Real life vs. Porn (authorish thread)

[Colleen Thomas]

I think most of us who write erotica have watched porn at some time or another. I think too, we all recognize the distinctly distorted world visual porn usually portrays. The kind of thing where a wife walks in on her husband at work, doing his secretary and decides to join in. I know the majority of that unreality is the format, your average watcher isn't worried about a long backstory or the why's of it, he just wants to see the actors getting it on and most any excuse is fine.

As writers, we have issues with backstory, characterization and at least resembling reality to a point where the reader will aceept the antics and actions of our characters.

So often in my works, the actual nuts and bolts of two people getting physical is a breeze to write after the laborious task of getting them to that point.

The goal of visual porn is to get a watcher off. The goal of written erotica is the same. Yet I can watch a flick where the protag walks in on her boss's secretary eating her out and she just jumps in and I can enjoy that. While if I read such a scenario in a story I would be gagging.

I began wondering why that is. Is it the fact I expect less from a flick? Or expect more from a story? Or is it the nature of the medium, visual being very visceral while the written word is very cereberal? Or are we just wired to accept what we see on TV with less critical evaluation than wht we read?

Any thoughts?

 

[impressive]

Is it the fact I expect less from a flick? Or expect more from a story? Or is it the nature of the medium, visual being very visceral while the written word is very cereberal? Or are we just wired to accept what we see on TV with less critical evaluation than wht we read?

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes. (Well, "programmed" is probably more applicable than "wired.")

 

[lucky-E-leven]

I don't know that my expectations are different so much as the fact that when I watch video, it's less personal. Reading, for me, is such that I'm often able to feel right along with the characters because their feelings and actions are written and thus right at the front of my consciousness. (I also think that characters in something I read have more depth because I have to create the visual of them in my head, and in order to do that I need to know a great deal about what's going on instead of having all the props and scene garbage already there; i.e. easier to ignore or pay little attention to.) Video is very mindless for me, and I rarely feel the translation of emotion as strongly from it as I do from something written.

~lucky

 

[Stella_Omega]

You expect less from a flick because you've never gotten more from a flick. That's the way I see it!

What I don't understand is- why do so many writers insist on forcing their characters into business or marital situations? When you fuck your secretary, you lose an employee, and, possibly, your business. When your wife walks in on you, in the real world, you lose the house and custody of the kids, too. These stories tend to fill me with foreboding, I don't read them comfortably.

 

[lil_elvis]

Colly,

When we read something, we've got higher expectations, or at least I would believe those hanging out in the AH would, so jumping straight into sex is not what we're ready for. We want to be seduced.

While with video, there's the glaring problem that most of the participants can't act for shit. They're just good (in some cases anyway) at fucking, sucking, etc. I can't recall any porno movie I've seen where you don't want to do anything except fast forward between the sex scenes. You'll never get seduced by the lead-ins.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes. (Well, "programmed" is probably more applicable than "wired.")

LOL,

I probably should have prefaced this with what brought the question on. I'm staying at my brothers and while he is at work I tend to be pretty bored. he has all the nudy channels, on eof which shows really high quality european porn. the dubbing is horrid, so I usually keep the sound off.

In the particualr scene a sales woman closes a sale and as soon as she leaves the office, the boss lady's secretary comes in. Cut to the saleswoman in her car, realizing she left her sample case. She walks in on the boss, legs thrown over the arms of her desk chair with her secretary between her legs. A little shock, an invitation from the boss and the saleswoman joins them.

The models are pretty, but not distressingly so as is common in US porn. The scene was hot and I enjoyed watching it. When it panned to the next scene of a guy and girl I lost interest. I was thinking, wow, that was hot, I should write a story with that in there and began to consider it. It dawned on me then how extremely improbable it was, how much background work I would have to do to set it up and just how much disbelief I would have to be asking the reader to suspend. But none of that even occured to me while watching it.

 

[Alex756]

I think the best way to look at it is break it into stroke and stories that happen to have alot of sex.

Now some people walk the line, but *shrug* evidently writen stroke with very little plot and almost no characterization is well recieved here.

Most of my writing the -sex- is the hard part, getting the character stogether is the fun part. I think why I had such a blast with the NaNo thing, if characters ended up together it was mainstream described and a paragraph later they went on with doing things.

