Porn: Femininity and Masculinity Issues (Week 9)

There has always been an appeal to the pornography whether it is in films or in magazines. It is a temptation that is taboo to talk about yet watched and looked at millions of times in the day. The men and women in the films and pictures have been sexualized into becoming objects that just like to have sex. But how has to porn industry affected the way men and women then look at themselves as they and their partner are having sex. Or more importantly how they see themselves just as that certain gender. Women have always had to certain beauty standards that they must look up to and achieve. Pornography has fed to these stereotypes of how women should look naked. There is something attractive to the men that watch these videos and look at the images. They are beautiful women that are big busted, with a tiny waist, perfect smile, and long blonde hair. The men that then watch these women in these films then go back to have sex with their partner and find they don’t find their partner attractive anymore. They think that these women that are photo-shopped and have unrealistic beauty features are real and they can’t think about anything else, even when they are with their partner. Women go and then start to judge themselves against the women in these film because they want to be attractive to men again. But it isn’t only about the women in the films that are being portrayed, the men have some standards to stand up to in these films as well. Men may think that their masculinity is being challenged when they are watching these films or seeing images of male strippers and male porn stars. Women that then watch these films begin to look for guys that look like the actors, and they start to fantasize about what it would be like to be with them. The stereotype of a male body is greatly related to the female’s body stereotype; the difference is only that male’s issues are talked about enough.  Feminism time and time again complains about how men see women as object only to be sexualized but men do have to go through the same thing. There is huge hole in the system that says women shouldn’t be sexualized, and we can’t judge women for the way they look. Dove’s campaign for Real Beauty has had a huge success rate, yet when you look into the campaign they really only show pictures of young women. How about the men that feel like they aren’t good enough for the body image? The self-esteem of these men and these women that see films and pictures of these objectified people goes straight down. We as a society need to change the stigma about the pornography industry, and help bring this taboo topic out where we can talk about it and express a change that needs to happen.

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