To Review...

[trinityvixen]

Liz C, Cindy, theKathy were all pretty toasted at our impromptu party in which Ronnii and Carrie managed to sneak out sometime after Mamma Mia but before Cindy and I had a rather interesting contest. I think we horrified CF Dave with our fake orgasm contest, but the two of us, obviously a wee bit tipsy, thought it was pretty funny. The best part was that Liz M couldn't say "public! public!" because it was in her room. Also, the songs were fun, the Heddy was cheered, the drinks were drunk, and so were the guests.

Why do I get punished for trying to work? I missed free t-shirts! Then the idiots running Columbia Special Events tell me to go to the Talent Show, but they don't have shirts there unless you've got a ticket. I got there so early, too, damn it. But, no ticket, no doing. Some people in the head rows already had shirts, too. Grrr. And the stupid hot dogs gave me heartburn, there was no pizza at the River event, and the SENIOR GAME NIGHT rejected BC students. Look, I'm all for putting the girls across the street in their place, but that was really shitty. The girl practically assaulted us at the door with "CC OR SEAS?" And, stunned, all I could go was, "Well, I in CC." Stupid me, I should have faked it better. She then rounded on poor Carrie and demanded "BC?" Like Carrie was a witch in Salem, for the love of all that is holy. Then she rather snottily informed us it was CC/SEAS only because of course BC students aren't allowed to have fun. I wish my bitchiness from last night had made me do more than just be like, "Okay," and turn my heel in a show of solidarity. Carrie, dude, of course I ain't going in by myself after that. They're stupid. (For your edification: last night, we got yelled at in Lerner lobby for being too loud. It was a group of folks who then went to Liz M's for drinking and dancing in what she called her first truly successful party in Watt, so that's awesome, and I was hyper, people needed cheering up, we had Bundy, what more could be said to excuse us? The lady behind the desk goes to us "Could you stop yelling?" as if she has the authority to do that. Sure, we were loudest lobby folk, but there were way to many others coming/going/shouting for her to make one group at fault for it. I literally stared right at her, stunned, then, when I could finally react said, "NO!" I don't think she paid any attention to that, and she definitely pretended not to hear me ranting on my way out the door, "THIS IS MY FUCKING STUDENT CENTER! I CANNOT USE IT FOR ANYTHING ELSE, SO I AM ENTITLED TO SHOUT AS LOUD AS I LIKE, GODDAMNIT. Yay, me)

So, after the party Thursday, while I waited for Liz C to call me so I knew she got back to NYU okay, I decided to do some research. I recently got into a b-board discussion about the blow-job and the social stigma against it. Basically, we were talking about why the blow-job is seen as demeaning, what effect pornography has had on its acceptance, whether its being forced/done between partners who are not in love but just want to fool around without being 'serious' (like full intercourse serious) hurts its image, why going down on women isn't seen as being degrading in the same manner. Having less than optimal relationship experience to judge the particulars of why someone in love with their partner would want to give a blow-job (which I do understand on a thinking level, just not out of personal experience), I decided to look at something I could analyse better: porn. I watched a bunch of shorts, varied positions, partners, number of participants, places penetrated, etc etc. I basically didn't get why this was arousing for people at all, and I was kinda disappointed that it lacked the humor of soft-core porn, but I guess they serve very different ends. Soft-core porn is hilarious, hard-core, which I'd never seen till last night, is more direct and is there to do what needs to be done and well, be done with it.

What struck me most obviously is how boring hard-core porn is because it has to be, for the safety and health of its actors, so regemented. There is absolutely no ejaculation in any oriface other than the mouth. The moment the male actor is ready, he withdraws. It's formulaic as hell, and that's not the only bit. I couldn't believe how dull and unimaginative porn is. I mean, it is there for a purpose, I get it, to the point and all, but sheesh. It's literally an action-item list:
a) blow-job, close up on woman's face
b) man goes down on woman for a bit (this step is often skipped entirely as it's unimportant for the demographic watching, I suppose)
c) vaginal intercourse
d) anal intercourse
e) withdrawal prior to ejaculation
f) repositioning with woman having mouth open to receive 'money shot'

Boring. I just couldn't believe how easy it was to spot the pattern after exactly two clips. However, I did understand why the blow-job might have its poor reputation, given its abuse in porn and the focus on showing woman with mouths full of semen (if I was lucky it was their mouths and mouths alone, if not...) I know no one expects life to be a porn film, and most guys wouldn't come close to insisting on anything like what goes on in porn unless they were very very comfortable with their partner, but sheesh, again. What helped was the reading I did for horror class; horror films and pornography share a historical lack of social acceptance, and every book I picked up on horror connected it to porn. Now, I sort of understand why. It's the showing of what you can't see, aren't supposed to see, whether it's bodies engaged in sex or a body being sliced, diced and made into Julienne fries. I had argued before this on the b-board that the blow-job was making a comeback, being reclaimed from the sexually submissive, inequal stigma to being perceived as a more loving gesture (like how we've reclaimed the word 'geek,' only less exciting, I guess). Am I wrong here? After watching these clips, I wonder. I guess this requires more research, but I don't know if what I've seen will be able to hold my interest much longer as it doesn't address how people really perceive the blow-job and how they dissociate or associate it with what they see in film/television/hard+soft core porn. It's fascinating, our social stigmas about sex, types of sex, sexual partners, acts, materials, literature, etc. Having never seen hard-core porn before, I hadn't realized what was missing from my reading of the sociology of what we discussed on the b-board. How do these things affect us? Anyone with more learning than I in this field (ie anyone), let me know.

For now, I'll stick to the cheesy soft-core stuff when looking for something just to waste time. Hard-core is boring like textbook stuff instead of a Sarkar lecture.

Comments

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Okay, yes, I get the sucking analogy. It's like how we say guys who are weak are 'pussies' instead of nice, hard cocks. However, it may be the less than defined nature of cunnilingus that makes it hard for an equal term to be developed (otherwise, I'm sure it would be as prevalent as 'sucked'). Going down on a woman entails sucking, too, and licking, the latter of which has its own connotations. It's not so prevalent any more, but people used to say something licked them, they licked so and so, to mean 'defeat.' Following the sucks-sucking pathology, shouldn't then 'licking' and its associated sexual act carry an equal (if opposite) stigma to the blow-job? Why isn't going down on a girl (because of licking=mastering/defeating) a sign of triumph, connected with sexual success if blow-jobs (because of sucking=bad/loss/dirty/etc) are connected with submission and uglier stuffs? Hmm....