For my stroke contest entry though the sex just flowed. it was like describing how to do something. no characters or thoughts really to get in the way, just 2 characters who a porn direct would cast as the guy the blonde and the brunette. Besides having named them, the written version didn't go much deeper.

So I think it depends on what we're looking for. Like I have a friend who was looking for good reading, knowing him a bit, I sent him carson's link. he was looking for plot and characters though instead of same old same old.

Porno's are pretty much same old same old. I think I've written descs for a good 3K auctions by now reselling tapes (long story) but it is sooo formulaic.

Some porn directors have REAL things they've done too though which aren't the formula but break out of it. I don't think there is anything wrong with the formula for what it is, and some poeple are GOOD at it. stroke for strokes sake isn't bad. But there is something else out there that isn't stroke.

~Alex

 

[impressive]

While with video, there's the glaring problem that most of the participants can't act for shit. They're just good (in some cases anyway) at fucking, sucking, etc. I can't recall any porno movie I've seen where you don't want to do anything except fast forward between the sex scenes. You'll never get seduced by the lead-ins.

Agreed.

I don't seek visual stimulation at all -- stills or video. It just doesn't flip my triggers like a word, a touch, a scent. However, if I'm in a room & a video is playing, I'll watch & get aroused. That part's wired.

 

[Alex756]

I would have to do to set it up and just how much disbelief I would have to be asking the reader to suspend. But none of that even occured to me while watching it.

We suspend disbelief ALL the time. Its the given of the genre of stroke that stuff like that happens.

If you write the backstory and try to make a huge set up, you'll never overcome (well it would be gianormous backsstory) the disbelief in the same way a reader is willing to throw their knowledge of real out the window when encountered with a stroke story.

~Alex

 

[LadyJeanne]

It could be that, as writers, we look for more in a story. Perhaps if we were filmmakers, our expectations of a porn flick might be much higher because we'd be looking at a lot of different aspects to the film.

Also, maybe a reader of erotica is more likely to be turned on by a story than a film, and vice-versa, so again, the expectations are higher. The Loving Wives readers certainly have very particular expectations and are quick to point out when a story does not meet them. It's not enough for the wife to fuck another man, the backstory has to be to their exact specifications or they're disappointed.

And my third hypothesis is that a visual medium will more likely titillate the visual senses, where a story requires the reader to imagine and therefore participate more in the action in order to get turned on. Porn films don't really require a lot of thought, just reaction.

 

[rgraham666]

Last time I saw a porn video and got turned on was only because one of the women involved was not your standard fake blonde with fake 40DD tits.

That was two years ago, at least.

I have a bunch of skin mags, none of which I look at any more. Visual stimulation just doesn't do it any more.

For me it's always been the emotion involved. When I was younger, and less jaded, visual porn did it for me as it invoked emotions in me. But even then I preferred those that transmitted the emotional part of the spectrum. I preferred stuff where there were shots of the woman(s) face. It tells so much more than the other end of the body.

Same now with written stuff, much more concerned with emotions. Which I think words transmit better, when done properly.

Unfortunately, most of the stuff out there, like visual porn, is more concerned with mechanics than emotion.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

One must bear in mind that humans are not uniform. A reasonable background can set people up for some acts that may be atypical of traditional relationships, but it should have some psychological explanation (though not too much). A good internal conflict adds more realism, instead of immediate acceptance. I have discovered that myself, after reexamining some of my earlier work (some of which might fit the stroke story definition). Dialogue helps as well. Increasingly, my stories are turning into broader plots, with sex one of many aspects (though still the most appealing) of the overall situation.

 

[elsol]

Porn actors/actresses are not hired for their acting ability, thus limiting the range of what could be done.

Porn is also one of the purest commercials products available (ever hear anyone suggest the government subsidize the porn industry?). It actually makes a very good study for economics in my opinion. Why pay for great sets, great script...etc. etc.... when better looking starlets will get you more sales every time.

Lastly, I would say that well-written, story consistent, etc... erotica is the exception and not the rule.

From this point, I could get into the different mediums, expectations of the medium, and medium audiences but I'm not a film major... I can only tell you when I watch a porn movie I want big tits, hips, and dicks.

