The state of F/M porn
Politics of porn — By Adele on 21 July, 2010 8:19 pmIf you want good porn, shoot your own. This is my conclusion after a couple of weeks of hopeful browsing of F/M BDSM sites.
Is it only my uneducated impression, or does most of the F/M visual content out there really, really suck? Perhaps, the good stuff is out there, and I’m just not finding it?
Here’s what I dislike about the stuff I’ve seen. For the most part, the men are faceless and invisible, no more than props to show off the fetishised power of the female dominants. These pose and strut, whips at the ready. I don’t dare say there’s nothing sexy about their heels and catsuits, but whatever sexuality there is, is focused entirely at the camera. I don’t see chemistry between the players, I don’t see passion, or even play-acted attraction. The kinky electricity flows not between the players, but directly from the domme at the camera: at the supposedly enthralled male gaze.
As a female viewer, I feel irrelevant. This isn’t surprising, because most porn is made for men. Even so, when I watch X/F porn, I can get a lot of pleasure out of it just by empathising with the girl on the reveiving end. Perhaps, this is the key to my dismay: when I look at spanking/BDSM porn, I want to empathise with the submissive. It’s all about the submissive for me, male or female. In the F/M porn, instead, the gaze follows not the submissive – the object of empathy, but the woman – the object of lust.
Now, being bisexual with a strong preference for women, I ought to be drawn to the dommes in F/M, the same way I’m attracted to the women in X/F videos. And yet, they leave me cold. This is, perhaps, because I look at the F/M stuff from the point of view of a female dominant, and so another female dominant under the circumstances is a like charge, gently repelling. Or maybe it’s because I just haven’t found the sort of dommes that I’m attracted to.
I wonder: this porn, shot entirely for the male gaze – does it work for its intended audience? Is it satisfying? Or maybe it works only up to a point? If you’re a male submissive, I’d love to know how it’s working for you.
Also, am I maybe missing some great F/M content? If there’s something that works for you, I’d like to know abot it, in case it works for me as well.
Tags: F/M, gender, malesub, rant, unthinking discrimination
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26 Comments
I’m a big fan of F/M spanking porn (as well as M/F, F/F and even some M/M). Part of the problem with finding something I can enjoy is that the sorts of domestic or institutional scenes I like are crowded out by ones that feature female tops or dommes that are a tad more vicious and mocking than I’d care to watch. I want to see a female authority figure, whether mother, aunt, teacher, boss, doctor, etcetera, act like they are supposed to act, not like a pro domme who is a few seconds away from kicking a guy in the balls or stubbing out a cigar in his eye. If I wanted stuff like that, I’d seek it out. For me, a good disciplinary spanking scene has a framework that fits. I have no desire to see women with their hands on their hips like some pirate laughing evilly while another woman beats some poor bastard to a pulp.
“If you’re a male submissive, I’d love to know how it’s working for you.”
Mostly it is not working for me at all. Firstly I find the attitude of “he is a dribbling fool who will pay just to see a hot chick with a whip” of many producers insulting to my intelligence and a sure way of keeping my credit card in my wallet. Secondly the fact that many producers do not pay their male bottoms and subs is ludicrously and unacceptably sexist in an industry where it is the norm to pay bottoms and subs for X/f and M/m work and frankly it is painfully obvious that the poor standard of some of the male players on these sites is a conformation of the saying “You get what you pay for”.
However there are a few candles struggling to light the dark night. I reviewed Men In Pain, from Kink.com and found it to have very satisfying BDSM material. I have not been a member since the site changed focus and became Divine Bitches but even if the new stuff is no good membership will let you see all of the material from the old site.
Clare Fonda’s Clare Spanks Men,if going a little to the lighter side of spanking (and there is nothing wrong with that), is a site that has captured some of the interactive magic that you see on the better X/f sites, for the F/m world. Kaylee Robinson and Danny Wilde give a very worthy show when they appear together.
Apart from those two, I have heard that Shadow Lane’s F/m material is very good but I have not had chance to see any of their stuff yet.
If you find any other good F/m producers, I would be very interested in hearing about them.
