Salt * Wet * Fish

Andy Ho’s recent article in the Straits Times dated March 3 2007, “Nude Shots give gays wrong idea”, he tries to bring the readers up to date on the banning of Leslie Kee’s photo portraits by Singapore’s Media Development Authority (MDA)… (it should be MSA, Media Arrestment Authority!)

There he said:

I managed to have a look at the book, and discovered that the photos on the Internet don’t give the full picture. In the book, you get pictures with full frontal nudity, with pubic hair and male genitalia in full unobstructed view. ….

…But some 10 per cent of the pictures are those of full-frontal nudes, mostly Japanese models or singers, predominantly male, with their manhood not obscured from view in any way, shape or form.

Well, that okay, but then he goes on to say:

…What comes next may sound counter-intuitive, but I would argue that the gay community itself should also support the ban. This is because gay porn promotes an illusion of gay males as young, muscular, good-looking and able-bodied.

I like, uh? When is just showing manhood in pictures gay porn? Couldn’t women also enjoy those photos? Don’t tell me the statue of David, with his nice round butt cheeks and well chiselled body, in the museum is also gay porn? And why do I have a strange suspicion that Andy may have found looking at those manhood erotic, hence he thinks its porn, gay porn to be specific?

Then he goes on with his new theory of gaiety..

This fantasy is quite at odds with the bodies that most real gays have. Fed a diet of stereotypical images of perfectly buffed men with large penises, gays may develop unrealistic expectations about their own bodies. This can only compound the pre-existing feelings among gays that society marginalises them because of their sexual orientation.

Wait a minute! Which gay porn have Andy Ho been surfing? Doesn’t he know that there is MORE than just one type in gay porn, unlike straight porn, I presume? You have bears (hairy type), matured men (in their 50s and 60s), you have chubs (with lots to spare), you have G-men (grrrrghhh), you have the really skinny ones and you also have the effeminate ones.

Have Andy Ho seen FHM recently? Probably not since he has been surfing gay porn! By his theory, shouldn’t women feel even more inadequate with women with large breast and sexy curves and as such magazines like FHM should be banned.

Body image aside, gay porn also subverts gays by offering them two choices: Try to become like the straight and dominant men portrayed - whom society says you have really never been - or be the effeminate subordinates you are, whom ‘real men’ like those in these pictures use and cast away.

Sorry girl, you are assuming too much. Yes, some gay people watch porn and so do some straight people, men mostly, but women are on the rise, I bet. His first paragraph simply and presumingly tells us that the gay lives evolve nothing but around porn, so much so that it effects our self-image. If you watch THAT much porn, I am surprise it doesn’t effect your brains! Where does that man get his all-gay-men-watch-porn-and-has-poor-self-image-because-of-porn theory from? He seems too ready to associate effeminate men as being in a subordinate position. On the contrary, effeminate men can be in more control in a relation and are hardly subordinated. Haven’t he heard of hen-pecked husbands?

Gay porn says to gays that they are less relevant in society and not entitled to equal respect because they are less male. It supports a system of inequality where men trump women and straight men trump gay men.

Sorry, but gay porn doesn’t go into the mainstream, unlike straight porn, esp. those with lesbian sex or gyrating women in car shows, as such we cannot talk about any societal imbalance because this occurs with a subculture. Gay porn is not a tool of suppression nor discrimination. If anything, it can be liberating for a gay man (don’t know enough about women though) in exploring his sexuality and resolving issues of sexual hang ups.

Also Andy don’ seem to know that a lot of straight (well bisexual maybe) men acts in the gay porn industry. If anything its the straight man who is working to “serve” the gay viewer, just like the women who is working to “serve” the straight viewer. Maybe its the straight men not getting the respect here!

Related links:
- Gays should support censorship, says Andy Ho - Yawning Bread
- We Interrupt the normal programming - JTan