White Maiden, Black Brutes: the Erotic Politics of My Porn Collection (Part I)
In an earlier entry, I confessed to being conflicted about one of my most recent indulgences: “enjoys straight porn. wonders if enjoying women's bodies this way compromises his feminism”. The question that I posed to myself was: why do I enjoy this porn and how might that enjoyment reflect, impact or undermine my feminist politics? With questions like this one, there are no easy answers. As such, I’d like to use this blog as a space to unpack and interrogate all of the lusts, fetishes, politics and contradictions that take shape when I watch my favorite porn.
The first issue I’d like to explore is my taste in porn. I am drawn almost exclusively to DVDs featuring white women being penetrated by [several] well endowed black men.
Due to my current research on white normativity and white supremacy in American literature a
nd visual culture, I am constantly analyzing and critiquing the values of the white patriarchial power structure in our country. More than anything else, my work on these issues strives to illuminate the intersection of race, gender and sexuality (amongst other categories). As such, I am acutely aware of the place that the white female body occupies in American culture. The virginal white maiden is the ideal upon which this country was built. When personified, America is never anything but a white woman. And it is this white woman – in all of her Victorian purity – that white men have risked life and limb to defend both here and abroad. And, to be clear, it is this icon of chaste white femaleness that has caused white America to agonize about savage sexual appetites of the virile black brute.Rather than rehearsing that centuries-long history within this blog entry, I encourage you to check out this site, which surveys the development of the black brute from Reconstruction through the 1988 Presidential campaign. For now, back to the porn.
I think the iconography of the ferocious black Mandingo and virginal white America has everything to do with how interracial porn is made and marketed. In nearly every porn that I own (and trust me, it’s quite a library!), both the actresses and the jacket copyrighters make very clear statements about the racial dynamic at play in the film. Here’s some of the copy from the covers:
“These dirty sluts like ‘em big & black. Watch them get impaled every which way by some of the biggest, blackest cocks in porn.” –Big Black Meat, Volumes 1-6“We Nail Little White Girls”
–Eat My Black Meat
“Tight Pussies & Assess Stretched Permanently by Big Black Monster Dicks!”
– I Was Tight Yesterday
“Three white sluts each get five black cocks. Watch them all get fucked raw in their pussies & asses.” –5 on 1
What’s interesting to me about the jacket copy quoted here is how blatant they are in activating the stereotypes of the virginal white maiden being violated by the black brute.
It’s almost as if there’s an entire industry built upon the white patriarchal power structure’s deepest fear: the ravishing of the white female body.
The next installments in this exploration will delve deeper into the myriad dynamics I believe to be at play here. For now, I’d like to focus on how they reflect my politics.
Initially, I resolved that one of the many reasons that I enjoy this porn is because it allows me to thumb my nose at the white patriarchal power structure's tireless efforts to protect its maidens from black brutes like me. It’s the ultimate affront to white supremacy to see its ultimate idol -- its most treasured commodity compromised this way. As such, I could read my enjoyment of the film as an act of subversion.
And here’s why that might be problematic:
1. It presumes that sex defiles the female [or receiving] body.
2. It (ab)uses the white female body as fodder in the war with white males. That’s misogyny at its worst.
3. It reveals my own desire to read myself as a virile black brute rather than a skinny, queer, Ivy League PhD candidate. This raises the question – Might otherwise mild-mannered black men purchase these films as a means of connecting with the stereotype of savage black masculinity?
4. It ignores that the subversive act here – the pillaging of the white female body – is one created and market by the white power structure itself, in the form of white directors, producers and film companies. So, even if it provides the sumptuous image of black dominion over pristine white pussy, the very purchasing of that fantasy only fattens the pockets of the white men who have masterfully manufactured that phantasm.
