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Rape

Rape has always been the exception rather than the rule in hardcore. Almost all scenes came in the '70s and early '80s, though Rob Black pushed this envelope in 1997.

Pat Riley writes on RAME 2-98: "The bitter misogyny of the Black's and Max's of today has no real counterpart in eighties or seventies porn nor did the seventies and eighties porn present such a clinical over-emphasis on emotionally uninvolving deviant sex.

"Bestiality and child (defined as pre- or peri-pubertal) porn in the seventies were tiny side issues, appealing to much the same insignificant segment they do today. The vast majority of seventies porn did not have rape or other violent sex scenes and certainly the early eighties (post MIPORN) was a time practically devoid of non-consensual sex.

"The porn movies of the seventies--even the grinders--had vastly superior plots to today's movies and to be interesting a plot has to deal with the unusual. Most Hollywood movies today--even PG movies--in the adventure section and many in the drama section have some form of violence, much of it homicide, even if it's simply implied and not explicitly shown. Of course a plotted seventies movie will follow the same rule. Is the fight between John Holmes and Bob Chinn in Tropic Of Passion (1971) a violent scene? Sure, but no more so than any mainstream movie of today or of that era and it was not a "violent sex scene".

"What has happened is a "defining down" of various activities so that(in this case) the religious right can make a point by manipulating the meaning of the words. For example:

-- Child porn is defined down to mean persons under 18 or

appearing to be under that age.

-- Rape is defined down to include overcoming the natural

resistance of females to sex as in the John Wayne (obviously a rapist!)/heroine scenes where she flails her arms against him as he kisses her in the clinch and then melts into his arms.

-- Porn movies are classified as violent if they include plot elements common to mainstream movies (example above) without making the distinction of violent sex vs. normal plotted violence.

"None of this should be construed as saying there were no rape movies in the seventies, nor that many seventies movies didn't include violence, nor that high school type sex scenes weren't a common occurrence.

"Far from complaining about today's porn, the religious right should be very happy with the improvement (from their perspective). The themes that encourage sex to be viewed as a recreational activity and which presented a credible alternative to the right's family, marriage, and all those conservative issues have been replaced with mind-numbing anals, facials, and sex-for-pay scenes complete with misogynistic attitudes that attract only the immature and the basest elements of society. No real risk to society's fabric there."

With money from the Mafia channeled through producer Stu Segall, Armand Weston aka Sam Weston aka Anthony Spinelli directed 1975's Defiance - "a sexually more frightening film (and much more explicit) than Straw Dogs, or The Snake Pit or even Behind The Green Door," writes Bob Rimmer. "Caught sniffing dope by her religious mother, Kathy is first sent to the psychiatric ward of a hospital where she is raped by the inmates and an attendant in a most brutally believable rape scene. "Rescued" by a doctor who is a follower of the Marquis de Sade, she is tortured until horrifyingly, in the Journey of O tradition, she begins to enjoy her pain, debasement and degradation. Worth owning to test your own reactions. Should the Marquis' writings be censored or do we dare to expose the insanity of his theories by openly showing tapes or movies like this? And whatever happened to Jean Jennings, who is a good actress?" (X-Rated Videotape Guide, p.77)

David Fleetwood's A Dirty Western appeared in 1975. After seven years in prison, three convicts escape. Jim, a rancher near the prison, leaves for a cattle drive while his wife Sarah plans the wedding of one of her favorite daughters. A tender love scene sets the prelude for the horror to come.

"The film raises an inevitable question: Why do violence, murder and rape make more sexually exciting films than stories dealing with normal emotions?" (Bob Rimmer)

UCLA Psychiatrist Michael Goldstein says that "average males don't find real rape pornography exciting. They don't show a reaction to it physiologically or psychologically. If there's real harm being done, even in a simulated way - beating up, force, no excitement show [by the woman] and so forth, it is not sexually exciting to the average person."

Story of Joanna (1975) "Recommended as the best film example for a walk on the dark side of porn," writes Jim Holliday in the 12-92 AVN. "An absolute must for those frustrated fetish freaks who are never satisfied in their search for kinky sadomasochism or bondage and discipline. Story of Joanna is one of only five films I would recommend for kink fans. All of the others are either too silly, too lame or contain too little of the kinky stuff.