I want the same thing for erotica but since I can't see the tits, hips, and dicks I'm much less forgiving.


Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[MichelleLovesTo]

Reading is more interactive than watching a movie. The movie feeds you the information in a steady stream; unless you rewind it's very linear. While you notice plot holes and "Gimme a Break" moments, there is always new information being sent your way.

When you read, you're chosing the pace and going at the exact speed which best suits you. When something seems to make little sense, your eyes automatically go searching for something that says it's not all out of left field.

Also, movies have a weight of truth that stories don't because you are SEEING people do these things. A writer has to work to make their world seem real because there is nothing but the words.

That being said: porn movies with plots are worth their weight in gold. More than a doorbell ringing and a pizza guy with a large pepperoni on the other side of the door.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

I think most of us who write erotica have watched porn at some time or another. I think too, we all recognize the distinctly distorted world visual porn usually portrays. The kind of thing where a wife walks in on her husband at work, doing his secretary and decides to join in. I know the majority of that unreality is the format, your average watcher isn't worried about a long backstory or the why's of it, he just wants to see the actors getting it on and most any excuse is fine.

As writers, we have issues with backstory, characterization and at least resembling reality to a point where the reader will aceept the antics and actions of our characters.

So often in my works, the actual nuts and bolts of two people getting physical is a breeze to write after the laborious task of getting them to that point.

The goal of visual porn is to get a watcher off. The goal of written erotica is the same. Yet I can watch a flick where the protag walks in on her boss's secretary eating her out and she just jumps in and I can enjoy that. While if I read such a scenario in a story I would be gagging.

I began wondering why that is. Is it the fact I expect less from a flick? Or expect more from a story? Or is it the nature of the medium, visual being very visceral while the written word is very cereberal? Or are we just wired to accept what we see on TV with less critical evaluation than wht we read?

Any thoughts?

I think you may have answered your own question. Consider this: This post I've quoted, the first of the thread, reflects on the differences between expectation in the case of pornographic movies, versus the expectations in the written medium.

The title of the thread was Real Life versus porn. Seems obvious that porn means, in this case, the visuals. Real Life...

Hmmm...

Personally, I don't view my writing as having to represent real life. I'd rather write porn than stories about paying taxes. Although I do try to aim somewhere in the middle.

Q_C

 

[LadyJeanne]

Personally, I don't view my writing as having to represent real life. I'd rather write porn than stories about paying taxes. Although I do try to aim somewhere in the middle.

Q_C

You could write porn about paying taxes...

She gazed admiringly at her accountant as he calculated her deductions. Was there anything sexier than a man in a button-down shirt and rolled-up shirtsleeves? And how could she ever repay him for showing her how much she could save by opening an IRA?

 

[Stella_Omega]

You could write porn about paying taxes...

She gazed admiringly at her accountant as he calculated her deductions. Was there anything sexier than a man in a button-down shirt and rolled-up shirtsleeves? And how could she ever repay him for showing her how much she could save by opening an IRA?

Imagine the hate mail you'd get for wrong details- "loving wives" wouldn't even come close!

 

[LadyJeanne]

Imagine the hate mail you'd get for wrong details- "loving wives" wouldn't even come close!

"You can't deduct lube as a medical expense!"

"Her husband is NOT a dependant even though he'd starve if she didn't cook him dinner!"

"It's the SIZE of the deduction that counts, not what you do with it!"

 

[Quiet_Cool]

You could write porn about paying taxes...

She gazed admiringly at her accountant as he calculated her deductions. Was there anything sexier than a man in a button-down shirt and rolled-up shirtsleeves? And how could she ever repay him for showing her how much she could save by opening an IRA?

Ummm.... Okay, but in the case you stated, Real Life isn't reflected. Case in point: He's an accountant; she's attracted.

My point remains.



Q_C

 

[woodnymph_O]

Ok I think I am a big enough girl to admit I like both (blush), but for different reasons, video to me is visual stimulation and nothing but. Written erotica is mental, emotional, and physical stimulation. I do expect more from it. Thats why the book IS always better than the movie . So I agree totally sweetie.
Nymphy

 

[LadyJeanne]

Ummm.... Okay, but in the case you stated, Real Life isn't reflected. Case in point: He's an accountant; she's attracted.