Prefectdt
it’s easier to look at pictures/videos of girls being spanked and use your imagination. school-themed stuff is especially unappealing, the majority having the boys with very short hair and very short shorts. this might just be personal preference, but a long haired boy with a bit of a scruffy uniform getting a caning would be a lot more appealing.
I was going to ask if you’d looked at Men in Pain or Perfectdt Divine Bitches but Perfectdt got there before me!
Kink usually does a good job of putting (hot!) guys fully into the shoot, since they also shoot painfully erotic M/M porn, too. (Which, for me, is much hotter than F/M.)
Sorry, there was an extraneous “Perfectdt” in my comment, for no reason I can now explain!
To be honest, “Divine bitches” turns me off just with its name. Never mind the name-calling: the focus of the site seems to be on the women, which is less appealing to me.
I’m not a fan of most modern F/M porn either.
My favourite photos and videos date back to the fearsome housewives of Nu West/ Leda. I’m looking for domesticity, feminine but believable dress, and satisfied and maybe slightly amused expressions. The porn producers want me to have dungeons, leather and lots of snarling. Even the scenarios that start out promisingly have a depressing habit of descending into excess (or at least, my definition of it). When a hot woman has finished spanking her man, I want her to stand him in the corner – not finish him off with a strap-on. The porn that’s being pushed doesn’t really work for me – nor, I’m convinced, for a lot of other consumers. That’s why I draw my own. :)
By the way, I LOVE your writing. Not sure why it’s taken me so long to say hello!
Well, that’s porn for you. There’s not going to be much in the way of subtlety! ;) Although from the horrid names I’ve seen over the years, “Divine Bitches” is one of the most positive names I’ve seen. Also, the fact is that the sites are indeed mostly made for the submissive male customer, and for some reason many of them quite seem to prefer the Bitch archetype.
If you see it as a way of reclaiming the word “bitch,” as a compliment to a woman being capable of taking no shit, and dealing it back as necessary, that does put another spin on the name.
Actually, I think this interview with the woman now running the Men In Pain / Divine Bitches sites makes it pretty clear she wants it to tell the story of the guys who are submitting: http://news.behindkink.com/blog/default/2009/06/22/Cock-and-Ball-Torture-With-Maitresse-Madeline
The people who do Blueblood.net tried to do a site called “Sweetest Drop” years ago which had cute, often submissive boys from a woman’s point of view, for female customers. It failed very disappointingly, as I think most sites marketed to women will do. Women make less money, generally, than men, and are not willing to thoughtlessly spend money as much on their own sexual pleasure (so the money probably goes more to vibrators and other gifts that keep on giving). They also tend to really distrust porn websites, especially with the whole rebilling thing. I say this, with some wee smidge of bitterness, as a woman who tried to make and market erotic sites to women for five years of her life….
So, you’re absolutely right that the best F/M porn would be stuff made by us … and Pandora will certainly bring you some good stuff when her site finally goes live … but until then, people aren’t going to show a tendency to make sites catered to women’s tastes and POV – we need to get the ladies to put their money where their mouths are for that to happen.
Thank you for this post! I hate F/M porn, and I am a male sub. You nail why it’s so bad. Audrey Knight has some decent material.
Have you ever looked at malesubmissionart.com?
The pictures focus on the male sub, rather than the female domme. I’m a fan :-)
By the way, I’ve never commented before, but I have been following your blog for a few months now. I enjoy it very much!
Tilly
I’m switchy girl and yeah, F/M mostly sucks and leave me cold. I find the cackling dominatrix schtick highly annoying.
I loved Momsknee.com for its realism and domesticity. I’m still coming to terms with its recent and terminal disappearance offline *sobs*.
Hotspankings was another that had great F/M classics. I have fond memories of both as I was lucky enough to be spanked in person by a few really great tops from each site. Apologies for citing ones which no longer available Adele, but I think that’s a sad reflection on what’s left.
Tantrumtrainers still produces the odd must see scene. Have yet to cross Kelly Payne’s lap though! Someday, someday. I’d need to have had my weetabix that morning :)
All of the problems you mentioned with F/M are real. One that always bothered me is believability. You’ve really got to do some mental gymnastics to believe that most female tops are even capable of forcing their large balding male bottom to submit against his will. Mom’s knee (what little I saw from the preview section) may have been an exception, at least from the tops end of things. I may be a sick-o but I like believability when it comes to a good thrashing!