More to come, including an analysis of the homoerotics of straight gangbang porn, the allure of raw sex, envy for the self-lubricating orifice, the (inferior?) quality of gay porn vs straight porn, the nostalgic value of straight porn for gay men and more!
posted by Larry D. Lyons II @ 10:20 PM
19 Comments:
while it may be premature of me to comment, i'll still say:
(i) trying to find all the problems of your attraction to straight porn may be a fruitless endeavor. as far as i am aware, there are no rules when it comes to the determination of what anyone is turned on by. moreover, just because you happen to be turned by on it in film doesn't mean that you'd be turned on by it in real life, where it matters. i hasten to say that the
"laws" that govern what turns you on are as arbitrary as your sexuality. you can't flagellate yourself any more for being turned on by straight porn anymore than you can flagellate yourself for being gay. you don't have a choice in either case.
(ii) a great deal of porn thrives on taboo, and the manufacturing of taboo where there is no longer one after all, if the acceptability of sex were as commonplace as the flossing of teeth, it wouldn't be half as exciting, "wrong" and "powerful". i think a while ago you wrote about the dynamics of power in sex, which would also be relevant here.
(iii) it may merit investigation to see if there's an equal amount of porn of a black woman and a bunch of white men. i suspect there isn't, mostly because of the supposed stereotype that black men have bigger penises not because some white producer doesn't see a big enough market for it.
kermit: your comments are much appreciated and not at all premature. the more, the merrier, i say! :)
(i) i find this project to be quite fruitful, actually. i'm a strong believer that time spent interrogating one's own actions, habits, patterns, desires and prejudices is time well spent. as a highly principled critical thinker, endeavors like this one are what allow me to test and refine my politics.
you are right to point out that there's often a disconnect between what one enjoys in fantasy and what one enjoys in real life. however, the notion that either of those desires "matters" more is not one that i'd endorse. in fact, if forced to choose, i'd say that the domain of fantasy does more to reveal one's true self than the domain of action. why? because our fantasies are our own -- we are not bound or beholden to anyone or anything else. as such, we are freer to engage that which is taboo without inhabition or penalty. without the potentially judging eye of a sexual partner, one has full range to entertain those things he'd be too embarrassed to mention, much less attempt. the content of fantasy is no trifling matter.
so, while there may be a disconnect between the two, i think that interrogating the politics of one's fantasy is important (yes, fruitful) work to do. not necessarily looking for answers, mind you... merely appreciating the asking of the question.
i'd also disagree with your equating the origins of one's sexuality with the origins of their fantasy: i experience the two as being quite different. case and point: there's never been a time when i wasn't attracted to men. there was a time, however, when i was fairly repulsed by the vagina and wholly opposed to watching straight porn. as such, i think that its interesting to consider that my embrace of interracial straight porn (would coincide with the precise moment in my life that my intellectual life is consumed by critiques of white supremacy and misogyny.
this work.. this drawing connections between my intellectual life and the subject of my fantasies is hardly self flagellation. i've never said that i feel badly for any of this. i enjoy what i enjoy unapologetically. that does not mean, however, that it shouldn't stand up to interrogation or critique.
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i didn't mean to imply that you shouldn't spend time interrogating your actions, habits, patterns, desires and prejudices. i do so as well. the point i was trying to make is that you have control over your politics, there is a rhyme and reason to them - something i don't think is true of what one is sexually aroused by.
for some reason, i got the impression that you're engaging in this navel-gazing in part to see if you're on track with becoming whoever it is you want to be as a person. to me, that means that if in these exercises you see something amiss, you attempt to change it. (at least that's what i do anyway). so that's why i said that these flagellations seem fruitless to me. if you discover that what you're sexually attracted to "contradicts" your politics, what of it? you don't exactly have control over what turns you on. that's why i'm inclined to believe that what one has no control over - such as aspects of one's sexuality - is absolutely no reflection of one's politics (never mind the domain of fantasy or reality).
of course, i am speaking as a person whose turn ons haven't really changed, per se, so i don't really know how what to make of your quandary that you used to be repulsed by heterosexual porn but now you're not. yes, i do have a hard time trying to remember what it was that attracted me to some of my past bedfellows when i look at them now and can't think of a single attractive thing about them. this is different though because i am not the same person i was in high school, not that my turn-ons have changed.
