Brief Thoughts on Beauty and Expectations

(Editor's note: This post initially appeared on my Tumblr. But since they decided to kill that site by removing erotica, porn, etc. I just decided to move a couple of my commentary pieces here.)

As an solid, hardcore introvert, I find people watching at remove to be a fascinating hobby. And the amateur sociologist in me has been pondering this conundrum recently:

The expectation of an attractive person being good in bed is somewhat paradoxical, no?

The theory is that we are usually attracted to others by what we see first; usually we have to be interested in what we see in order to engage. As a 5 on a scale of 1-10 I concede that I am guilty of this every damn day. And I am really not in a position to judge.

(I'm probably being generous in calling myself a 5 as well.)

Anyway, what I wonder, though, is how often does the rating on appearance match up with the ability to actually satisfy a partner in bed.

Like, we drool over women (or men, for those who swing that way) all the time that might be gorgeous/handsome...but how disappointed would we actually be if we got them into bed and found out that they were horrible?

Addendum to a Prior Post on Fetishizing People

(Editor's note: This post initially appeared on my Tumblr. But since they decided to kill that site by removing erotica, porn, etc. I just decided to move a couple of my commentary pieces here.)

So I wrote this yesterday at my other spot on the web. But I wanted to add a brief thought.

One of the things that led me to post this was seeing a few profiles on Twitter where there were women and couples very much trying to live the “Queen of Spades”/cuckold lifestyle where the black dick is good enough to fuck, but god forbid they care about the life of the actual man attached to the dick. A whole lot of MAGA-type propaganda mixed in with the tweets bragging about taking black dick and loving black dick on the profiles of some of these folks.

I find the cognitive dissonance fascinating and frustrating.

Basically, they just want a flesh dildo.

Navigating Companionship as a Client of Color

Hopped on the Twitter machine earlier today and saw this post lingering:

It’s sad that some men have to ask if a provider will see their race. I couldn’t image having to deal with that type of discrimination. I can’t image why some ladies would deny a client based on race. Shit has got me fucked up 💔

— Emma Lee (@EmmaLee_Riley) September 6, 2018

I wrote a brief reply tweet, but thought that it was worth expanding my thoughts a bit.

I first started seeing providers as a client when I was in college in the mid 1990s. The small town that I went to school in had what was, for all intents and purposes, a brothel on the northern edge of town. I didn't know what it was at the time; I was a horny 18 and 19 year old when I learned about the place from the nascent internet and was riding my bike five miles one way to receive some companionship.

I was young and in much better shape, but I was also black. And in a rural college town, especially on the outskirts of said town, I still felt like I had to be careful. And I was always wary of possible rejection.

Preferences Are Fine. Fetishizing People Is Not.

I’ve seen it mentioned recently in a couple of tweets that “People are not a fetish”. I agree with the sentiment behind that statement, although I would refine it to read that “People should not be a fetish.” Because the reality is that people’s racial and ethnic backgrounds are, unfortunately, fetishes for some.

Since I’m a big nerd, though, let’s go to the dictionary (Thanks Merriam-Webster!):

fetish

noun  fe·tish 

1a : an object (such as a small stone carving of an animal) believed to have magical power to protect or aid its owner; broadly : a material object regarded with superstitious or extravagant trust or reverence

b : an object of irrational reverence or obsessive devotion : prepossession

c : an object or bodily part whose real or fantasied presence is psychologically necessary for sexual gratification and that is an object of fixation to the extent that it may interfere with complete sexual expression

2: fixation 

3: a rite or cult of fetish worshippers

Speaking as a black male, there are multiple subcultures where black men (and our skin color) are the focus of somewhat irrational reverence or prepossession; where our bodily parts are viewed as an object of fixation and the presence of certain parts are necessary for the sexual gratification of some individuals/couples.

Is that correct or nice? No. No one should be reduced to being viewed as a collection of discrete parts. And yet it happens a lot; too often in fact.

(Porn is guilty of doing this. All the damn time. In all kinds of different fucking ways, by the way).

Let’s move on to another word, though, that might make more sense in the context of some of the things we see bandied about online:

First FOSTA/SESTA. Now This Bullshit

So FOSTA/SESTA passed and completely disrupted several aspects of the adult entertainment industry online, causing several major escort review sites and message boards to shut down, along with the entire personals section of Craigslist as well as the total sites Backpage and Mojovillage. I wrote about that here.

Now, it appears that the next prong in the attack on American sex workers is to stop them for having access to money. A current bill that has passed the House but has not yet come up for vote in the Senate is the End Banking for Human Traffickers Act. Again, meant to crack down on human trafficking, but will instead take aim at the people that have voluntarily entered into sex work.

Don't Let FOSTA/SESTA Be The End Of Sex Work

It has been horrifying to witness the fallout from the signing of FOSTA/SESTA and what it has done to sexwork in the United States.

For those who have been living under a rock, FOSTA (Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act) and SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act) are bills from the House and Senate that were signed into law back in April. Ostensibly, on the face, the bill were created to make it illegal to knowingly assist, facilitate, or support sex trafficking.

However, they was essentially a poison pill included that amended a past Communication Decency Act, which removed immunity from online services for the actions of their users.

What this poison pill has led to was the seizure of Backpage.com, the termination of the classified section of Craigslist, and the shutdown (out of fear) of other sites in the United States that provided a forum for professional sex workers to advertise and promote their services.

It has also led to Twitter and other social media sites to revise their terms of use to provide them more shielding in the wake of FOSTA/SESTA (and probably to continue and step up their shadowbanning of sex workers).

This has had harmful, deleterious affects on the women who utilize these services.

Guys, We Are Killing Porn

I admit that I do not subscribe to traditional machismo, and that probably, in the eyes of some of y'all, invalidates the point I am about to make. But to be blunt, I don't really give a fuck if you think that. It doesn't make it any less true.

Here goes:

Us guys are killing porn.

We are killing porn in a wide variety of ways.

Hold on. Wait a damn minute? What do you mean we're killing porn? Aren't you being a bit ridiculous in making that claim?

I don't really think I am.

I've been watching and consuming porn for almost 25 years. I think that the blessing and boon that is the internet was the beginning of the downhill slide, but the descent has only accelerated in the last decade or so.

The tube sites and piracy negatively impact the bottom line of many of the companies. On some level, it has stifled creativity, IMHO. It also financially hurts the pro-am performer, as they receive no compensation for stolen clips/videos that you wank to for free (and guilt free, apparently).