On Women & Porn

I want to write about some of my complaints about porn, but I want it to be clear that this is not a criticism of porn itself. First of all, I like porn and I do not agree that porn is inherently bad, for whatever value of bad any given activist wants to give it (i.e. misogynistic, degrades women, breaks up marriages, unrealistic expectations, etc.). Oh, I'm sure anyone can find examples of whatever complaint they have about porn, so I'm also not dismissing that these "bad" things exist, I'm just saying that I think "porn" encompasses a huge spectrum and does not have to be whatever bad thing someone accuses it of being.

Second, I am not criticizing the quality of porn itself because I'm not actually a good judge of what is "good" and "bad" porn. To me, entertainment has 2 metrics: quality and enjoyability. Quality seems to be something that people think of as an objective metric - there are standards to which an object is held, and if it meets those standards, it is "good quality". Classic literature that we are forced to read in high school falls under this heading. There are some types of art that I can assess as "quality", but some types of art that I can't. Movies and books are types that I can't, and that includes porn.

Enjoyability is not the same as quality. Back to those classics of literature that we have to read in school, I didn't like many of those books. Many of the movies and books that I actively enjoy, I'm told are crap. I don't care. I like what I like and I don't like what I don't like. You can keep your Picaso in his blue period or whatever and I'll keep my cheap print of the seascape at sunset because it makes me happy.

So all of this is to explain that I cannot distinguish between "good" porn and "bad" porn, I can only tell what I like and don't like. I can tell when a movie has decent production quality, and I can tell when there isn't even an attempt at acting, but generally what I like doesn't seem to be what everyone else likes. So, my point here is that what I am about to discuss is not whether something is "good" or "bad" in porn, but in how it affects me personally and what I enjoy. I'm writing about it, not as a book or movie review where I want to recommend or warn people about a particular work, or even a particular genre, but to explain one person's quirks, for 2 reasons:

1) In case there are others like me who feel alone in their tastes so they will know that they're not alone;

2) For people who do not share my tastes or interests to simply be aware that there are people like me who exist, so that maybe some bit of accommodation can be made for the variety of human interests.

So, now, onto the complaints about porn.

This is not about anything specific, it's a trend I see in movies, books, fanfic, erotica, kink, romance novels, anywhere there is a story about sex that includes pleasure for the female. And it's a trend that makes it very difficult for me to find porn or erotica that I like.

( First, some background on my personal sexual tastes and habits )

( And now, the complaints about porn really starts. )