Heres one I found on Spankingtube.com that is harsh enough and the top stern enough thru some kind of aura of power (possibly the southern twang in her voice) to arrest some of my skepticism:
http://www.spankingtube.com/watch/1c2ed134dbd6ce7e4a1e/Second-Part
Unfortunately, the sound is not in sync but still quite good for an amateur production. The line seen below the young mans knees indicating that he is tied to the chair helps the believability immensely.
Prefectd is right about getting what you pay for in male subs. Certainly there must be no shortage of starving students willing to take a whippin’ for a righteous buck?
Yeah F/M really sucks. Momsknee had potential but the editing was so bad on the promos’s that I would never spend the money. Julia Jameson when she took a break from Nu-west had some really good ones but they are unavailable now. Soccer Mom from Nu-west is decent but you never know what you are going to truly get from nu-west.
I really like a height difference between models. This is true even in the F/F videos. There are a couple of very tall models but they only seem to be used as subs.
I would be interested to know what you think of Nu-west Leda’s f/m videos. They are starting to get decent still shots on the promos. Sometimes the newsletters are entertaining.
Yes to what has been said. I swear somebody could make a fortune making real F/M spanking vids. The stuff you find on Spanking Tube is actually pretty good, better than anything you can pay for.
I have lived this life style, and it was ordinary women and ordinary men, like (at the risk of repeating myself) what you find on Spanking Tube.
As to making it believable, a submissive man takes his spanking, no tie downs needed. That’s what submission is. Some men need to be restrained because of the severity, but most do not.
I’m looking forward to Pandora’s site (if it ever happens) but in the description of the spanking she gave she CRIED. Oh well.
NuWest/Leda had some pretty good stuff, but the video quality was poor and the prices are only for the wealthy.
I have my memories.
Yep, there is no good F/m material around.
Something like Momsknee with higher quality und better editing would be fine. A relatively small male getting very hard spankings from a taller female in a domestic discipline context is certainly a turn on. Sadly it does not exist.
The John and Heather films at Nu-West are also quite good. In fact it’s the same sub as in Momsknee. But here too, very low picture quality and a VERY high price.
I wonder if PacificForce F/m videos are any good. I have only seen a few of their F/f ones and they are quite neat. Sadly they don’t have downloads.
There is one Kelly Payne video that really is a must. I think it’s called ‘The stepmother’ or something like that. Two women spank a very young guy who had never been spanked before. They manage to make him cry from an otk handspanking. It’s lovely. :)
The only F-m site I keep going back to is the Russian site young-goddess.com. Unfortunately one of the main subs they use nowadays is always hooded, which although common in male-sub porn is something that makes me lose interest as you can’t see their reactions. But a lot of their content really does it for me. The girls are very very hot. The action is what I like as a sub – no elaborate props or dungeon scenes, just very hands-on with the girl whipping, kicking and generally working over and humiliating her sub. But the main attraction is that the girls usually really seem to be having fun.
Some of the stuff on ClipsforSale is good.
It’s both M/F and F/M but I find Down Home Discipline on Clips for Sale to be good though the male top and some of the female bottoms aren’t very attractive. But then they mix play scenerios with stuff I believe is real and they do the domestic discipline stuff well. One of the earlier ones done about a Babysitter for Bill is one of the best F/M things I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen alot over the 14 years I’ve been on the internet. You can also tell that the spankings have an effect, though like pretty much every where else tears not shown, you can often hear sobbing from both male and female bottoms.
The Strict Women site is still there, though they’ve been taken over by mostly British spanking models the past few years due to a change in ownership.
Spanking 360 looks to be good, though it will be a mixed spanking bag.
It was just drawings, but I miss EndArt, which closed up shop this year. Mostly M/F, but some of the best F/M artwork ever came from that guys pencil or pen or whatever he used.
I’ll probably think of more later.
