svmadelyn being a monster and everything, but somehow, being a single still drawing--or a series of them--seem kind of more--something. Like, now I have time to sit there and stare for a long, long time before I remember how my fingers work. Like, maybe I'm going about this from the wrong angle, and maybe I shouldn't have single large multiple panels to stare at and absorb when if they were all moving, maybe I wouldn't have time to go "Oh my God he's going to split open" and then continue to read all thirteen volumes afterward.

Other than the ass-camera part, though, we have achieved success. I only broke into hysterical laughter twice (eight times) and I suspect once the entire ass-view thing is removed from my brain via bleach, the rest is pretty hot.



I am on a journey, people. This is but one small step.

Comments

[serrico]

I salute you and your journey. It seems a harrowing yet vital undertaking that will leave you the better for it. *salutes*

[seperis]

I have to learn visual suspension of belief.

...and ignore the anus-cam. Just. That was very unexpected.

[serrico]

And that's why I salute you! Because you handled the anus-cam with grace and level-headedness.

Or, you did in this post, anyway. Your real-time response in RL may have been otherwise, but *nobody has to know*.

[nagasvoice]

Not all visual pron involves parts which spoo semen like that. Certainly there's rather a lot of it in what I would call bad yaoi pron out there. Bad=I don't like what I'm seeing. Of course YMMV on any given particular image.
I suspect a lot of us write pr0n (or erotica, if you like) because honestly what's on general offer is so... pathetic. Boring. Badly framed and poorly shot, if it's photographic.
I was looking back through convo with a friend, trying to find some links for you, but it's not turning up easily, sorry!

Non-icky porn rec

[(Anonymous)]

If you're interested in women-friendly, aesthetically pleasing, anatomically reasonable porn, I highly suggest anything by or recommended by Violet Blue. Her website is http://tinynibbles.com/ , and the bookstore I work in carries her anthologies of (written) porn for women. (I don't work for her, honest, I just largely share her taste in hotness.)

[drunkoffthestars]

Oh man, word on the GIANT NO that is visual porn. I am at the point when I can mostly handle still shots, but videos... there is so much that is NOT HOT. Entire universes, even.

[harpers_child]

i've actually had long detailed discussions with male friends of mine about how we all edit our porn to remove super close ass /balls /taint shots and to put in better music. i've also had a friend of mine pass on some adult films from the silent era of movie making that i found far more aesthetically pleasing than their modern counterparts.

[concinnity]

You should definitely provide links/titles for the silent movie pron. :-)

[harpers_child]

you know what? i think i will. links will go up at my personal journal later today because i have to figure out where on my drive i've put them.

[seperis]

You are awesome.

I wish there was a like, a porn-for-women announcement comm now for posts about women and positive women-centric porn. Like fanfic, but with porn!

[aivilo_18]

As someone who hates the semen visual to the point of it randomly, and without out warning, activating my gag-reflex, I can tell you that there is some wonderful, non-misogynistic, really hot strap-on porn out there.

I have an illustrious, hilarious history of worryingly specific search engine results if you're ever interested in reccomendations.

[zvi]

If she doesn't want your recommendations, I do.

[seperis]

...I am, very.

[aivilo_18]

I'll do a rec post soon. This week is insane, so give me a couple of days and I'll see what I can do.

[brownbetty]

I find your thoughts fascinating, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter!

[seperis]

You should totally start a newsletter.

[zvi]

If you watch porn made by lesbians, there is generally not spooge. And the girls are not universally overly made up and surgically enhanced. (I mean, some of them are overly made up, and there can be a lot of piercing, and sometimes the boi/transman divide gets blurred, so some of the participants are surgically enhanced, but it's not an obligation to get in the door.)

[seperis]

Part of the reason I went the yaoi/BL manga route first was to get female-created, assuming female-gaze, which--oddly, it was female gaze, but female-gaze interpreting male porn aesthetic, almost. Which is the only reason I didn't stop altogether, just kept getting checked.

I was wondering last night--while staring at Gravitation Remix Volume 2, again, blankly so--if my next step should be to check lesbian-created or lesbian-produced and designed to get a default female-gaze as well as--I don't want to say a female aesthetic, women are legion--but some other word I don't have here for female aesthetic that's not a generalization.

