The Mindful Wanker

It's not female ejaculate. It's Urine.

2010-03-10T09:46:00.002+01:00

So watersports are not my thing. I don't find the idea repulsive or morally objectionable, and if a lover wanted to pee on me I'd have only a few caveats--specifically rules against pre-sex dehydration and/or asparagus.

But what bothers me is the pretense, in porn anyway, that girl-pee is the same thing as female ejaculate.

If it turns you on that girls pee, that's great. If it turns you on that some girls ejaculate something, sometimes, that's great too. If you like the idea of girls becoming incontinent during orgasm... fine. But I am tired of wankers leaving their good sense and their brains at the door. Can we just admit that the studio-tanned, waxed-pussied, fake-titted barbie being carelessly pumped with the purple dildo is not ejaculating? That she's just peeing on cue? She's not enjoying herself, and even if she was she would not likely express her pleasure by voiding a full liter of urine straight up into the air.

I'm all in favor of the willing suspention of disbelief. But please, fellow wankers, could we please get some self respect and a clue?

It's not 'female ejaculate.' It's pee.

porn vs. playstation

2010-01-20T17:06:00.004+01:00

The adult entertainment industry’s elder statesman, Ron Jeremy, was recently at a consumer electronics conference, where he got some press for saying that violent video games were more dangerous for children than is pornography.

Is it a contest? I mean, is the ethical goal of the pornographer to be less morally corrosive than some other cultural phenomenon? It’s a bit like the soft-drink industry saying, Well, high-fructose corn-syrup isn’t as bad for kids as crack. Maybe it’s true, but so what?

Part of Mr. Jeremy’s point is that The Porn Industry—as if there was a cohesive entity deserving that title—makes efforts to keep children from seeing explicitly sexual material, which is a noble goal. But to the extent that consumers and parents are thus relieved of their responsibilities, it is not going to have much effect on the worst of what children see.

Comparing porn to computer games is perhaps not completely pointless in the electronics-trade-show context, but is otherwise pretty pointless to individuals making personal and political decisions. What kind of pornography, and how much of it, is being compared to how many weekly hours of which video games? Are we comparing immersive, ten-hour sessions of Grand Theft Auto IV, to faux-goth, soft-core porn with pale tattooed girls? Or are we comparing a few weekly hours of Age of Empires IV, to the experience of an introverted adolescent virgin whose whole sexual experience is limited, for years, to long daily exposures to streaming video from such wholesome erotic websites as Deep-Throat Gaggers, Eyeball Cum, and Degraded Teens?

Porn can be unethically made, can be unhealthy in content, and can be both abusive and abused. Pornography is just another entertainment genre that can be good or bad, responsible or irresponsible. Face it, Porn Fans: There is a lot of virulently hostile and misogynistic porn out there, which occupies a troublingly large fraction of the sexually explicit bandwidth. If Mr. Jeremy’s discourse is part of a larger trend to drag pornography out of the shadows, and treat it like any other business, then it’s a positive thing. But to the extent that he is distracting makers and consumers from their individual responsibilities to make ethical decisions, his role is counter-productive.

Us and Them

2009-09-20T09:26:00.004+02:00

I gained a bit of retroactive respect for Nikita Krushchev when I heard that his entire entourage, from his advisors to his driver, ate the same food at the same table. At least he seems to have been an authentic egalitarian. Marxism for him was not just a convenient pose to sustain his privileged status in a totalitarian state. His behavior suggests rather that, in his idealist vision, individuals have different roles, but they are all human... all essentially the same, with the same rights and needs.

I don't know how I stumbled on Marks Cum Blog [sic], but what struck me about it was this: Nearly every posting of themed photos (in the linked posting, it's intermammary intercourse) includes some pictures of the blogger and/or his sexual partner. I appreciate the way this act subverts, or simply ignores, the presumed relationships of power, and the one-way nature of voyeurism, between the subject and object of the sexual gaze in pornography. By recognizing his own potential--and that of his beloved--to be eroticized and objectified, he is also tacitly but unambiguously acknowedging the humanity of the on-camera talent in the sexually explicit images he posts. He is saying, in effect, They are not really different than Us.