"The only challenge to John Leslie as the best actor in the history of porn is Jamie Gillis when he wants to be. Here, he wants to be in the role of Jason, a possessive misogynist who first charms women, then lures them to the depths of personal humiliation and abuse. It is perhaps the best role in Jamie's long career.

"The leading lady, Terri Hall, formerly a dancer with the Stuttgart Ballet, is one of the treasures of the X-industry. Her nude dance sequence is the finest in the field. The 'face of the moon' scene with Zebedy Colt is on the all-time classic sex scene list.

"Be advised that the theme is not something that everyone can deal with, but be further advised that you will not find better treatment of it elsewhere. Joanna shows up a nonexplicit effort like The Story of O for the watered down, nonerotic crap it is.

"One brief moment that should interest the female viewers is the oral sex scene between Colt and Gillis. Zebedy goes down on his master for nearly a minute for the turnabout-is-fair-play people.

"For a period piece with costumes and kink, I don't think you will find a better sex film." (Holliday in AVN 12/92)

Bill Margold: "The plot can be summed up by saying that the Marquis de Sade has met his match. The film features the humiliations of a beautiful woman (Terri Hall) by a mysterious man (Jamie Gillis) and an even more mysterious butler (Zebedy Colt).

"Terri Hall cries out, "Every hole I have has been used," and, thanks to Damiano's direction, the viewer will feel as if he's violated each of Hall's orifices."

Bisexual Jamie Gillis excelled in nasty roles such as that of the enema bandit in Gerard Damiano's 1975 Waterpower. "He'll scare you to death in this one" promises Bob Rimmer. "Jamie plays a sex pervert - an enema bandit who accosts women in their apartments, ties them up and before he rapes them gives them an enema (supposedly based on a true incident). Thinking about his first victim, an airline stewardess whom he has watched screwing through a telescope in his apartment, he says: "She's dirty. Just a toilet. If I cleaned her out she would be clean again. She'd thank me. She'd be glad I cleaned her out." Damiano gives this sexvid a long, scary buildup with Jamie discovering that he is orgasmic when he watches an enema being given to a woman in a sex palace called Garden of Eden, which specializes in B&D, S&M, infantilism, cross dressing, French and Greek cultures and high colonic irrigations. Suspected by a policewoman, C.J. Laing, he captures her and tortures her in a long frightening sequence. The agony of the enemas is written on his victims' faces. Whatever your shock feeling may be, you'll watch this from beginning to end, and you'll have to admit that both the acting and cinematography are great. Worth owning - if only to initiate discussions on whether a film like this should ever be made." (X-Rated Videotape Guide, p. 237)

Chained, Whipped, Flogged, Beaten and Peed On appeared in 1976, starring Serena and Guy Conners in "a mondo bondage/S&M/B&D movie with a twist," writes Jim Holliday in AVN. "Men beating is the subject, and the whole gamut of kinky stuff occurs to poor Guy before he begs to be a human toilet. Unforgettable line is, "I want to be your punching bag." At least he's willing." This flick is almost impossible to find." (AVN 12/92 p.91)

The Texas Hacksaw Melange appeared in 1977. "How is this one for an argument of sex versus violence in films, porno or Hollywood? An obvious take-off of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, group gropes with fist f---ing scenes are obviously much more of a taboo than the slasher/ripper/mutilation/corpse grinder of beautiful women done so effortlessly and frequently by our Hollywood brethren. Melange means a "mixture" and the hacksaw is a reference to R.J. Reynold's [bisexual who died of AIDS] dick and was merely a come-on for a harmless swingers movie. Fisting has no place, but killing in graphic detail does. You go figure." (Jim Holliday AVN 12/92)

