Oct 24th (day 12): Conversations around porn

October 24th, 2008 by Hang

I gave a talk today to the iSchool Research Conversation class about my work on building better commenting systems for aminormalornot. Overall, the presentation went really well and there was some interesting conversation that came out of it but there was one segment of the discussion which verged into the surreal.

We were talking about communities and quality conversation and some people were trying to define an example of where awesome comments would not yield a high quality conversation and porn came up. For some reason, everyone seemed to get really attached to the porn thing and the debate over whether there was community around porn.

While I admit that I consume porn, I’m not especially interested in sharing my porn with others or getting into in depth discussion about my porn and I get the impression that not many people that I know are. As a result, I had a hard time imagining what a community around porn looked like and I was pretty sceptical that they existed to any great extent.

What was the really surreal part though, was that all the women in the room seemed adamant that porn communities exist while all the guys in the room just sat back and seemed like they clearly wanted to have no part in this conversation. Maybe women know something men don’t about porn but one woman seemed to speak with quite some experience about how there were connoisseurs of porn who cared deeply about the lighting and cinematography and passionate enough to share such thoughts with others.

I know it’s mean but after she said it, I couldn’t help imagining her stumbling upon her boyfriend surreptitiously watching a piece of graphic erotica and then accepting at face value, his explaination of “Honey, I’m just watching it for the lighting…”

Tags: ,
Also featured in blogs: Figuring Shit Out
| Comments (6)

  • http://www.meme-hazard.org/ Trond Nilsen

    You know, that result (women see community around porn exists while men do not) doesn’t actually surprise me, particularly based on the women I know..

    It’s not a conversation I have often, but several of my female friends in NZ have told me that they actively contribute to pornographic short fiction communities, and say they find it to be outlet that’s liberating in a way unlike any other. Sure, that’s anecdotal, but I think there probably is some general difference between men and women here about openness and willingness to discuss sexual activity. I bet there’s research out there that backs this up, too..

    Also, I’d be interested to hear you talk about your ideas regarding commenting systems some time, too..

  • http://www.meme-hazard.org Trond Nilsen

    You know, that result (women see community around porn exists while men do not) doesn’t actually surprise me, particularly based on the women I know..

    It’s not a conversation I have often, but several of my female friends in NZ have told me that they actively contribute to pornographic short fiction communities, and say they find it to be outlet that’s liberating in a way unlike any other. Sure, that’s anecdotal, but I think there probably is some general difference between men and women here about openness and willingness to discuss sexual activity. I bet there’s research out there that backs this up, too..

    Also, I’d be interested to hear you talk about your ideas regarding commenting systems some time, too..

  • John Marino

    OK, this posting is offensive.

    I was at the talk yesterday, and the topic of online porn communities was a small part of the overall conversation. My colleagues (who are not “girls” btw) made some insightful comments on one aspect of web communities–to say “everyone seemed to get really attached to the porn thing” is a gross mischaracterization of the discussion. Now, if you want to raise the issue of porn communities on your blog, you should own it yourself–not by characterizing the women in the room as purveyors of porn. Moreover, if you saw the men in the room as sitting back and wanting the conversation to end then you clearly were not listening to us.

    BTW, you misspelled the word “skeptical.”

  • John Marino

    OK, this posting is offensive.

    I was at the talk yesterday, and the topic of online porn communities was a small part of the overall conversation. My colleagues (who are not “girls” btw) made some insightful comments on one aspect of web communities–to say “everyone seemed to get really attached to the porn thing” is a gross mischaracterization of the discussion. Now, if you want to raise the issue of porn communities on your blog, you should own it yourself–not by characterizing the women in the room as purveyors of porn. Moreover, if you saw the men in the room as sitting back and wanting the conversation to end then you clearly were not listening to us.

    BTW, you misspelled the word “skeptical.”

  • http://www.bumblebeelabs.com/ Hang

    John: It was indeed a very small part of the discussion but it was the most memorable part for me, just because it came so far out of left field. I was not casting any value judgments on anyone in the room, we were all adults and I think the discussion around porn was mostly done from a value neutral context. I thought it was worth blogging about for two reasons:

    One was the interesting sociological observation that, at least within that room, there was a clear gender divide on opinions of whether porn communities were a large part of porn. I actually made this observation during the talk and I don’t remember anyone challenging me on it. I don’t think I was in any way characterizing women as purveyors of porn and I don’t see where you got that insinuation from. My personal explanation (which I was not prepared to justify in a professional context and so therefore kept to myself) was that in modern society, for a female to be really into porn is considered sexy and liberating and enlightened whereas for a guy to be really into porn is considered misanthropic and obsessive.

    Two was that I just wanted to share some of the bizarre inner monologue that passes through my head every day. If you believe that this is aberrant or abnormal behavior, well… you know the site to go to.

    I’m sorry that you found this post offensive but I stand by everything I say with the exception of calling them “girls”. I’ve edited the post to reflect that.

    BTW: sceptical is the British spelling of the word. I’ve been slowing shifting my spelling to standard, American English but force of habit established via 18 years of living in Australia can be hard to break.

  • http://www.bumblebeelabs.com Hang

    John: It was indeed a very small part of the discussion but it was the most memorable part for me, just because it came so far out of left field. I was not casting any value judgments on anyone in the room, we were all adults and I think the discussion around porn was mostly done from a value neutral context. I thought it was worth blogging about for two reasons:

    One was the interesting sociological observation that, at least within that room, there was a clear gender divide on opinions of whether porn communities were a large part of porn. I actually made this observation during the talk and I don’t remember anyone challenging me on it. I don’t think I was in any way characterizing women as purveyors of porn and I don’t see where you got that insinuation from. My personal explanation (which I was not prepared to justify in a professional context and so therefore kept to myself) was that in modern society, for a female to be really into porn is considered sexy and liberating and enlightened whereas for a guy to be really into porn is considered misanthropic and obsessive.

    Two was that I just wanted to share some of the bizarre inner monologue that passes through my head every day. If you believe that this is aberrant or abnormal behavior, well… you know the site to go to.

    I’m sorry that you found this post offensive but I stand by everything I say with the exception of calling them “girls”. I’ve edited the post to reflect that.

    BTW: sceptical is the British spelling of the word. I’ve been slowing shifting my spelling to standard, American English but force of habit established via 18 years of living in Australia can be hard to break.