This doesn't mean that "Mark" or the viewers of his blog are responsible or ethical porn consumers, at least not yet. I assume the photos he posts are as likely as any to use exploited talent, for example. But his effort (probably unconscious, but very real and honest) to dissolve the Fourth Wall of pornography is an important step.

People who share their sexuality on camera have lives, and have rights. They want security and comfort, and they search for love and meaningful connection with the people they care about.

Once an awareness of these simple truths is present, it is more likely that the porn consumer will make choices that preserve and protect the integrity and well being of those people, whose work in pornography we enjoy.

Having said all that, I do wish this Mark guy would learn to spell.

A challenge to "Ethical Porn Consumers" from Salon.com

2009-09-02T09:56:00.005+02:00

Here’s a link to a posting from the Salon.com blog, Broadsheet. Broadsheet is the latest incarnation of Mothers Who Think, a column from a previous decade that never really worked, but that just won't die. Salon has long struggled to find its voice for gender issues, but always ends up, on the whole, with a whiney vibe, in a privileged, coastal and fundamentally conventional feminist-mom kind of way. This is despite women who write elsewhere for Salon.com—Stephanie Zacharek, Heather Havrileski, Cintra Wilson, Camille Paglia—who simply by being themselves do more as human beings and as women every day, than the conventional bobo wisdom and tepid snark of Broadsheet will ever achieve.

The author is writing about condom use and HIV testing in the porn industry. What I appreciated about the linked post was this:

That brings me right back to the same conclusion I came to before: It's all about the audience. For those ethical porn consumers out there -- and I'm convinced they do exist, despite past reader comments to the contrary -- it's possible to vote with your dollars. (Of course, much of what gets traction online is pirated material or free teasers for for-pay content, in which case the consumer vote is less direct.) The best middle ground solution I've come across is one suggested by Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation founder Sharon Mitchell shortly after the 2004 outbreak: Why not promote a "seal of approval" that advertises a porno's ethical production values? The gold standard might be requiring rigorous two-week testing and actively defending workers' right to perform with or without a condom. It would be a disclaimer of sorts -- essentially, "no porn stars were harmed in the making of this movie."

I would favor more HIV testing, although not a legal obligation to use condoms at all times. But that’s not the point.

The point is this: The author is not calling for laws or interdiction, but expressing a faith that consumers of pornography can come to intelligent, thoughtful decisions, can be responsible and ethical. And she’s issuing a challenge that they indeed be responsible and ethical. And that’s where I agree the the author, and on a subject more fundamental than the topic of the Broadsheet entry: Treating porn like any other consumer product (rather than further judging and marginalizing it and its fans) is more likely to improve the conditions of its direct and indirect victims, than is any further campaign of censorship, persecution, and exclusion from the mainstream of culture and of law.

a definition for pornography

2009-03-31T09:31:00.000+02:00

What is pornography?

Pornography is a form of expression, in any medium, which is both produced and consumed with the sole purpose of creating, in the consumer, a specific neurochemical reaction.

This is my definition, and as a definition is inherently arbitrary. But I think it’s a pretty good and useful one.

A few comments:

1) Note that it is all about intention. I cannot claim that, for example, Manet’s Olympia is pornography, just because I have jerked off to it. I can, however, claim that sexually explicit, 18th century Japanese wood-block prints are art. This is true even if the artist’s intention was essentially pornographic, if my interest as a viewer is not dominated by the sexual content and its effect on me.

I admit of course that the creator’s intention is more important in defining pornography, but feel that the viewer’s/reader’s intention must also be respected. It is possible for a work of 100% pornographic intention to be seen as art, by somebody somewhere.