My Pumpkin, My Love appeared about 1980 according to Holliday. "Another derivative porno; this time the title is stolen from a softcore '60s classic from Sweden called My Sister, My Love. The Germans do have a sense of humor. The protagonist, one of the guys from Education of the Baroness, grows tired of making love to women, so he tries men. Whoops, major homo scene. After that wanes, he says he's gonna follow Hedy Lamarr's lead and try dogs. Soon he's into other barnyard animals before finally drilling a hole into his true love - a pumpkin. He rationalizes that the punkin' doesn't talk back. Maybe pumpkins are soft and fleshy like sheep. Subject matter banned this one." (AVN 12/92)

No Mo' Hoes appears recent (1980s?) according to Holliday. "This sleeper wakes up and packs a punch. It starts as a farming documentary. First scene is a stud bull with a cow. Then it becomes a documentary about the harvest of wheat in Kansas. The title refers to a farmer running out of implements (hoes and rakes), and not the obvious slang for black hookers. He goes to town. Butch Beeler shows up and rapes his wife in the ass. Butch is real, whereas Long Dong Silver never had an on-camera erection. Bingo - rape, violence, interracial, anal. Cut to the couple down the road. Pretty people make tender, passionate love. Final scene. The farmer comes home with a new hoe, sees Butch with his wife, and he plunges the sharp tool into Beeler's neck, killing him. After the snuff scene, two girls come in for the mandatory lesbian bit and before they haul his carcass away, they urinate and defecate on him. They are only 16. This is the film that has it all! Even has a fist scene." (12/92 p.91)

Little Orphan Dusty appeared in 1976. Bob Chinn directed John Holmes and Rhonda Jo Petty who won Best Actress at the 1977 Erotic Film Awards. Orphan won Best Film and also placed in Screw's 1977 top ten list.

"If you are male and wish to test your sexual arousal to rape scenes, this sexvid provides you with three separate sequences - one with a motorcycle gang that takes on Rhonda Jo Petty. They later try again with her and two other women. John Holmes finally tells Rhonda he loves her even though she's pregnant by the rapists." (Bob Rimmer, X-Rated Videotape Guide p.101)

The Taming of Rebecca, 1981, features kidnapping, rape and Sharon Mitchell. The 1986 Meese Commission Report describes the film in detail.

After her father beats her and forces her to have sex with him, Rebecca goes to a school for sexually abused children. She tells Ms. Zorda what happened: Masturbating himself while sitting on the toilet, Rebecca's father tells her to suck him. When Rebecca does as she's asked, he says, "That's it, bitch, suck on it hard. That's why your mommy and I made you - to make daddy feel good." He makes her sit on his penis while he plays with her nipples. Rebecca complains that he's hurting her, but he won't stop.

He says: "All right, bitch, I want to taste a little bit of your cunt." When he finishes going down on her, he commands her to bend over the tub. He spanks her and screws her from the rear. He makes her suck him off again and then do what he likes best - urinate on his penis.

Ms. Zorda advises Rebecca to stay at the school, and she introduces her to the other students and staff members, including Mr. Minindao, the "Dean of Discipline" and his secretary Linda. Later in their office, Minidao and Linda discuss what a difficult job they have, and Linda sucks his cock. Minindao goes down on her and then they have intercourse. He asks her, "You want my cum? Say 'Please, Daddy.' Beg me to cum on your face."

Meanwhile, various students are talking about "the cave." The last girl taken there had talked to the police. She disappeared afterward. One boy says he wants some "serious action" and students begin to strip and masturbate, perform fellatio and cunnilingus, and have intercourse. One boy puts his fist in a girl's vagina.

The dean calls Rebecca into his office and scolds her for participating in an orgy. He orders her to raise her skirt and bend over. When Rebecca refuses, he tells her that he beat one girl until she threw up and then made her eat her vomit. He beats Rebecca and has intercourse with her from the rear. He makes her suck his cock.

The dean calls in two other students, a boy John and a girl. He commands John to undress the girl and stick a pin in her breast. John says no, but complies when the dean threatens to do it to him if he doesn't. John pushes the point through her nipple as she struggles; blood runs down her breast; the girl urinates. Feigning sympathy, the secretary takes her to the cave. Once there, the secretary tells her that she will give her more "pain and pleasure" and makes her perform cunnilingus. The secretary threatens to turn the pin in her nipple if she refuses. The secretary turns the pin, the girl screams. The dean comes in and makes the girl perform fellatio on his "black rod" because she "pissed" on his floor. The secretary removes the pin from her swollen breast. The dean says if she's good he'll put his fist up her ass. He f---s her and the girls says, "I won't ever do it again, Daddy D. Oh, please f--- me."

