So I’ve given a little more thought to my initial surprise at the hardcore-ness of many a cock-sucking scene in queer porn, and I’ve reached a kind of nebulous conclusion… Or maybe not. But hear me out.
I think the thing that does, whether it’s PC to admit it or not, tend to be upsetting about really hardcore blowjobs in straight, mainstream porn is the overarching feeling of misogyny that goes along with it, and when it comes down to it, that’s a damn shame in many ways. Firstly, it’s a damn shame that misogyny is so closely linked with porn in the first place, because as an industry that supposedly celebrates sexual pleasure and expression, the porn industry is unfortunately both the subject and creator of a huge amount of negativity toward women. It’s not that blowjobs in porn are necessarily always an expression of male hatred for women; in a lot of cases they can be expressions of women’s hatred for themselves, or very genuine expressions of extreme, hardcore sexuality that’s being enjoyed by both giver and receiver. But it is true that there are many spit-flinging, mucous-coated, gag-a-minute blowjob scenes out there that do involve a man face-fucking a woman in what appears to be a hateful and violent way. These scenes may not be reflective of what the man and the woman in the scene actually think about each other and gender roles–they’re often just doing what they’ve been told to do by a director who wants to make as much money as possible and who knows shock always helps. But what they’re doing can be seen as a symptom of the way porn culture, and American culture in general, views women as objects to be fucked brutally and tossed away. A glance at most Max Hardcore scenes, or a trip to FacialAbuse.com, or a stroll through most “blowjob” galleries on free clip sites will offer plenty of backup for this not-so-revolutionary line of thinking. It’s sad and it’s oppressive to women when blowjobs are performed in this specific, almost gruesome way with this cloud of misogynist thinking hanging over both performers’ heads.
But just as the culture may have gotten the director and the performers to this spot, where gag reflexes are casualties of what’s expected, performers themselves may have embraced a new way of expressing themselves sexually. An insatiable appetite for sexual gratification can and certainly now often does lead to a self-effacing, snot-bubbling, kind of gross spectacle when it’s intense enough, and I doubt that many of the newer faces in the straight porn world think of gagging on a cock as an indication of anything except their enthusiasm for the task at hand. Hardcore blowjobs are par for the course now, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, unless viewers ascribe them to a lack of respect toward women, which the spectacle itself kind of lends itself to but which isn’t necessarily happening in every instance. It’s just that, given what we know about the history of men’s sexual attitude toward women and particularly the attitude of the entire culture toward women in the sex industry, it’s difficult for most of us to see women choking on cocks and not think, “Wow, she must hate herself, and he must hate her.” It’s our culturally (and sometimes experientially) imbued sense of power relations between genders that makes us think this, and while sometimes it’s right and sometimes it’s wrong, straight blowjob scenes are heavily fraught with this kind of thinking in most viewers.
Now, on to queer blowjob scenes. What to do with THIS situation? In a corner of the porn industry where gender itself, not to mention gender roles, and traditional thinking about subordinate/dominant roles in sex are deliberately turned on their heads, what are we to make of hardcore, gagging, choking, face-fucking scenes featuring strap-ons, dildos, and sometimes real penises? It’s hard to wrap one’s head around the idea that these people, who are upending ideas of power relations in sex on purpose, would want to enter into the same fraught territory as their straight, more mainstream, brethren. It’s at first off-putting: “Wait, doesn’t this performer, who’s so outspoken about queer rights and the importance of respect in pornography, respect him/herself more than this blowjob implies?” But maybe that’s the whole point. Maybe queer performers and directors are so many steps ahead of us that our brains are left puzzled by their actions. Maybe queer porn people realize that the best way to make us question our assumptions about why people do the things they do in the bedroom, whether they be straight, monogamous housewives or queer, polyamorous porn performers, is between the people in the bedroom. Maybe the best way to make us think about the gender roles we’re so used to living with is to upend them entirely and then proceed to behave in a way that most of us associate with the standard, male/female hetero power relationship. Maybe they’re showing us a reflection of the mainstream ideology in Alice in Wonderland excess to illustrate a point.
Or, then again, maybe they just like extreme sex, putting their bodies and gag reflexes to every test imaginable, and lubricating dildos before penetration. And, of course, maybe I’m over-thinking. That’s been known to happen. Food for thought, nonetheless.
(PS – Stay tuned for answers to gangbang etiquette questions! I’ll be interviewing Sabrina Deep SOON!)