Peace Larry,
Very interesting blog entry. It raises a number of important questions to me.
I would call your attention to the text from the four video jacket quotes. 2 position the (European) women as seemingly virginal, "little white girls" and "tight pussies and assess" and two position them as sluts. I propose that there are several archetypes or tropes related to women in the European cultural narrative. Two of them the virgin and the whore.
An analysis of the sociopolitical implications of consumption of these videos can't leave that distinction out without losing a signficant analytical resource.
I am also curious about the degree which you, as you are watching, presumably "master=bating" to these videos, you are whitewashing the white women out of the video and in place having a virtual/technological orgy with the Black men who are featured in these movies. In other words, is the occasion of a depiction of sex involving groups of Black men who tend to conform generally within a specific range of masculine performance/identity brought about by the white women whose presence can then be cut and pasted out of consciousness so that you, a man who experiences same-sex desire and practices same-sex sexuality, can enjoy sexual proximity to such an occasion, if only at the level of the virtual?
To the degree that what I am proposing is true, might the politics of sexism and patriarchy also be present? The use, manipulation, and negation of the female character--as object--for the purposes of male homosociality and homoerotics.
I am curious about what your pornographic relationship to these men is. Are you mainly watching them? For what are you watching/looking (e.g., an act, a body form)? Where is your gaze as you watch these movies? In what ways do the actions of these men in form your personal sexual practice? And what are you doing when you watch these videos.
thanks for "airing your clean laundry" larry (emphasis on the clean), smiles!
i would like to return to this notion of "fantasy." the place wherein "we are not bound or beholden to anyone or anything else. as such, we are freer to engage that which is taboo without inhibition or penalty" in that space.
somewhere in the interstices of our subjective being-in-the-world (our reality as we experience it) and our objective being-of-the-world (our reality as we perceive it) lies an imaginative space wherein we can conjure the hidden and unconscious narratives / images / etc. that trouble the heedful mind. in this case, your willingness to interrogate your responses – those on the surface or lurking unawares – is more than a mere attempt at, i think, “navel-gazing in part to see if you're on track with becoming whoever it is you want to be as a person.” I think that it signals the “you” who is…
i appreciate Herukhuti’s line of questioning, because it seeks to mine the depths of your fantasy so that you can tap into that space and discover exactly who you are in the very moments you watch – and perform with? – “DVDs featuring white women being penetrated by [several] well endowed black men.”
your thoughts remind me to be aware of my own process of disassociation in the spiritual/sexed-moment.
I am completely enjoying this elightening discussion. While I was taught to deconstruct movies as an undergraduate, I never thought to apply that thinking to porn, which I have also enjoyed over the years. Frankly, I never thought to question why I like it or what impact my tastes have on how I view myself or relate to others. I do know that I am quite bored by most of the porn I see, which leads to ask what it is I want to see and why?
Thanks!
This is the rule regarding fetishes. If you can think of it, some sick fuck is already masturbating to it, hence the animal porn.
p.s. Iv'e read your other blogs and you are one arrogant motherfucker....
heru:
the distinction that you draw between the virgin and the whore is well taken. however, i might insist that these identities are drawn in face of the women's relationship to black dick. either the women are virginal maidens, soon to be stretched and sullied by the black phallus or whores for desiring that very same phallus. as i read it, there's a causual relationship suggested by the line "These dirty sluts like ‘em big & black." it is not that these white women are fundamentally sluts; it's their desire for big black dick that makes them so. the jacket copy captures the way in which their very identiies are transformed by that inflated blackness (polyvalent Derridean pun intended). said simply: lusting after black dick transforms the virgin into a whore.
rather than constituting independent identities, the virgin and the whore in this conversation actually serve as two nodes of temporal relationality to the only thing positioned to matter: the big black monster dick. but then, that may just be our latent misogony talking.