My point remains.



Q_C

Perhaps a female accountant, then, prim, proper with hair in a severe bun and glasses perched on the end of her nose, a killer pair of legs under her skirt and a blouse button that accidentally reveals a healthy glimps of cleavage...

 

[gauchecritic]

I think Michelle is close to the answer here, and you did say it yourself colly. The nature of the medium.

When reading you take in only one thing at a time, the sentence you are reading. Fair enough, those sentences ought to link together to give you an emotional interaction with the plot/characters/action. But it is still one sentence at a time. One word at a time.

With these new-fangled moving pictures you are bombarded not only with sight and sound but also with all the linkages that they create within you. Making you re-call personal, visceral experience or even simply anticipation of same, knowing that even if you've never had sex before you can (however vaguely) surmise what it would actually feel like.

My very favourite action for a woman to perform is when they pull off their bra, upwards, from the front and watching the breasts slide and depend from their chest. The larger and droopier the better.

Now consider how long it took you to read, digest and finally imagine that last paragraph. On video you don't need to do any of that and it's there before your eyes. and again. and again. And it's something that, for me at least, will bring instant response.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I don't know what the hetero equivalent is, but in lesbian visual porn there is a subgenre that I call “connoisseur’s,” which I define as pornography whose subjects display or depict believable personality characteristics and interact in recognizably human ways (as opposed to the extreme objectification of women and almost robotic or manic behavior depicted in mainstream pornography). It usually includes more 'natural'-appearing women having explicit sex with little or no use of 'sex toys', but not to the exclusion of other erotic elements including plausible portrayals of emotion, intimacy, build-up, kissing and foreplay. This includes recent features by British producer Viv Thomas, but even more, films from studios like “Girlfriends.” Some of the best material from the latter is extraordinary because it is real sex between real women, and hetero or homo one would have to be dead to not be stimulated.

As you might imagine I find this material arousing, and “mainstream” porn repellent. That said, if I had to be limited to one format for life it would be the written word, for reasons others have described here: It engages the whole mind (the primary sex organ), is "interactive," etc.

A fellow who has created a "lesbian-website-reviews.com” site put together the following list that spells out the differences. Obviously this applies to lesbian porn, but it’s not hard to think of the analogous abuses in hetero “mainstream.”

Lesbian aficionados, as a rule (there's always exceptions) DO LIKE:
Lots of kissing by women that clearly enjoy kissing other women.
Lots of buildup and foreplay.
A "set-up" that could actually be real. (You don't often see women "getting it on" in a porn shop.)
Natural breasts, even if it means no breasts.
Women wearing "everyday" clothes instead of being dressed up like something out of the Mustang Ranch.
No toys at all or at least erotic use as opposed to slamming something in and out like a jackhammer.
Ambient audio with sincere dialogue.
What we would like to believe are real orgasms.
Non professionals do the acting.

Lesbian aficionados, as a rule (again, there's exceptions) for the most part; DON'T LIKE:
Lesbian "strap-on scenes." (A large minority DOES like this.)
Women sucking on strap-ons and "getting off."
Wearers of strap-ons "getting off."
Scenes that center around the use of toys.
Scenes that start off with the use of toys.
Editing that leaves the viewer thinking, "They were in bed a second ago, why are they now "doing it" in the backseat of a car?"
Women wearing throughout a scene, eight-inch spike heels.
Women who suck on these heels.
Implants. (Nina, what were you thinking?)
Ridiculous, loud,background music. Any background music, really.
Camera flashs from the photographer taking stills of the action.

 

[BlackSnake]

I'm willing to bet that not many people could tell you what the last porn movie that they saw was about, but I'm sure they could tell you the porn star's name.

There is a female porn director that is trying to change that.

 

[oggbashan]

I find most porn, written or filmed, to be useless at stimulating me.

The videos, either soft or hard, seem to be too direct and crude. Maybe it is the quality of those I have seen, but I cannot suspend my disbelief sufficiently to become at all interested in the action.

Written porn has the same drawback for me. I cannot believe in the characters or their actions.

Literate erotica and eroticism in mainstream films are different. Erotica that has characters that act according to at least a sembalnce of logic and have understandable emotions; plots that are possible, even if not probable, - those can can produce a reaction.

Og