Clarence
In F/f films I am just as interested in the Domme as in the girl – if she has personality. Now the Domme is not the subject here. But I have checked out a lot of (previews of) F/m films too, curious about the Domme they have. And so, I have noticed that most male victims are unattractive, fat old dudes whose only contribution is to offer a hairy ass to beat on. And they say, “oink, 92, thank you ma’m”. The handsome young lad looking 18+ disciplined by a firm and older Headmistress or boss just never appears!
And there are good looking young men out there who want to be punished. Some like a sexy young Domme, some like an older more authoritarian type. (there is a Yahoo group for older dommes, ,called maturedomina or something)
So producers, place an ad in the bdsm net forums, and the pretty boys will come running. And then, have them speak. And employ Adele for script or concept. And for roles as viscious prinsess.
“I prefer grace and elegance to bludgeoning,” says Morgana in SF.”
“I prefer grace and elegance to bludgeoning,” says Morgana in San Franscisco.
You’ve hit on (sorry!!) exactly why most filmed spanking holds absolutely no interest for me, they lack in elegance, deviousness, intellectual challenge and simple human care and interaction. Spanking is not a monologue, but maybe some of the producers are so insecure, as to have project exactly that part of their own egos into the films. I know there’s a good reason for the ‘happy out-takes’ at the end of many films; but frankly they’re silly and far from convincing. But I return to something we’ve talked about privately, we, that is the active and somewhat open playing element, are not the target market for most SM or porn; the 1,000s of isolated private viewers are. If you read Claudia Varrin or Morgana’s experiences, you’ll find dommes who really are interested in delving into and manipulating the minds of those they’re tormenting. But their dialog is often so subtle and extended that it would outstrip the time available in the average spanking video – let alone limit distribution because of language issues. I think that’s why I find the scenes such as Marlon Brando being bull-whipped by Karl Marlden in “One Eyed Jacks” or Gudrun Landgrebe or Bulle Ogier flogging subs bloody in “Flambierte Frau” and “Maîtresse” or Maggie Gyllenhaal inspecting her bruised bottom after take 14 in “Secretary” [not shown in all markets] far more erotically appealing – because they show both the receivers real reactions and the proficiency the tormentor uses to push their victim into places they may have doubted they could ever reach. “I do it because I want to hurt and you need to be hurt.”
The taster is a shot I took in San Francisco a few months ago
R
R
Adele – as you know, I am fully in agreement and intend to change things if I can.
Eric – the scene where I cried was only one scene – I’m not a top, and so I wanted an “unwilling top” scenario so I could get into role more believably. But the same shoot involved F/m content with Zoe Montana as a very adept and willing top – and there’ll be more of that sort of thing, all with beautiful young actors who are genuinely submissive. I’m just sorry you’re having to wait so long!
In a lifetime of looking, I’ve seen very few female dommes who have any interest in connecting with their female subs in any way. An exception may be Stephanie Locke, who I believe may have produced some vids in which she spanked the male, then hugged and forgave him (but my memory of this may be flawed). That sort of demeanor is very hard to find; the huge majority are the icy-cold bitch types. NuWest has a whole series called “Women Who Love to Cane,” and there’s not an ounce of humanity in any of those women.
Correction: that should read “connecting with their *male* subs…”
I have always felt that the late Anne Bowman was the most terrifying F/M practitioner that I ever saw, although one would hope in vain for a hug from her after the correction. Some of her stuff can be found here: http://xhamster.com/search.php?q=anne+bowman&qcat=video
I totally agree with all the comments about F/M content. How many here would be interested in an F/M site with straight disciplinary, spanking fun, and erotic content (not all in the same video!)?
Agreed. Been saying this for years. http://www.vixenladies.com/html/whatsnew.shtml
I worked with these people once a long time ago, the basic ethos was shoot a lot in one day, plenty of short skirts for the ladies, concentrate the on the lady, we aren’t selling to women, it’s all about the domme.
Male models don’t get paid for sessions, they don’t get their travel paid, even for round trips of 300miles. They are expected to work to satisfy their kink. In truth if they could make the movie’s without actually having bloke in at all… they would.
No one should bitch though, it’s the one area of work, where without a shadow of doubt, men are not equal by a country mile.