Rebecca tells Ms. Zorda what is going on, and they enter the cave. The dean laughs when he sees them, but Ms. Zorda points a gun at the dean. He laughs again. The sound of a shot is heard.

The Meese Commission also described in detail Forgive Me - I Have Sinned:

The confessor mails letters to three persons whom he summons for confession. As they discuss their sins, he is enveloped by smoke behind a cross-stripped screen. Ingrid, a young girl who, while sleeping on a camping trip, was undressed and fondled by an oriental girl, Serena, in the sleeping bag next to her. Ingrid woke and asked Serena what she was doing. Serena plays with Ingrid's nipples, then performs cunnilingus. They kiss and perform cunnilingus on each other. Ingrid, dressed in a school uniform, tells the confessor that she couldn't help herself.

Curious about the size of his sister's tits, Brad peeks at her while she undresses. Becoming excited, Brad masturbates. His sister Maria catches him. She commands him to do as she says, then handcuffs him, hits him, makes him crawl, forces him to perform cunnilingus and call her "mistress." Brad tells the confessor that he's "an animal."

Vicki Jones, from the secretarial pool, goes to Jason Burke's office. Jason thinks that she's a "primp-faced iceberg who needs a good f---ing." Burke threatens her job and forces her to take dictation with his penis as the pen. He tells her, "You girls are all the same. You act like you don't like it but you really do. You want a good stiff dick right in your mouth. Oh, suck on it, suck."

Jason pulls her by the hair and makes her suck his cock. She cries and his cock falls out of her mouth. He orders her to open her mouth and then shoves her mouth on his dick. He rips off her panties and penetrates her vagina with his erection. She cries, "Let me go. Please, let me go." He replies, "Say, 'I like it', say it, say it." She yells, "I like it. You're hurting my pussy, ow. Don't, don't."

The confessor moves away from the screen, has her lie down, and straps her wrists. "Now you must be touched and cleansed by me, your confessor. Now you must taste the rod," he tells Vicki. He masturbates, and Vicki licks his penis. "Be cleansed, sinner," the confessor says. Vicki sucks his cock; the confessor masturbates; the confessor penetrates her but withdraws to ejaculate on her buttocks. He tells her that she will be forgiven.

After the confessor's separate encounters with Ingrid, Brad, and Vicki, he assures them that they are not the guilty parties - that Serena, Maria, and Jason are guilty - and that Ingrid, Brad and Vicki will get their revenge by bringing the guilty ones with them Saturday night.

In preparation for Saturday's cleansing, the confessor fills six glasses with wine, and puts a powder in the three intended for the guilty ones. After the six people arrive, Serena, Maria, and Jason are given the wine with power; they pass out. When they wake, Jason's hands are tied and Vicki is over him; Maria is in a stock; the confessor holds Serena by the neck while masturbating himself. Jason, Maria and Serena are in reverse positions from their previous experiences with Vicki, Brad and Ingrid. Vicki forces Jason to do her will; Brad forces Maria to do his will; the confessor forces Serena to "suck the rod" while yelling, "You like sucking on little young tits." As Vicki makes Jason perform cunnilingus on her and Brad paddles Maria, the confessor commands Serena to perform fellatio. Serena asks Ingrid to let her perform cunnilingus on her, but Ingrid says she belongs to the confessor. The confessor has intercourse with Ingrid from the rear and says to Serena, "My holy fluid from the rod that baptizes you will cleanse thee."

The confessor masturbates and ejaculates on Serena's breast. Before the film ends, Ingrid is performing cunnilingus with Serena, Vicki is performing fellatio on Jason, and Brad is having intercourse with his sister's rear while she is still in the stock.

The Mitchell Brothers released Never a Tender Moment in 1979, starring Marilyn Chambers, Tanya Robertson and Carol Christy in a series of vignettes. The film lives up to its title, particularly in its second story "Hot Nazis." First you see two naked women lustily servicing each other until Nazi guards, both men and women, arrive and brutally rape the women.