2) Note also that my definition allows for non-sexual pornography. I would classify much of the output of Hollywood as Violence Porn, Fear Porn, Crying Porn. A straight-to-video Jean-Claude VanDamme film is not as a general rule art, nor is it trying to be.

3) I am not judging porn. Why *not* create expressive works designed to provoke (for example) sexual arousal, or visceral horror, or deep weepy sadness? My only ethical or societal concerns are about the long-term exposure to too much of some kind of emotionally manipulative entertainment: Too much violence porn *will* make people more violent. Etc. As I have mentioned elsewhere: Too much of certain kinds of porn can warp perceptions of human beings and sexuality.

Pornography: I’ve defined it.

Consume with mindfulness and moderation.

barbie-on-barbie action

2008-11-24T12:11:00.002+01:00

The cock has a big (sometimes very big) place in straight hardcore porn, even for consumers that might otherwise be homophobic. But there is also an entirely penis-free genre of explicit pornography conceived and produced for the hetero male: “Lesbian Porn.”

A misnomer, of course.

It’s impossible to say that *no* actual lesbians enjoy watching impoverished Czech girls lick one another’s assholes for money. Nor can one be sure that *none* of the impoverished Czech girls concerned get off on sex with other women. But on the whole, typical girl-on-girl porn (skinny barbies in high-heels, make-up, and lingerie; stuffing colorful toys up one another and pouting, etc.) is made by and for straight men.

Part of this is easy to explain: It’s fun to watch other people get naked and be sexual, whatever the genders and permutations. And sadly most straight male consumers don’t care what the on-screen talent actually wants in love or in life. But girl/girl porn, for certain men, has a special appeal. I suspect there are multiple, distinct, and overlapping reasons for this.

Girls going at it, as a subject, provides an emotional safety to the voyeur who wants to watch people have sex, but who would be freaked out by the presence of a naked man. Homophobia is probably part of it. But it is no doubt also due to insecurities not related to orientation. In other words, it may be better for some hard-core porn to be entirely voyeuristic, with no one on camera with whom the viewer can identify, compare himself, or mentally compete.

More benign is the simple fact that, to us more-or-less straight guys, women are just so darn pretty to look at. A tangle of female limbs... all that womanly flesh... a confusion of yummy mucus membranes. It is awfully nice. For this reason, much multiple-girl porn doesn’t really make any pretense that the women are pleasing another sexually; their various embraces and writhings are plainly just a composition of a basically hetero-erotic nature: female bodies and a male gaze. I personally can appreciate the erotic charge of a big hard cock, on its own or in the process of pressing into some lovely orifice. But there is a special energy to the female body, to its aesthetics. This is subjective of course, and I take it to be the very definition of male heterosexuality. Obviously, I am no homophobe... but female skin! A female bottom! Two female bottoms! It’s undeniably special.

As an extension of this: There are certain sexual activities that I love to both *do* and love to *watch*. I love putting my penis in a woman’s mouth, *and* I love watching another man put his penis in a woman’s mouth. But while I enjoy licking vaginas, assholes, and toes, I don’t get very much pleasure seeing a man doing these things. On the other hand, watching girls suck one another’s vaginas, toes, bottoms... Yes, I do enjoy that. As much as I find *cocks* attractive, and female *assholes* attractive... I find a man’s bristly jaw in the foreground of an analingus shot less so. I hope and sincerely believe that this is not residual homophobia, but I admit that I cannot be entirely sure. All I can say is this: That same bristly-jawed man is (under the right circumstances) welcome--encouraged even--to jerk off onto my face. But I don’t want to see pictures of men coming on one another’s faces. I don’t find it repulsive, just not very interesting... like watching a fetishist have sex with a pair of cotton underpants. It’s not gross; it’s just... I dunno... boring.

In conclusion... uh, I’m not sure I have a conclusion. I guess 1) I hope that those men who choose girl-girl porn because of homophobic fear can get past that. The anxiety-generating charge on the penis for them might transform, into something they can enjoy rather than fear. And 2) I wish we could find something else to call multiple-women porn other than “Lesbian porn,” which is just a stupid name for it.