[zvi]

Well, if you want to stick with guys, Pink White Productions* has launched http://www.heavenlyspire.com/ which is about guys (as opposed to crashpad, which is mostly women.) I'm not sure what the ratio of cis to trans guys is on Heavenly Spire, if that's a thing for you.

*Pink White Productions has some really awesome porn, the Crashpad is their webseries, and they've produced four movies, two of which I've seen and are terrific. Very diverse cast of performers, and everyone seems to really enjoy the sex that they are having.

[aivilo_18]

Crashpad. Yes. This. Awesome.

[dont_panic42]

Are you familiar with sexisnottheenemy.tumblr.com ?

[seperis]

I love that. I started viewing a while back to get more comfortable with visual nudity altogether and was so relieved that I could get into the entire range of human bodies when the default worry about exploitation was off the table. It was a relief to realize a lot of my discomfort was based off that.

[everysecondtuesday]

Ahahahaha, oh, man, I could have warned you about the Gravitation Remixes. I only wish I'd had someone to warn me.

[seperis]

It just threw me because parts of it did hit right--but then boom, anus-view. And the semen thing. Just. IDEK.

[out_there]

I only broke into hysterical laughter twice (eight times)

And that, unfortunately, tends to be my reaction. Reading stuff -- I can totally get caught up in the hotness. Watching it, I start sniggering and then it's all downhill from there.

[fyrdrakken]

Completely unrelated to your post:

This morning or yesterday I ran across the link Neil Gaiman posted to Twitter showing the photo of the original Eeyore, Kanga, Pooh, Piglet and Tigger in their case at the New York Public Library, and it's really astonishing how they look nothing at all like the Disney versions, but what reminded me of you was the way Pooh came from Harrods and looks like one of your own collection.

[kaizoku]

It's not active anymore but Gay Porn for Girls has some good stuff (more emphasis on the guys kissing and being into each other rather than just fucking like automatons). iheartxxx is another good place to check.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

I find the internal-camera business mystifying and not hot, myself. To each their own, I guess.

[ivyadrena.livejournal.com]

I don't mind ass/vag-cam views in hentai, but I think it's more out of morbid fascination than anything.

[lattara.livejournal.com]

If you find something you can stand, please share with the class! I... have the same problem.

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

I find the genital view cam mystifying in general. That is not what you see when you have sex. Disembodied genitals are not sexy.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

*hums "detachable penis" at you*

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

Before I went and looked for it on youtube, I had actually never heard that before...

[words-instead.livejournal.com]

I impatiently wait for the psychological study which proves what I've long suspected: that many women need a narrative as well as the physical act in order to mentally engage with visual porn. (That feels so gender essentialist, but I have a week of reading Emily Nagoski to back me up that biology is an actual factor in the mind-body equation.) It's not a "women are about emotions" thing, it's just... I can almost feel something distinct click into place when I'm asked to creatively engage, rather than passively receive visual stimulus.

That said, I have, like, a ridiculous amount of material to draw on if you want some recommendations, tailored to whatever preference.

Also, uh, hi!

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I can almost feel something distinct click into place when I'm asked to creatively engage, rather than passively receive visual stimulus.

Foreplay compared to direct stimulation, maybe?

See, I know that works pretty much bulletproof for me, but I'm also a writer and reader, so any textual translation will win in a contest of anything. I'm just curious if that's a hardwire engagement in brain chemistry reaction or a cause/effect. Or--and this was intriguing when I broke down why I went Yaoi/BL manga versus anime--if I wanted to keep control of the input.

I mean, anyone in fandom is trained in basic literary interpretation by sheer engagement, but interpretation of text means I can screen it automatically or visualize interpretively, whereas I have no control over an actual visual being represented, or what parts I want to see. In descriptive text, it's broken down into parts, and my focus is on parts rather than whole if I want to.

I can almost feel something distinct click into place when I'm asked to creatively engage, rather than passively receive visual stimulus.

There is a reason my porn go-to is asstr.org.