A poster to RAME: "This whole discussion has gotten me to thinking about the issue of visual depictions of "rape" vs. the all too pervasive blouse ripper novels that pepper the local grocery store book shelves or books like "Mandingo" which piqued my interest of many things sexual as a teen. Rape as a fact is a violent and aberrant act - but "rape fantasies" abound in literature and in the minds of many well adjusted, card carrying adult feminists (both male and female).

"That said - the most memorable and striking movie rapes I can recall are from three very different films, yet all carry the thread of provocative social commentary. The rape scene from "Deliverance" has already been mentioned (it was my introduction to the notion that men could be raped, too) - but who remembers the scene from "Billy Jack" where the woman is staked out spread eagle in the sun...I don't even remember all the details, just my reaction - intrigued and aroused.

"The last of my formative trio was "Clockwork Orange" - another film where the beating of the old man completely disgusted me and the juxtaposition of the "rape" of the woman fascinated me.... her clothes strategically cut away, the implications of the dildo strapped to the rapist's nose (leaving his mouth free to further stimulate her...) In the many years since the last time I viewed this classic, I have conveniently bracketed the violence of the film and allowed my erotic interpretation of the rape scene to run wild. Were I to see the film again, I would likely find my adult revulsion overtaking the adolescent naivete to which I choose to cling in this instance."

Mainstream films with famous rape scenes include Dressed To Kill, the rape of Jacqueline Bissett in Rich and Famous, and the scenes between Jessica Lange and Jack Nicholson in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Sylvia Kristel in Lady Chatterley's Lover. Exit to Eden.

A post to RAME: "I have a very difficult time understanding why an individual's interest in *fictional* depictions of rape constitutes a thought crime while another individual's interest in actual depictions of things like aggressive/"extreme" sex a la Max Hardcore, *unedited* ass-to-mouth scenes, facials ("monster" or otherwise), etc. are seemingly shrugged off as nothing more than special interests.

"Why is it that when someone inquires about the latter so few are compelled to publicly express their personal repulsion for these acts and, by extension, for anyone who expresses an interest in them and, while they're at it, reassure everyone that there ARE those who DO NOT share in this deviance (We're not *ALL* like that!), etc.?

"In my mind, control/aggression and/or degradation/humiliation play a significant role in a person's interest in viewing depictions, fictional or otherwise, of any/all of the acts described above. This is why I don't understand why the portrayal of one specific act is so objectionable while the portrayal of other acts which share certain significant characteristics are so readily accepted. Personally, I find no reason to condemn anyone's interest in any of the above.

"It's accepted that some women have rape fantasies without wanting to be actually be raped. They enjoy the fantasy of giving up control without actually giving it up. Their fantasies are, of course, carefully scripted in their own mind. Why is it wrong then to, as a man, watch a rape scene and fantasize about being in control and sexually dominating an attractive woman? Yes, rape is a repulsive crime. I've had to be around to pick up the pieces and know the damage it causes first hand. Well, I guess it's second hand, but you know what I mean.

"But the watching and fantasizing about sexual, perhaps even violent domination of a woman is no more an indicator of real life desires and actions than is a suburban housewife's masturbatory fantasy of being forcefully taken by three tough (but cute and not too mean) gang members. It's just that the sexes are wired differently when fantasizing. In general, women think about it while rubbing it, men watch it while rubbing it. It's simply a fantasy about an act that's been around way before video. Plenty of guys and girls have thought about it and have never done it.

"What I'd like to do to Alicia Silverstone in cute panties would curl your toes. Would I ever raise a finger to any woman who didn't want me to? Not on your life.

"It seems weird to criticize one sex and encourage and reassure the other. It also seems overly pious in a totally obnoxious way for someone to always follow up a request for rape material with some sort of moralistic diatribe."