to address your inquiry: yes, i am masturbating to these videos and yes, i am whitewashing the women out of it. this was precisely the point i planned to address in my next post: i think these films sponsor and facilitate the absenting of the female actors. in many scenes, the women border on becoming literally invisible. one man jerks off at the corner of the screen. one gets a handjob, one gets a blowjob. the other two busy themselves with the ass and pussy. in terms of what is optically available, there's a veritable feast for the homoerotic gaze. black men fucking... something. the white women become indeterminate matter. for me, negligable.
so, one can either imagine himself as the thing being fucked or he can simply enjoy the ambiguity created by the optical absenting of the female body and watch it as if it were gay porn. gay porn with masculine, muscular, straight-identified, well-endowed men having raw sex with one another. either way, this 5-on-1 porn avails itself as black gay porn par excellence and, in so doing, illuminates the interesting ways in which misogyny can nourish homoerotics.
and my favorite question:
"In what ways do the actions of these men in form your personal sexual practice?"
-- they make me envy and long for the self-lubricating, non-defecating orafice.
One of the most significant outcomes of my watching has been my desire for my partner to come to the bed (or couch, or floor) all fleeted out and lubed up. the men on the screen aren't required to think about hygene or lubrication - why should i? handle that shit on your own, so i can just go at it.
Needless to say, because it is insensitive this practice shouldn't go without comment or censure... hence the need for this post. i think these are fascinating questions to ask... and i'm elated that i can move so freely between my blog and my bedroom to engage them as rigorously publicly as i do privately.
anon:
you're right. reading this blog can give you the distinct impression that i'm somewhat of an arrogant prick. fancy that!
Peace Larry,
I appreciate your serious engagement of my comments. And I liked the thinking behind your response. I have some additional feedback. You said, "the women border on becoming literally invisible." I offer to you the possibility that you make/render the women virtually invisible (to you) through your use of your gaze.
Also, I disagree with your assertion that liking Black dick makes the white women sluts in the political economy of White supremacy. I think the slut or the whore has been an archetype within the European cultural community long before the emergence of the big Black Dick (pun intended). Likewise, patriarchy, misogyny, sexism, male supremacy, and the war on women's power occurred within the European cultural community before Europeans, as Caucasians, encountered big Black dick.
In the context of European cultural hegemony, big Black dicks make (slutty or virginal) white women dirty, as the modifier before the noun suggests in the blurb.
On a different note, in responding to my question, whether deliberately or not, you outed/positioned yourself as a "top." Assuming that "top" does accurately describe your chosen sexual practice, I wonder how someone whose sexual practice is something other than "top" consumes or relates to these videos.
well larry you're a man...and correct me if i am wrong, men like to see women in completely debased and humiliating positions.
so if you feel that your love of this type of porn is a betrayal of your feminism, it is.
and on another note: who watches porn anyway? it's boring and formulaic. don't you have an active imagination? I do and that is all i need.
before you misunderstand me, i do not have any real idea as to why you watch this type of porn. who knows? but watching [white] women in these types of positions is a bit problematic, and i do not think that there is any quick-fix remedy to this contradiction.
you can ignore my comment about you being a man- it was tongue in cheek- but i HAVE witnessed personal situations in which men seemed to have enjoyed a powerful woman's embarrassment; the brouhaha over hilary clinton, michelle obama and (at times) condolezza rice is a good example of this.
i do have one question- if the race of the men and woman was reversed (white men and black woman) how would you read your desire for that type of porn as opposed to the current example?
Hi.
I am very new to the bloggersphere or whatever
And … Well I am even newer to the comments
Section. I really enjoy Larry’s blogs. Um so much
So that I come read and leave. Sense he asked for
More comments I guess I thought it would be um…
(Sigh; feeling really dumb, wishing this was church
So that I could hear a big heart, ample breast sister on
The mother's board shout, 'Take your time baby.' If she did I would say, 'thank you' and proceed.)
I think porn is great.
I am biased because I discovered
Porn at an age where I had no tools and prolly no options
To think it was anything other than wonderful. But I often
Wonder what I am feeding myself when I click open
A browser window and find myself stuck poring over
Cyber parchment inked in naked skin for walls.