Fake Tits

2008-11-07T11:03:00.005+01:00

Can we please agree that fake tits are just awful awful awful? I don’t mean this as an expression of male guilt, of socially-conscious solidarity with women concerned about body image, objectification, etc. I don’t say this to prove my PC sensitive-guy bona-fides. I say this as a cock-in-hand porn consumer who finds the pneumatic breasts on skinny, studio-tanned, porn-stars to be sad, unattractive, erection-deflating, creepy, unnecessary. Please stop. Flat chests are fine. I can love flat chested girls. I can masturbate to pictures of flat-chested girls. Big mooshy breasts are fine too. Large perky breasts are great, when they are naturally so. But please, young women: Don’t think that anyone deserving of your attention likes those fake rigid unfeeling hemispheres packed under that taut skin. And I won’t even discuss the monstrous distended beachball-boobs, for which the surgeons should go in chains to re-education camps.

Maybe fake-tit revulsion does have a political component, even for me. I like to believe, or at least pretend, that the porn-people on camera are happy to be there, enjoying the sex and enjoying being watched. Hence my preference for amateur (or amateur-looking) porn. But part of enjoying sex means being comfortable with The Body in general, and one’s own body in particular. Anorexia and cosmetic surgery suggest, to me, a high likelihood of neurotic body-image problems. The impulse within such a woman to be a porn actress may not come from libido or exhibitionism, but from a confused impulse to win attention by effacing her own true nature, giving her body sexually to others in various ways.

In brief: I have a hard time imagining that a skinny, fake-tan, fake-tit, no-body-hair, porn-starlet is actually getting off, at all, on the sexual experience of being naked on camera, but is rather losing a battle with body-insecurity, in a very public place.

Obviously this does not apply to re-constructive surgery... although that too should be entirely optional.

Wherever it comes from, it’s a buzz-kill: Please stop with the bad fake tits.

Straight Porn and the Penis

2007-09-04T15:25:00.000+02:00

If I say that men are fascinated by--obsessed with--penises, it is not to insult anyone. It's all too easy, in our world, to make fun of men, men's bodies, and men's feelings about their bodies. We men love our cocks, and that's ok. In fact, that's good. We have long relationships with our penises, so let's hope the relationships are positive ones.

Men become attached to the sight, the feel, the idea of a hard squirting cock; from years of that hard squirting cock being at the center of a pleasurable masturbatory life. Pavlovian association? Skinnerian reinforcement? Whatever we call it, it is completely understandable and natural: To the male mind, Hard Penis = Pleasure.

The problems in our culture with accepting this male phallophilia are these: homophobia, insecurity, and prudery. In academic, progressive, feminist, and other supposedly sex-positive sub-cultures; there is often a deep suspicion of male sexuality. But I want to emphasize: Male interest in penises has nothing to do with orientation or confusion about orientation, nor about competition, domination or degradation of anyone, nor really about anything. Men's interest in cocks is fairly free of baggage. All of that other crap--from orientation anxieties, homophobia, to the treatment of semen and the penis as weapons of humiliation in pornography--comes later, as society muddies the clear water of sexuality with its confused, hypocritical bullshit.

In so much of porn for men who identify as straight, penises are either central, or conspicuously absent. As for the whys and hows, I'll save specifics for another blog entry. For now, a recommendation: Quit worrying. Being curious about penises, erections, and ejaculations will not change your orientation. Seeing them, enjoying them in your porn collection or in your fantasy life... none of these have to mean anything you don't want them to mean. I'm not a fan of labels and categories for sexuality, but whatever "straight" means to those who apply the term to themselves, it is not contradicted by a collection of cumshot videos on the hard-drive.

I want to reclaim the penis from the pornographers who enable the man-hating wing of progressive subculture--i.e. from the pornographers who fulfill the prophesies of McKinnon, Dvorkin, et. al., by turning the penis into a weapon of violence and humiliation.