Another post on rec.arts.movies.erotica: "The following feature non-erotic, violent rape scenes:

"I Spit on Your Grave" - Sure, it's an old slasher film, but the woman doing the slashing is getting revenge for being repeatedly raped by a group of young country hickoids. The Jody Foster film, "The Accused"? Where she's raped in the bar? Also Kids, and Leaving Las Vegas." (RAME)

Pat Riley: "You must understand that most males don't like the punishment or violence aspect of rape so any producer/director who makes a movie which doesn't have a "nice" resolution to the scene is only going to attract a very small subset of the population. What many males(including myself) do like is the transfer of control over sex from the female to the male and the idea that "She'd love it if she could just get over her inhibitions." There's also the fear of attracting unwanted attention from the forces of repression, thus the idea of "pretend rape"(a sexual game) and the quick change into "I love it".

"RAPE OF LOVE (1979) - not a porn movie, you'll find it in the foreign section (French) of the video store. Realistic gang rape scene and the subsequent events from the girl's viewpoint.

"WATERPOWER (1977) - Jamie Gillis plays an enema bandit who rapes an airline stew, a couple of schoolgirls, and a female cop. The stew seems to be crying at one point.

"FORCED ENTRY (1972) - Harry Reems plays a deranged Vietnam vet who breaks in and rapes a couple of women (separate scenes) but then goes crazy when he tries to rape two hippies who actually like it.

"EXPENSIVE TASTE (1978) - Joey Silvera and his pals set up a scenario where Joey's date gets raped (happens a couple of times) but the girl thinks Joey is a victim too.

"WINTER HEAT (1975) - Jamie Gillis (again) and his band of thugs break in on Bree Anthony and her two girlfriends and repeated rape them. They end up loving it.

"THE VIRGIN RAPE (cr72) - I saw this by accident just recently and it's a must see. Not only is the rape scene well acted (date rape) but the rapee is absolutely gorgeous.

"BAD BAD GANG (cr72) - has (I think) the same girl as in Virgin Rape getting raped by a biker gang along with Rene Bond.

"TEENAGE SEX KITTEN (1972) - Rene and Gilda Grant get caught up with some bad guys and Glida gets raped. However, you won't like the ending where they castrate the offender by hooking his balls up to the back of the car and driving away.

10/31/99

Pat Riley writes on RAME that he gets off on rape scenes:

Of a type, yes.

I presume your interest in mainstream movies extends to other than the current period and you're reasonably familiar with the period of the immediate post WWW2 era. In that era the closest one came to sex was generally someone such as Cary Grant or John Wayne grabbing a known and friendly girl and forcibly kissing her. She would inevitably struggle but trapped in the arms of a strong male would finally yield and demonstrate her acceptance and vulnerability by circling his back or neck with her arms. The scene cuts.

Similarly in the prewar period you have scenes such as in GWTW where Clark Gable carries a protesting and struggling Vivien Leigh up the stairs for an unseen night of in-out followed by a morning scene with Vivien waking up with a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile on her face. Rape? Even without going to the level of the Dworkin-MacKinnon loony left, some of the more ridiculous (but serious to them) college dating codes would seem to indicate that without 100% consent up front, that's indeed what they were.

Baker ("Sperm Wars") explains the reluctance/protestation as the females way of testing the male to ensure that he's sufficiently powerful to overcome her defenses and therefore would make a good father in the sense of producing strong offspring. In a review of his book in, I believe, The New Republic, this point was supported by the reviewer who added statistics from a study of rape victims showing an unusually high pregnancy rate. Obviously the study was before widespread contraception and the availability of abortion but seems to add fuel to the idea that the female is subconsciously very competent in managing conception.

In my view some level of coercion--and it probably has to be physical--would be a desirable addition to the porno repertoire, but unfortunately with the current mob of yahoos, it probably would descend into a Max Hardcore-like joke. I have no wish however to see the sort of activity shown in the Central Park jogger case (in NYC a few years back a group of low lifes seized a female off the jogging path, bashed her head in with a rock, and raped her) but I fear that is exactly the sort of activity that would appeal to the "jam that huge dick up the petite girl" poster (i.e. he wants to see the girl hurt).