[words-instead.livejournal.com]

I know that works pretty much bulletproof for me, but I'm also a writer and reader

I come with the same, mmm, bias? So I can't pretend that's not a factor in my wonderings. But there are other factors: the lack of inhibition of women (many who don't claim to be interested in writing, otherwise) in writing sexually explicit material, the way if you ask them to describe something sexy they'll give you a scenario rather than an image, even the WAY a lot of women in sex-positive communities engage with their visual porn. There's this trend in gay porn where some companies are aware of their appeal to a female (and predominantly straight) audience because their actors are nonthreatening etc; they deliberately invest in and build up narratives. Their actors can put off penetrative sex for two, three videos because the audience wants the slow build and the creation of a story.

But yes, it's the biochemical possibility which I find fascinating. Or perhaps something to do with communication between the two hemispheres?

I wonder if it's a question of how much attention is required -- it could fall back on that old multitask factor, where women just aren't "drawn in" to visual porn unless it demands more of their focus and attention by adding more complex factors to engage with. Until then it's just pictures of bodies which, while nice, is easily categorized and filed away by our brains as it moves onto the next problem. I remember reading in a study where women talked about their experience being "thrown out" of orgasm -- on their way, doing good, and then getting distracted by a thought about other things at a crucial moment. That could tie into the whole need for control/need to dispel anxiety that's been linked to women's sexual responses -- that in order to engage them visually, you might need to work harder at making them forget/disengage with those anxieties, and visual stimulus alone won't cut it. (Add to that there's an actual stigma of women watching visual porn to add to those anxieties...)

narrative

[greyhat.livejournal.com]

I have quite a collection of still photos and drawings of porn. Each one has a story (or two), or else it doesn't turn me on. I mean, I like looking at naked people as much as the next person, but it's like being at the sauna or hot tub if I don't have an erotic scenario that the picture represents. I don't need an entire storyline of porn images - just one can creat its own story.

Re: narrative

[words-instead.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, definitely. I feel like this kind of proves my point? I'm certainly not saying the format has to have a linear/coherent/progressive narrative, just that many women seem to prefer to create or engage with a narrative while engaging with visual porn. For you it's the scenario of the single photo, and I'll admit I personally don't get much out of mainstream porn -- a la two people in a room Do It -- unless I can invent some kind of emotional narrative to go along with it.

It sounds like I'm espousing a "women are all about relationships/emotions" deal, which, no. It's more like, the more I talk with women in sex-positive communities and pornographic forums, the more I wonder if women's brains engage with desire differently -- and I mean in a biochemical way. But I'm also aware it's just fun to think about and is almost impossible to actually study, as men are the default subjects for sexual brain mapping and women are overwhelmingly encouraged to suppress or sublimate their sexual responses (especially in the presence of others).

[lurkerlynne.livejournal.com]

I find my reaction to most visual porn is 'okay then. ::moves on::'. Have absolutely no interest in porn videos, which is interesting considering some of the dreck I have willingly and happily watched.

I re-evaluated my stance every few years and it has yet to change. :/ I occasionally feel I am missing out on something.

(mostly-lurker here)

[nomanomynous.livejournal.com]

1. hilarious yet scary.
2. have some brain bleach.

[dryad-duinath.livejournal.com]

i actually do watch porn sometimes, and can get off to it, but only if i don't start watching until i am turned on? like, i don't know, if i'm gonna anyway, it can help, but if i'm not in the right state of mind it just falls flat. ...and is hideous, embarrassing and weird.

[hinokumo.livejournal.com]

but that sort of thing bothers me, because I worry they have some kind of ball-related overproduction disease and porn is how they're paying for medical treatment

Bwhahahahahaaaa! That's a good point. No seriously--I feel the same way. I'd essentially been reading porn for years, but when I went to visual as well I found there were quite a few squicks and triggers for me. If the male/female getting pounded looks/acts like they're actually a victim of human trafficking, or the orgasm is so fake my dog could tell the difference, I change channels really quick. And the anal to mouth thing? WTELF? Really?

Every once in a while you'll find one that makes you go 'Holy FUCK' and hits all your buttons at once. There are few gems, but worth the look...most of the time.

Good luck! ^___^