Semen is not about domination, but about the human reality of juicy sex. It's a healthy bodily fluid. We--men who love women, sex, penises--we need to reclaim the narrative of the hard cock and the cum-shot. We need to reclaim it from both the woman-haters who make porn... and from the man-haters who present papers about them at the MLA.

Hard spurting cocks are--or can and should be--symbols of passion, beauty and love. I hereby declare my erection to be beautiful, and my semen to be among the many yummy juices of sexual passion. I invite you to do the same.

Open Letter to a Young Woman Whose Ex-Boyfriend Posted Their Sex Pictures on the Internet.

2007-04-06T11:53:00.000+02:00

Dear Somebody's Ex-Girlfriend,

The first things I noticed were your big smile, your sparkling brown eyes gazing with love and playfulness at the camera, and the gooey stripes of fresh warm cum across your face. Mmm...

The next thing I noticed was the title of the picture: SlutExGFRevenge102.jpg. It was a deflating discovery. I was in the midst of an extended wank; a long, one-handed, internet porn-crawl; surfing a Usenet archive site. The wank was over for a while.

I'm fond of pictures with attractive amateurs, especially if they have at least a decent sense of lighting and composition. While there's a place for studio-tanned professionals and glossy hi-res porn, there's something special about actually sharing someone's authentic, exhibitionist sexuality. But what I most emphatically don't want to participate in, is someone's authentic betrayal and violation.

Masturbating to pornography is not a solo act, but an act involving various people: The exhibitionist talent, and the voyeur-wanker, to name only two. Under better circumstances, this is great; I love the idea that at least some of the men and women I look at are getting off on my voyeuristic gaze.

But when the sexually explicit pictures are made (or circulated) without someone's permission, that's a violation, a betrayal. And by viewing it, I am at least in danger of participating in that violation.

To you, the lovely young woman whose trust was violated by your angry ex-boyfriend, into whose sexual intimacy I looked without permission, here is what I wish to say:

First, and most importantly: I'm sorry.

I am sorry both that your trust was betrayed, that someone has hypocritically tried to make you feel bad about your sexuality. I'm an incorrigible voyeur, it's true, but a voyeur is not a peeper. I love to see what I am willingly shown, not to spy on what is private. I would not knowingly have invaded your privacy.

I also want you to know that you are lovely, respectable, sexy, healthy human being. There is no shame either in being a generous lover, or in having desires, or having a sexual body. If we were ever to meet, I would not feel the right to make any sexual remarks just because I've seen those pictures, nor to treat you with anything but respect. I would not think less of you as a potential date or partner, nor as a job applicant or student, nor as a relative. The shame is not yours. It all belongs to those who violated your trust. This means, mostly, your ex-boyfriend... and to a lesser extent people like me. For my part, as I have said, I am sorry.

I wish you to know how much better you come out of all this than your ex does. Even though we see little of him in the picture, he reveals himself to be cruel, selfish, hypocritical, stupid. He lacks respect, integrity and--perhaps most importantly--gratitude. He deserves to be alone, or with someone who refuses to share his fantasies, or express her own.

I hope that you can be philosophical about this... but what you choose to feel is of course not for me to decide. My hope is that if you are angry, that the anger is directed at the responsible parties, and not at yourself. I hope you can find some forgiveness for those of us who wronged you unintentionally. In all matters sexual, including masturbation and pornography, I love to be with people who are sexually open, full of desire and curiosity. I want a life full of people who are smart, funny, honest, curious, loving, healthy... and slutty. I love curious, open-minded men and women who have plenty desire and aren't ashamed of it. In other words, I suspect you are a great person.

However you choose to feel about this--amused, angry, or anything else--you have my apologies, my best wishes for a wonderful, safe life, with respectful friends and appreciative lovers.

