Sunday, January 30, 2011

Examining the Past

I remembered back when I was very young, probably not more than 5, when I developed my shampoo obsessions. I'll never remember exactly what opened my eyes to it, but I do have some memories.

One memory is when I would imagine a bunch of guys - male characters from movies I'd been watching - standing around a bathtub, washing my hair, though I couldn't see myself in the vision, just the guys around me. I'd ask them to stop and there'd be a collective "awwww" followed by one guy asking "just a little bit more?"

Sketchy as hell, I know.

Other images I had involved being kidnapped by someone wanting to wash my hair, or being chased. I thought it was odd that I'd be afraid of someone washing my hair, and nowadays I think it's very weird that that's what I thought a kidnapper would do, rather than rape or kill me, two acts I couldn't even imagine when I was a kid. I didn't know what rape or sex were until I was about 8, and I had no knowledge of sexual pleasure, just the pleasure I imagined I'd get from having my hair washed, and the weird idea that some guy might want to do it to me without me wanting it.

In my own way, I had already begun to conceive notions of rape, consent, and gender roles in acts of pleasure.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Humiliation in Fetish Videos and Pornography

I consider myself a moderate pro-porn feminist: I don't object to all pornography, but I do object to certain themes, such as torture, rape, and humilation.

Humiliation seems to be a prevailing theme in the videos I've been discovering these days. Take the salon creaming videos, which are hot as I mentioned earlier, but the whole point is that all the shaving cream is meant to humiliate the subject rather than pleasure her. Then there's the video where a woman thinks she's auditioning for one thing, and then she's gunged, or covered in various messy things, with the purpose of humiliating and upsetting her - she's screaming and crying in parts of the videos.

Not okay.

Here's where I'm torn: I'm sex-positive, relatively pro-porn, and I want to be accepting of all fetishes and sexual interests. I mean, some people are just turned on by weird things. But where does it end? Should I really be okay with pedophilia? Crush videos where small animals are stepped on with spikey heels? And should it matter if certain fetishes are accepted, should non-acceptance mean that type of porn isn't made?

I guess my views on porn are the same with sex: if both parties are willing, why not? But if someone isn't willing, and lured into a room on false pretenses, I'm not really okay with that, and honestly, I don't think it should be allowed.

I realize this is less shampoo related and more related to fetish videos in general. And I'm repeating myself in the sense that I object to videos where the subject doesn't consent to what's happening.

My objection goes deeper than my empathy for those who are exploited in the making of fetish videos. I have a problem when women are unwilling participants, especially when they're humiliated, degraded or worse, because of the underlying notion that women are second-class citizens who only exist for men's pleasure whether they like it or not. And of course, there's the misguided idea that they secretly do like it and do want it done to them, they just don't know it yet.

On a final note, I do believe that forced shave videos - videos where a man cuts or shaves a woman's hair - does fall under the category of humilating fetish videos, and I definitely object to that genre.

If a woman doesn't consent to what's being done to her, it's not okay.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

New Obsession

I have turned some kind of corner, and I now LOVE shampoo videos with shaving cream! The salon creaming videos might have done it for me. Before, the idea intrigued me, but I was still into the usual shampoo lather.

Actually, the first video I really liked was Shampoo of the Supervixen. It doesn't do much for me now though. Maybe it's because having her whacked in the face with the foam isn't that sexy to me, or maybe I can see how tangled her hair gets and it makes me cringe. And the fake moaning is tacky. Sure, I'd love more sensual videos where the girl is actually enjoying her shampoo rather than either taking it silently (submissive actors) or fighting the shampooer (unwilling participants). Don't get me wrong, the Salon Creaming videos rub me the wrong way in that the shampoo is meant to humiliate the subject, but the massaging and scrubbing turns me on anyway, when it's actually done (much of the videos just show the woman covered in shaving cream with text making fun of how much foam there is). *sigh* what can I say, even feminists have their guilty pleasures.