whee! tags!

I can haz delicious account: delicious.com/lotesseflower. Go me! ... man, I read a lot of fic.

now I am the fairest, she said

I followed all the conversation a few weeks ago on the female gaze in pornography - link here to Cathexys - with interest, but I couldn't quite figure out how to voice my discomfort with bradhanon's argument.

But now I have thoughts. Jezebel posted an article this afternoon called Exposed: Are Women Better at Controlling Lust? And while I don't appreciate the evo-psych bs title, the thesis is pretty cool: women look in the same way men do, but they get that you don't act on every impulse. Obvious, yes, but the essay throws in one think that I never see brought up in these debates. That is, that women restrain themselves for - at least - two reasons. The first is societal - women aren't supposed to have desire, blah blah blah.

But the other reason is for purposes of pleasure. The article quotes Emily Maguire as saying "[Girls] learn that yearning for male bodies can be expressed only if those bodies belong to smart, funny boys who are kind to puppies and old people." In other words, hot boys can sometimes hurt you. The best way to enjoy your sexuality is to consider the non-physical merits of your sex partners, at least to some degree. Sleeping with jerks is good for nobody and nothing.

I love this explanation for gendered sexual behavior, because it grants women their sexual agency. It's not that we don't notice the pretty boys. It's that we have standards. Even in one-night-standing, there are some guys that, well, no. Indiscriminate promiscuity tends to be bad for you, but promiscuity with thought is a horse of a different color.

This is the thing I've never understood about guyporn. If it's a hot blonde, they're good. But I can think of a kajillion very very pretty boys, both in real life and in media fandom, that I'm just not that into. Erm, sideways example - after I saw Zack and Miri Make a Porno, I went out at got Knocked Up, which I hadn't seen before, because I was so totally into Seth Rogen's character in Z&M. But I was utterly grossed out by his character in Knocked Up, because he was a repulsive manchild fuckerd. Same guy, same appearance, different character types = different levels of arousal. It's possibly really weird that I just used Seth Rogen as an example of a hot guy, but eh.

I think part of the slash aesthetic lies in the recognition that there are different kinds of sexy, and that responses may - and probably should - vary. Every individual, and every couple, works differently. Doesn't mean they can't all be hot.