Sincerely,

The Mindful Wanker

What a Shame

2007-02-01T10:20:00.000+01:00

What words does good sex bring to mind? Luscious, hot, beautiful, exciting... those are good words! But what about wicked, nasty, dirty... are those on your list of sex words? And isn't that interesting? Because those are not nice words.

I think it was perv-auteur film director John Waters who thanked his uptight conservative parents for his strict Catholic upbringing, because it made sex illicit, sinful, shameful... and therefore more fun.

Dirty nasty sex can be fun. For example, I'm obviously fascinated by masturbation, my own and other peoples', and there's no doubt that a part of what makes wankery--especially talking about it, watching or being watched--so exciting is that doing so can feel naughty and subversive.

But Water's remarks imply that sex without shame would necessarily be less fun--would lack the edge that shame gives it--and I'm not sure that's true. Shame, power, control, humiliation, are all ingredients that can make for a very sexy recipe. But let me suggest that these should be voluntarily added, a choice, like wearing a fur teddy or not, like deciding to play "prison shower," or not. There are other possibilities.

For a lot of people (especially Americans and others with puritanical backgrounds and families) the notion that sex is inherently shameful is so deeply imbedded in their psyches that they can't see it any other way. Not only is sex then shameful, but shame becomes sexualized. Shame, a sense of transgression, becomes a necessary part of a peak sexual experience. (I suspect that this is one of the reasons that porn is so increasingly obsessed with power and degradation.)

Let me suggest that sex, with the specific example of wankery, can be great without shame. In my life I have talked about sex and masturbation enough, masturbated in front of lovers, friends, strangers, men, women, couples, groups; had sex with a man, a woman, men, women, men and women, couples, had sex in front of friends, strangers, lovers... and you know what? I'm just not generally that shy about it any more, nor do I ordinarily suffer from shame. And my pleasure, the thrill, the fun, are different, but not at all diminished.

Has anything been lost? Maybe. There are certain activities that I used to find exciting that I find less so now. I used to get a buzz just from going into a dirty bookstore or a porno theater, because they seemed so wicked, shameful, illicit... such seedy dens of iniquity. Now when I find myself in such a place, it's to look for something I want or need; I expect to be able to flirt with the other wankers, or have a friendly exchange with the person behind the counter like I would anywhere. I'd rather the other customers not be hunched, avoiding eye contact, embarassed to have sex drives and an onanistic life.

Getting past shame, or getting past the need for shame, opens more doors than it closes. More and better sex become possible, because finally shame is a source of inhibition. It is the constant association of sex with shame that makes us think that the one requires the other, when it really doesn't.

My request and suggestion: Try sex without shame. Don't let hostile gonzo porn dominate your collection. Imagine that cocks are beautiful and friendly, and that nice, sober women see them with pleasure. Imagine that an erection is not a weapon, a threat, or a demand, but rather an organ of passion and caresses. That semen is not nasty, but a healthy, beautiful extension of a man's sexual body. That decent people love to be covered with one another's juices, without any of the excitement coming from degradation. That socially responsible, loving men look at sexy pictures and get erections and masturbate, and there is no hypocrisy or contradiction. That socially responsible, loving, reliable women can have vast sexual needs and desires without it being a secret life. Try thinking of sluttiness (male or female) as an entirely positive quality, compatible with real love, a family life, career as a doctor or teacher, a respected position in a community.

I'm not denying the power of shame. By all means, let's keep in around, in the prop closet, on the spice rack. But I encourage us all to appreciate the levels of experimentation, kink, sluttiness, and imagination that are possible without shame or transgression of any kind.

Try this: Masturbation is beautiful.

I want a great big cock.

2006-09-29T09:22:00.000+02:00

I know an awful lot has been written about men and their penis-size anxieties, but I think I actually have something original and valuable to say.

Whenever the subject comes up in the presence of women, they protest reassuringly that it doesn't matter. Putting it in such implausibly absolute terms is probably counterproductive, but it is well-intentioned and in some sense true. The short version of the answer to the eternal question, "How much does penis size matter to a woman's sexual pleasure?" is probably this: "More than women admit, but less than men fear."

