Carnivals, and a question for the sex positives.

The Sixth Carnival Against Pornography and Prostitution is here, while the Fourth Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy is here.

Both offer plenty to get your teeth into, whatever your perspective!

While I’m here, can I ask: why are there next to no “sexy” images of men on sex positive* sites, or sites focusing on porn for women etc? Even the logo for Hot Films for Her features a sexualised woman rather than a man, despite the fact that many of the films are aimed at heterosexual women – so why isn’t the site advertised with a picture of a juicy man? Not all women are attracted to women…

Just seems to me that there’s a bit of the same old woman = sex idea going on here, and while the presentation of the woman and the context in which she is presented may be different from the mainstream, I wonder how radical this kind of approach is if the focus is still on women as the sexually stimulating object or subject. I’m not condemning the work being done by sex positive feminists – indeed, I’ve been intrigued by the work of Erika Lust (link NSFW) and will be reviewing her Five Hot Films for Her in the near future – but the image given out on some sites, or rather the promotional material for that work, does seem to frequently fall into this well-worn trope.

*I’m not a big fan of this term, but for want of a better word…