There is the implication of...distress in movies such as Femmes De Sade, Waterpower, Fiona On Fire, and Expensive Tastes. I can't recall any where there is any real follow up such as with the French movie Rape Of Love. The latter had the worst of all possible worlds with repulsive males, a gang rape, and a feminist anti-male diatribe for the second part of the movie. The nullification idea--she really loved it--is indeed the easiest way to go but I think it's still well beyond the capabilities of the current people. They don't really even try though. Any attempt is usually converted into "play rape" where the viewer feels cheated if he's even fooled in the first place. To work, nullification shouldn't come as "It really wasn't rape" but rather as "He raped me but half-way through I realized that I liked him/the sex and wanted it to continue." The Wayne and Grant examples at the beginning are really metaphors for this type of activity.

...If there's a continual succession of (in this instance) unpunished rape movies, especially of the stranger-back-alley-beat-the-girl-up kind, the bourgeois viewer will be repelled by that type of movie and cease to see it as anything but worthy of condemnation. The proper resolution will mitigate the possible offence.

Refreshed after a night of watching porn and a little sleep, I'm now ready to tackle lattara and Msmulatto on the subject of participator vs voyeur.

First let me go back to my original position as imagined participator and try to clarify. Just as you find it difficult to put into words what's happening when you voyeuristically watch a sex scene, I also have problems explaining the participation angle.

Not that either of you have mentioned it but just to get it out of the way, a participator does not imagine himself as a porn stud on a porn set screwing a porn actress. Some of the slavering fan boys might do this but I certainly don't. I'd even say that if the movie maker emphasizes the porn aspect too much as in a pre-screw interview which mentions "working with" the scene becomes un-erotic with the only hopes of recovery being the stunning looks of the girl or an abnormally passionate performance giving the lie to the idea that she's only "working with".

It's a similar idea to the preening tapes such as Playboy and Penthouse. There's no participation in any action because there's nothing to participate in but you're not just watching the girl as an exercise in "Oh, yeah, she has a really nice body" while she washes the car but rather you're thinking "Wouldn't it be nice to run my hands over her firm tits and along her silken thighs..." IOW it's more than just a neutral admiration of the female form which seems to be the direction the voyeur heads.

As one moves up the action or characterization scale, the problem of the ineptness of most porno movies confuses the issue. If it's not possible to suspend disbelief or the character is insufficiently developed then the normally-a-participator viewer has to fall back on the looks/performance described earlier but presuming an ideal or close to ideal porno movie the participator is taking the girl and the concept and using her and the scenario to build his own fantasy.

>You seem to be assuming a universally egocentric or empathic (or vicarious?) >experience of porno (and, I assume, fantasy in general).

Focusing on the "fantasy in general" part, yes, that's correct. The same applies to mainstream movies and in areas having nothing to do with sex. In the politically incorrect times of my childhood, I have vivid memories of going to the Saturday matinees with a mob of kids from the neighborhood and watching (say) a western where John Wayne rounded up the wagons and killed lots of those vicious Indians thereby defending the sanctity of American womanhood (or something like that). The next day the entire neighborhood would be playing cowboys an indians with the prime role being the John Wayne character, but of course with some minor modifications. JW wouldn't go anywhere near those icky women, much less touch them, and we'd be a lot smarter than JW, knowing exactly when the indians were going to attack and the cavalry arrive.

In the porno area the participator is following the same principles with the same sort of modifications. He doesn't actually appear in the scene but rather it serves as a building block for his own fantasies so in fact calling him a participator is probably simplistic and wrong but I don't see a better word.

I can find a g/g scene erotic and do, and I imagine if I were female I could also relate to the gay scenes. What is happening is that I'm extracting the attractive girl and the reason why she's being g/g-screwed and I'm building a scenario along those lines. It's important that one of the girls be dominant and stay in character and if this is the case it easily becomes me screwing the girl. I haven't changed sex and I'm not imagining myself as female but just using those parts which are important to my fantasy. There's another advantage to g/g scenes as is sometimes pointed out by the g/g-fans: there's no sweaty ugly male. You don't have to work at expunging the parolee from your fantasy.