My point is this: Even though I believe that my partner is completely satisfied by my penis, I want a big cock anyway. And probably so do you. Why do I want a big cock? Just for me. Just because I do. To look at when I stroke it, for example. To feel it, hot and thick in my hands.

I don't know what it is--shame about masturbation? homophobia?-- that makes us men feel like we need to justify our desires for a huge cock in terms of a woman's pleasure. But we do. I'd like to invite us all to give ourselves permission to want to have huge, porn star cocks, just for our own entertainment. To stroke alone or together, to rub against our lovers' faces... whatever.

Notice the recent flood of spams for pills to make ejaculations more voluminous. I don't think many straight men, no matter how uptight about their bodies, really imagine that their lovers care how much semen they can shoot. But judging by the number of ads, lots of men want to cum a lot. I know I do; if I thought the pills worked and were safe, I might get some myself. (Although I would never, ever, ever, EVER respond to spam.)

I hereby give myself permission, and give you permission, and invite you to give yourselves permission, to fantasize about having a huge, hard, glistening cock that cums like coke and mentos, only hotter and more viscous. If our lovers get pleasure from that too, wonderful. But I just want a big cock.

(More) Good Porn vs. Bad Porn

2006-07-31T12:45:00.000+02:00

Over on his blog, Masterjerker has taken up the discussion of good vs. bad porn. It is true that as a mindful wanker, I am concerned about the state of pornography, which has an increasing number of hostile and misogynistic elements.

Masterjerker expressed a healthy preference for porn with happy, enthusiastic participants. He gives a very nice example of a young woman, pleased to be ejaculated on by one cock after another, an image which is giving me an erection even as I type. (Thanks, masterjerker!)

I love porn (and sexual fantasies) filled with enthusiastic, slutty women. (And, by the way, I love and respect slutty women in real life, and wouldn't date any other kind.) The internet contains a lot of really lovely porn, where the women seem happy to be there, and seem to be well treated, etc. There are the Hegre Archives, Met Art, and other art-porn sites once can find links to at Sensual Liberation Army. For slightly harder stuff, there is the inimitable Abby Winters, whose videos of cute, playful, comfortable, masturbating girls have made me spill untold gallons of goo.

But a random googling for sex terms will turn up a lot of harsher images, many of which are from blatantly hostile, woman-hating pornographers whose goal is the discomfort, humiliation, degradation, and dehumanization of their victims. I'm not going to provide links, but many of you will at least recognize the name Max Hardcore, and can guess the nature of the content of "Eyeball Cum," "Facial Humiliation," "Degrading Facials," and "Facial Abuse," to name a few off the top of my head.

If you see something, it changes you. It's not uncommon to say, about gonzo porn, or about violent TV, that it is "only fantasy," which is true but only to a point. As human beings we can choose the direction of our own personal evolutions. We can choose to expose ourselves to influences that help us grow, and to limit our exposure to forces that encourage our darker tendencies.

Like Masterjerker, I love enthusiastic, slutty, cum-hungry women. But I can also enjoy nastier porn. I can understand its appeal. I recall, years ago, stumbling across a free page of videos and pictures, titled something like I love it when they hate it. Basically, it was pictures of women obviously grossed out by the spurting cocks pointing at their faces. It really excited me.

I have elaborate armchair-sociology theories about why American Puritanism and sex-related shame leads to that kind of twisted arousal, but I'll save it for another time. For now my point is this: I can choose what to look at when I have solo orgasms. I can choose what fantasies to act out with my lover. I can, and do, choose to give most of my onanistic attention to girls who are portrayed enjoying sex and exhibitionism, who are doing so by choice, and to the best of my knowledge are being treated as professionally as anyone else on the set.

