Well ladies and gentlemen, seeing as how I’m having a bipolar moment, I’ve decided to explore two very different sites this week. Behind curtain number one: www.Uporn.com – a down and dirty sex-link site for your animalistic needs. Curtain number two opens to reveal www.feministing.com – so that you can raise a fist to modern feminism. Very different content, very different attitudes – I hope that one or the other (maybe even both) will scratch whatever itch you might have.
Www.Uporn.com was recommended to me by a friend. It’s an incredibly well organized site, as well as a veritable wonderland of links to an amazing amount of content. The homepage introduces the user to the content in broad strokes, with groupings that include (but are not limited to) Fetish Sites, Asian/Black Porn, Porn Movies, and Gay Porn. Through each of these headings, you will find subcategories that include free movies, downloadable porn, personals, sex web cams, and more. The links take you to both free content as well as pay-content, and each link is well marked, so that you know what you’re getting into, so to speak, before you click through. The site is spam-free and very clean.
The images on the site are definitely geared towards your average, heterosexual male (the gay section notwithstanding), featuring an abnormal number of blond, tanned women with airbrush-smooth skin and enormous tits. However, the site is so user-friendly, I’m sure any woman could find something of personal sexual interest, despite the big-breasted porn stars plastered on the pages.
If you’re in the mood for straight-up, gooey, yummy porn, (or a sex date, or a toy review, or a place to look at fetish personal ads) Uporn.com is definitely a recommended stop.
Now to switch gears and pay a visit to pro-women, pro-communication, pro-education site: www.feministing.com. The first thing I noticed and absolutely love is the masthead: the name of the website is flanked by the silhouetted, well-endowed women usually found on the mud flaps of truckers. The catch – these silhouettes are graciously showing the middle finger – giving the old F-You to “the man” (or the woman, or whoever). Gotta love that.
Feministing.com is a blog-style website and has an amazing array of topics to explore. Some of the recent postings include “Selling Gender Stereotypes to Teens and Preteens,” “Not Oprah’s Book Club: The Republican War Against Women,” and one of my favorites, “Thoughts on Max Hardcore’s Conviction.” Readers can register and comment on the postings, and the conversations are always interesting and smart.
One of the greatest things about this site is that there is a wide range of opinions. Feminism, to me, embraces the different attitudes and priorities of women – and these differences are definitely represented here.
As a woman who studied feminism in college, but who has settled into the humdrum of everyday married life, I definitely crave the sisterhood of analyzing the gender-biased elements and implications hidden within the layers of our society. I’ll be honest, sometimes I’ve felt starved for it. Now I have a place to go to feed my feminist hunger, and I’m thrilled!
Some might ask – “What on earth were you thinking, recommending both a hardcore porn site and a feminist site at the same time?” To these people, I would respond – it’s a nod to the complexity of human nature and sexuality. Can we at once be self-respecting, feminist women who desperately want our lovers to call us dirty bitches and sluts in the bedroom? Can a real feminist truly enjoy watching pornography wherein another woman is supposedly being “exploited” and “degraded? To these questions, I will say yes, yes, and yes.
As Gloria Steinem wrote in the forward to the 1995 feminist anthology, To Be Real: "In fact, feminism has always stood for the right to bare, decorate, cover, enjoy, or do whatever we damn please with our bodies." That includes watching some good, raunchy porn (in which a woman chose to have sex with her body for money), and then heading over to comment on an especially thoughtful feminist essay.
Originally published October 2008