A second advantage is that where the two are real life lesbians or close to (some of Rodney Moore's girls from Seattle) they actually show some liking for each other which results in that emotion so often missing in porno scenes, passion. OTOH, you don't want to carry over the fact that this girl is likely to hate or at a minimum reject males. As shown in Things Change, a good moviemaker can impart a sense of "She's a deluded girl who would be screwing you (a guy) if she only knew how great you are." A good set up for one of those "gentle" rape scenes.

I can understand an unwillingness to do anal sex in real life--messy, painful, etc.--but those deterrent aspects can fairly easily be blotted out in your own fantasy. What the participator female would see is that gay male (presumably handsome and that's the reason for the concentration on the gays--faced with types such as RJ and Tedeschi in straight porn, we can all relate) is not butt banging his buddy but rather has been extracted into your fantasy and with a similar degree of passion is giving you a sense of "fullness" and that emotional contact you desire. Any pain/mess just doesn't occur. OTOH, if you hate the idea of anal sex so much (I'm not saying Msmulatto does, just pushing the idea to the extreme) you wouldn't want to watch it because there'd be nothing to pass across to your fantasy.

I'm sure there are plenty of guys who ARE dreaming that it's them kicking the winning goal in the World Cup, especially the young. Not sure if it applies to soccer but this is why in baseball there's so much condemnation of a player who's caught using drugs. The parents/powers-that-be, correctly in my view, feel that the youngster treats the baseball player as a role model and wants to be just like him. It's more than just fan adulation though as can be seen when you watch a little league game (or whatever the marginally organized local kids playing on Saturday morning would be called). You can see some of the identical mannerisms--the swagger, the hand gestures--you see in the professional game. Not much different than my earlier John Wayne example.

But even if this is limited to the young there are other problems. Soccer is a game of excellence where you can admire the performance of teams or players without actually fantasizing about your involvement. The comparable situation in porn would be an admiration for (say) Peter North's ejaculatory distance or a cheer from the viewer when Parolee-X actually could achieve erection for (say) Jeanna Fine. Wow, he's superstud. The only time this occurs seems to be on this NG (with Peter North) and I believe there was one of Holliday's extravaganzas where TT Boy managed to ejaculate seven times in a row with seven different women and that was touted on the box. It doesn't figure heavily in porn movies so I doubt too many people are interested. The concept of fierce devotion to his team that you point out has no correspondence in porn. If it did we'd be back to some ancillary competition as in the "How far can Peter North ejaculate" example.

>A lot of porn - especially the more or less plotless gonzo variants - >has more in common with sport than with the art/media which we tend to >compare it with. Not an original idea of mine. others in the group >have advanced this idea before, but I hope it gives some insight into >the way I see porn.

I think most of those ideas concerned the marketing of porn especially in connection with wrestling. Making outrageous statements, getting the girl's name known by appearing on Springer and Stern, doing things like the monster gang bangs, Black's campaign to show he can out-gross everyone, Mila's silliness with fruit, etc. It's like Ronnie MacDonald for MacDonald's, an extremely tenuous connection with the product they're actually selling.

I was rather hoping that one of you or both would reply that you didn't like written fiction to provide weight for the theory that the participator/voyeur difference lies in the degree of imagination you can internally apply to a given situation. It harks back to a comment by one of the (I think) Canadian posters that without the visual stimulus of porn he has trouble whacking off. Didn't work out. As to lattara's comments about the ASS groups being the home of pedophiles and the unimaginative, I only discovered them a month or so ago (someone's posting on rame) and have been pleasantly surprised. They seem to be a good substitute for the pulp novels which have disappeared from the marketplace.

It seems that even with the anonymity of the internet there's a significant segment of males who want to see a particular activity but are strenuous in defending the idea that they wouldn't want to do it in real life. I had a discussion a year or so ago with a literate and fair guy on this group (I'm too lazy to dig out the details) where he was fanatic about A2M but denied he would want to do it with his girlfriend. After much to-and-fro about the health aspects etc, eventually he admitted that under a circumstance where there was no possibility of disease transmission--end of the world, I think we got down to--he would indeed do it to his g/f and thoroughly enjoy it. Of course this is only one out of hundreds, and maybe he was only agreeing because he wanted to get me off his back...etc, etc, but it makes me wonder as to how many others there are.