About the existence of hostile porn, Masterjerker says, "I probably can’t do any more about these issues than I can do about violence on TV or the movies." But we can all do something, the one thing that matters: We can choose what we support with our attention and our dollars.

Bad News for Porn Actress

2006-06-29T11:26:00.001+02:00

As many of you have already read, Tericka Dye, a Kentucky schoolteacher and volleyball coach, was recently fired from her job for having made pornographic films a decade ago, under the name Rikki Andersin.

It is a kind of story that probably gets repeated often, although not so publicly: A woman's professional and personal life is seriously compromised because she has made porn or done other sex work.

No doubt, many of the people involved in the scandal are hypocrites, who secretly wank themselves silly to internet porn, and then exclude from society all those who participate in its making.

Are we any better? Do we live up to our words? By "we," I mean those of us who would claim to respect the humanity and integrity of a person who, due to need or by choice, appeared in sexually explicit entertainment.

For us, the question is this: To what extend do we, as professionals, employers, and parents, actually put into practice the notion that Ms. Dye's work in sex films should not prevent her from coaching our daughters' sports teams, or applying for any other job, or moving freely in our own social circles?

In some of the first blogs to write extensively about this, here and here, the presumably sex-positive authors play the story for novelty or laughs, and make no mention of the injustice. Both articles appear in very pro-porn settings (one on Nerve.com, the other surrounded by advertisements for sex sites, and peppered with commercial links to Dye's many films) yet the authors never suggest that it ought to be possible to have an unashamed life as a past (or present) performer in sexually explicit entertainment.

We support a huge porn industry, which we know doesn't have to ruin women's lives, which we know shouldn't ruin women's lives, but it does ruin women's lives, and we let it.

It makes sense, the world being what it is, for people in the industry to exercise a certain discretion, to use assumed names, to not list their filmographies on their CVs if they leave the business. But are we, as enlightened consumers, doing what we can to make the porn world as safe and professional as we can? Do we reject porn which, in form or content, is obviously hostile, degrading, or exploitative? Would we go to a local school board meeting and complain, if Ms. Dye had been fired in our own districts?

Based on the amount of porn coming from the poorer countries of the developing world and Eastern Europe; and the growth of transparently hostile, misogynist 'gonzo' porn, it seems that the American market for the humiliation of women is vigorous. And the story of Dye's firing, and her lack of defenders even in the sex-positive blogoshere, suggests that as a society we still want girls to put out, but we won't respect them in the morning.

And we won't be there for them if we get them in trouble.

Welcome to The Mindful Wanker

2006-06-28T08:50:00.000+02:00

This is the first entry in The Mindful Wanker, so I will say a few words about my intentions.

A kind of voyeurism and exhibitionism is part of my motivation, of course: I hope to enjoy relating my own experiences and opinions, passing on stories and perspectives I have heard, and getting feedback from others.

But I have, over the years, developed a real sociological interest in masturbation, its role in peoples' lives, and what it means to society. Wanking is the object of much repression and embarrassment, even among otherwise honest and sex-positive people, and the result is confusion, hypocrisy, and the strange transference behaviors to which repression always leads.

I have a lot of concerns about the state of pornography. While I have no ethical problem with the principle of sexually explicit pictures, pornography as it exists now includes a lot of coercion, hostility, and exploitation. The discussion of these ugly elements to porn is, like so much in contemporary politics, highly polarized, and we are left with only radically pro- and anti-porn positions. I hope to discuss how we can be careful consumers of pornography, in the same way as we can be careful consumers in other areas of our lives.

I do not want this blog to be merely a platform. I very much hope to get feedback, and to
participate in a wider inter-blog discussion on mindful wankery and related subjects.

Culturally speaking, masturbation remains a largely unexplored territory; I'd like to explore it.

What do you think this blog can do? How can I best fulfill those missions? Do you have favorite porn sites that make for fun wanking, without hostility or exploitation? Have links you'd like to share? Opinions or ideas you'd like me to post here? I'd like to hear from you!

-The Mindful Wanker