Assumptions

I’ve noticed that there’s a core assumption people in the West tend to carry around – maybe people all over the world – which goes something like this: “People are basically like me.”

Simple, right? If I’m a guy and I like sports I’ll assume that all guys like sports, and if I meet a guy who doesn’t, part of me assumes it’s because he hasn’t given sports a chance. If he did he’d probably like sports too (the assumption goes), because he’s a guy, and I’m a guy, and I like sports, and my assumption is that all guys are basically like me.

Incidentally, this is one reason that religion is so weak in the West. We not only assume that people are basically like us, we assume that God is basically like us. Our picture of God is a being who is essentially just like me, but a bit smarter and with a bit more power. So He’s me, but with magic or something. And actually… in theory He’s a bit smarter than me, but the reality is that I know He’d never disagree with me on anything, right? Because if He did, He’d be wrong!

If you’ve come into this post making your own assumption – namely that I’m probably not talking about sports or religion – you’re right. It’s usually bad to make assumptions but in this case you lucked out. I have smart readers.

I’ve noticed this in particular when it comes to women’s sexual preferences and, even more specifically, women’s preferences when it comes to rough sex and sexual domination. I’ve been fortunate enough to be friends with a lot of what you’d call hard-core feminists as well as a lot of female sex bloggers, and I’ve noticed that both groups tend to make assumptions about rough sex and domination.

• Feminists: No woman intrinsically enjoys rough sex or being dominated, she does it to please her partner. What woman would possibly be aroused by being abused?
• Female Sex Bloggers: Rough sex is sex in its purest, rawest form, and any woman would want to be dominated in this way. It’s a huge turn-on when a man takes what he wants and ravages us.

Both groups would advocate strongly that sexual preferences are a personal thing and all people should be able to do what they want in the bedroom, yet each also has a blind spot when it comes to this topic. It’s not that they think the other group shouldn’t get what they want to do, it’s that each group feels the other is misguided.

• Feminists: The Female Sex Bloggers out there who are so big on rough sex and being dominated in the bedroom have probably come out of bad relationships (and are victims of male-dominated media), and are really only getting their pleasure out of pleasing their partners instead of demanding that they be treated as equals in the bedroom. If they could find a good relationship with a good person, who didn’t abuse them, they’d see that rough sex is problematic.
• Female Sex Bloggers: The Feminists out there who are so down on rough sex and being dominated in the bedroom have probably come out of bad relationships and are reacting against that (and are victims of our politically correct media). If they could find a good relationship with a “real man,” they’d learn what domination is all about and they could free themselves to be truly feminine.

Being in the middle I can say from experience that there are a lot of women out there who enjoy sex rough and want to be dominated in bed. If the sex isn’t like that they’re turned off and consider the man to be a pussy.

I can also say from experience that there are a lot of women out there who would legitimately equate any form of rough sex or domination in the bedroom with rape. It’s not that they need to give it a chance, they shouldn’t try it because it would be traumatic for them.

So because of this position of being in the middle of all of these women – an enviable position, no? A tender/rough sex sandwich – I did find myself rolling my eyes when reading this post on HuffPo on “A ‘Sistah’s’ View: Fifty Shades of Gray” in which the author expresses her dislike of the book (which is totally fine, I’ve heard from numerous sources that it’s badly written), but seemed to base her critique on an underlying assumption of “why would any woman enjoy this?”

Well… that’s a valid question, isn’t it? If the book was so massively popular, and it seems to be mostly popular with females, why is it so popular? Have all of those women come out of (or are they currently in) bad relationships that messed up their views on sex? Or is it possible that some women enjoy the idea of domination so much that even a badly written book on the subject will be enjoyable to them?

There was something similar going on in this post on “Why Women Don’t Watch Porn” in which the author falls into cliches about femininity and uses that as her basis for arguing that women don’t like porn because it’s made for men. And there’s some validity to that, I’ve written here that porn is made for men (and if I wrote it, it must be true), but there’s also an undercurrent of “I know what I like and I assume all women are like me” running through the post which makes it lose its punch.

For one thing, women are consuming porn, so the premise of the post is off right from the start. Not in the same numbers that men are consuming it, to be sure, but a lot of women are consuming porn so a one-size-fits-all approach to discussing why women don’t like porn simply won’t work. Is it possible that they’re settling for what they can get, and would all flock to porn in huge numbers if it was more female-friendly? Sure, of course that’s possible. One way to find out: Make some female-friendly porn, and see who comes! (Oh, but you’ll need to define what is meant by “female friendly porn” first.)

I have to say, once the author decided that she didn’t like porn (and therefore no other women would either), she got very silly with her critiques of the particular scene she was watching. The set was too cheezy for you? I think you forgot why people are watching the video, they’re not looking for high (or even mediocre) production values, they’re looking to watch a sexy girl (or girls) get fucked. That’s all they need, and it’s all they want. That perfect setup you were looking for, and that wonderful set dressing? Yeah… we’re going to skip past that to get to the fucking.

Similarly, it’s fun to criticize sitcoms for their over the top plots and stupid situations but people don’t watch sitcoms because they want deep plots and realistic storylines, they watch sitcoms because they want to laugh. If a sitcom had a really good plot it would distract us from the sitcom’s business: being funny. Criticizing sitcoms for their plots is kind of missing the point of what sitcoms are all about, but if you want to criticize a sitcom because it’s not funny then at least you’re looking at it with the right lens. Similarly, people don’t watch porn because they want high production values and storylines (usually), they watch porn because they want to masturbate and porn helps stimulate their imaginations. If you want to criticize porn because it’s not sexy or erotic then you’re looking at it with the right lens, but if you want to criticize porn because it’s not realistic that the girl would be able to pay for a pizza with a blowjob then you’re missing the point.

The author is correct that it takes longer for women to get there than it does for men, but she makes a bad assumption about the answer to that. Women, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m not getting the impression that you watch a 30 minute porn scene in order to get yourself to the place where you’re ready, I’m getting the impression you watch a bunch of shorter scenes instead, letting the variety carry you along as much (or more) than the quality of one particular scene. Any girls I’ve talked to on the subject – an admittedly short list – have indicated that they skip through scenes as much as I do.

She asks the question, “How am I supposed to get in the mood and be comfortable with foreign specimen entering me in under 10 minutes?” But people masturbating to porn come to the party already partially ready. You don’t start watching porn and have it convince you that you want to masturbate (the way that guy in the bar will try to convince you that you want to fuck), you are already in the mood to masturbate and use porn to help with that.

By all means, if there are ideas for more women-friendly porn I think it should be tried. I’ve written about that in the past (or at least alluded to it), and I’m in no way against the creation of porn that’s tailored to women’s tastes. Maybe it will work and women will love you for it – or maybe you’re missing the point of porn in the first place, and you’ll create a bunch of content that nobody will want to masturbate to.

Because a lot of women are probably very much like you, but, despite your assumption, not all of them are. Some of them already like porn.

This got very rant-y, especially at the end, didn’t it? Oh well.