Answering the question “Does the pornography industry throw up unrealistic images of women, sex and sexuality?” Susanna Paasonen says:
“Basically, porn exaggerates everything. It is not concerned with realism. I think Steve Marcus’ term ‘pornotopia’ is really useful in untangling the specificity of the world depicted in porn: abundance of sexual pleasures unlimited by the conditions of everyday life. In other words, porn as a genre does not have much to do with realism.”
Yet again I wonder, what sort of porn is Ms. Paasonen, and others who write about the unrealistic “porntopia” are watching. If someone out there is making porn that (convincingly) depicts “abundance of sexual pleasures unlimited by the conditions of everyday life,” I’d like to see it!
No, the problem with porn isn’t that depicts an unrealistic fantasy, it’s that porn depicts an unappealing reality.
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[...] Apparently that’s news enough for the New York Times to run yet another late to the party, misinformed and disinforming story about porn. Again I’m left wondering just what sort of porn the article’s author has been watching that the fact that you can see razor burns, pimples and celulite is news. Again I’m left with the suspicion that this in more of the mainstream media freebasing porn with precious little interest in the real story, or even the basic facts. [...]