‘Women aren’t visual’? Like Hell We Aren’t

Dreams-of-Spanking_musclebound062_thumb

A lovely picture of a hot, tied-up man, graciously provided by Pandora Blake.

Supposedly, women don’t like porn because we “just aren’t visual”. Clearly it’s women’s mysterious inability to get turned on by pictures that keeps us from enjoying porn like this or this or this. Or you know, maybe the vast majority of straight porn might as well be intended to turn women off, because it certainly doesn’t turn us on.

First of all, straight porn is almost universally focused on the woman (or women) in the scene. The men are treated as a necessary evil, to be kept out of the frame as much as possible. If you want to both bore and annoy me, show me pictures of women and act like that’s supposed to turn me on.

Second, straight porn, at least the porn I’ve seen, shows really terrible sex. Seriously, do you people have the slightest fucking idea what a clitoris is? You goddamn well should, since only about 1/3 of women are reliably orgasmic from penetration (to quote Emily Nagosaki, whose blog you really should be reading). How exactly am I supposed to get turned on by women having sex that would never get me off in positions that give me a leg cramp just looking at them?

Finally, straight porn tends to be all about the almighty penis. Scenes end when the man has an orgasm, not when the woman does. It treats women’s pleasure as an afterthought, something that’s supposed to just happen as a side-effect of getting the man off (and then we wonder why women “don’t like sex”, but that’s another rant entirely).

Now, let’s compare and contrast everything that’s wrong with average straight porn with the pretty pretty picture up there at the top of the post.

First, it’s a picture of a man. A man! Yes, I’m a little overly excited, but have you seen Kinky & Popular on Fetlife? It’s basically a wall of tied-up submissive women. Boring! If kinky people are so special, why can’t we show a little creativity? And he’s the the focus of the pictures, not just a prop. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to have my desire to look at pretty tied up men validated. Honestly, I’d be almost as excited even if Will Savage, the model, wasn’t my type. As it happens, I really, really like the muscular man in bondage look. If Pandora had deliberately set out to create a photoset just to mash my buttons, she couldn’t have done a better job. Which brings me to the third thing I was bitching about, the way the straight porn is so focused on what turns men on (I’m skipping point two as this set isn’t explicitly sexual, although there are some photos that invite all sorts of fantasies about what might be happening where I can’t quite see it).

I don’t know whether it’s just Pandora who makes the decisions, or whether she and the model, rigger, and/or photographer all sit down together, but whoever decided which photos were going to end up on dreamsofspanking.com has an eye for what a dominant woman wants to see in a photo. If you buy a membership (which you really should. Judging by just the Musclebound set, Pandora creates amazingly high quality content), you’ll see that in the whole set there are quite a few photos of my very favourite pose (the one up top, as it happens). In that kneeling pose, Will just looks so deliciously open and vulnerable. His gorgeous creamy skin would look amazing marked up a little, and oh I love the way muscular men look in bondage. I hate the myth that only weak, pathetic men ever submit, so it’s especially nice to see someone in bondage who looks like he could pick me up and toss me around.

Speaking of the bondage, I love that it’s so simple. I’ve seen entirely too much rope bondage done by riggers who were terribly impressed with themselves and looking to show off. It’s really nice to see bondage done by a rigger who seems to have set out just to make an already awesome model look amazing. I couldn’t honestly say that I know the first thing about photography, but someone clearly did a good job of making Will look great, and I like how uncluttered the set is.

Have I mentioned that I think Will is unreasonably hot? I would bang that boy (or at least my fantasy submissive version of him) like a screen door in a hurricane.  If there were more porn like this, no one would say that “women just aren’t visual”.

7 thoughts on “‘Women aren’t visual’? Like Hell We Aren’t

  1. Wow, agreed on all points. And thank goodness more female designed porn is being created and available, because like you’ve pointed out, most porn is not appealing to a female perspective, but it’s definitely wanted.
    Gosh I could get wet just looking at a sexy lover, or watching an amazing scene. Like hell I’m not visual.

  2. Thankyou! I’m really thrilled with the positive reception this picture has received. Getting not one but two images to the top of the Kinky & Popular feed was such a buzz. Ever since I read about how dominated the Fetlife featured images are by white, skinny, submissive women it’s bugged me every time I logged on. Here’s to changing the game.

    I passionately believe that submissive men can (and frequently are) beautiful, interesting, strong, desirable and sexy, and deserve to be the subject of erotic imagery. I support physical diversity in porn, too, and don’t just intend to shoot fitness model types, but right now, shooting so-hot-your-eyes-water models in submissive roles is the most radical and progressive thing to do. (This is because most of the industry shooting male sub content don’t pay their models, so they don’t have access to anyone who earns a living from their looks, only enthusiastic amateurs who approach the film as a free domme session, and consider it a bargain.) There are so many reasons why fair, gender equal pay in porn is a good thing, and promoting the female gaze is one of them.

    I don’t know whether it’s just Pandora who makes the decisions, or whether she and the model, rigger, and/or photographer all sit down together, but whoever decided which photos were going to end up on dreamsofspanking.com has an eye for what a dominant woman wants to see in a photo.

    For this set, I wrote the concept, hired a hot model, a straight female rigger and her photographer husband. Hywel (the photographer) is straight and was a bit leery about shooting a bloke as he said he had no idea what would look good and what wouldn’t, so I agreed to direct very closely. Hywel made the lighting look beautiful, I directed Will’s poses, I proposed shots and let Hywel compose others, and Ariel (the rigger) and I collaborated on the tie. Basically I suggested ideas and she and Will told me whether it was possible or not. In retrospect the chest harness wasn’t the right type to use on Will’s figure. I wonder if one of those shibari lattices might be a better way of emphasising his beautiful pecs. Anyway, I’m very keen to experiment further. It seems ridiculous in this day and age that tying up a muscular male model should involve reinventing the wheel because so few people have ever done it that we don’t really know how it’s done. All the more reason to get stuck in. 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.