I often times wonder why I can’t really be monogamous
Did I write that out loud?
My favorite porn stars are never with the same person.
Nor do they ever have the same sexual situation in a
Static way. Always shifting.
My best friends used to call me an intellectual porn star
Because though I was this kind of nerd, geek,
sex would
Pour unto me in the strangest situations. I will tell you About those later.
But because my job is that of a writer
A dramatic writer, I am in the business of making my imagination
Palpable.
And I guess what I am getting at is… my
Imagination… which has been sexually, fantastically,
Fed poison'd inspired touched
whatever
by porn in so
Many ways… has sprung to life multiple times and with great accuracy that I stopped calling them coincidence. I was making things happen. No matter how haphazard they seemed. I would tell me friends and they said no that shit only happens in, well, in porn.
And I don’t think its
Because I am super attractive or …have sex appeal or have
An amazing charm. I believe its because I have something
In my brain (whoreishness ☺ ) that enables me, makes me
Believe that what is in my head should be made manifest
In my life.
Its one thing to fantasize but how are we acting out
Our pornography repertoire in our lives? Its great to
See what issues we are bringing from our lives to our
Porn, but what comes away with us into the real world
Besides sticky palms and tired fingers? Shrugs.
Thank you?
T Oct.
Oh, you smart, but nasty. Intellectual hardons are the best. I wish I was smart enough to analize why I like porn. I just feel like Tarzan. Porn make me hard. Me need release juice. Juice leave me feel better. Where the hell is Cheetha?
Okay, normally I don't negotiate with terrorist, but since I am new to your blog and very intriqued by it...I have made an exception. Sorry, nothing that I post will be profound, by any means. I don't even know what porn is? I's a virgin. No, really. I am. And virgins don't watch that stuff.
I'm late to this discussion, but if it's not too late to comment...
...actually, much of what I wanted to say has been amply and ably unpacked by others: the necessity of preserving the distinction between the inter-acting archetypes of virgin/whore on the jacket copy; the ways in which the white woman functions as a narrative and masturbatory excuse for the sincere appreciation of black men; etc. I did want to suggest that this, however:
"(iii) it may merit investigation to see if there's an equal amount of porn of a black woman and a bunch of white men. i suspect there isn't, mostly because of the supposed stereotype that black men have bigger penises not because some white producer doesn't see a big enough market for it."
is something worth debating, as the [comparative] dearth of black woman/white man porn has less to do with the perceptual inadequacy of white masculinity and much more to do with the "problem" of black women's femininity (i.e. it's insufficient in some way, it's uncomfortably close to the animal, etc.) There's a real disconnect between the ways in which the pornographic imagination links black femininity and black female sexuality and the ways it links white femininity and white female sexuality.
Anyway, really provocative and challenging post.
Okay...okay...okay...Only because it's you Larry. And since I'm not a connaisseur in the matters of human sexuality and its history(past or present), except my own of course, and since I'm not as eloquent as some of my fellow posters here(yes I'm looking at you HERUKUTI and DARNELL),I'll simply say that generally heterosexual porn turns me off unless it involves black on black or black on brown. And I'm not certain I picture myself as being on either side of the phallus. Long as the gleaming image of it stay in my sight (a divine vision if you ask me).Homosexual porn on the other hand HAS to be on the bareback side to get me going.
Just my humble two cents.
Cheers,
seems like to sexualize a person is to put them into a category, to make them exempt from normal-ness. An attraction to a black man has to turn into an attraction to this big black dick that knows how to satisfy. The man is taken out of the picture.
If I were a little ashamed of my attraction to someone, the best way for me to imagine my perversion would be for that someone to be taking advantage of me. I'd try to imagine myself the "victim" of my attraction.
Maybe these porn videos play into a culture's discomfort with inter-raciality (is that a word?)
Or maybe I talk to much. Anyway, I think that's what I think.
Reg.
Y'all should watch Primeval!
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