Girl Porn: Magic Mike and 50 Shades of Grey
Essays, Film — By Carole Smith Turner on July 17, 2012 at 9:51 amThey said that Twilight was girl porn, ha! Now they get to see what Girl Porn really looks like.
Currently it looks like the movie, Magic Mike and the Erotica book, 50 Shades of Grey.
Where Twilight had shirtless beef cake guys honoring virginity until marriage. Magic Mike has a penis enlargement scene, female nudity, lots of guys with bare butts and more bumping and grinding male strippers in G-strings then you can imagine.
How do I know this? Well because I watched the first 30 minutes of Magic Mike. Yes, Evangeline and I were going to see Ted and we arrived at the theater early and she was begging me to go see Magic Mike because it’s Channing Tatum and every teenage girl loves him so we snuck in to watch some of Magic Mike before our movie started.
We left after 30 minutes. I just couldn’t watch anymore. I repented to Evangeline and repented to God. I felt dirty, like when I use to watch porn.
See, I kinda thought it couldn’t possibly be that bad because, well it was main stream, and I saw all these ladies that I know talking about how good it was on Facebook. I saw them telling their friends how much they were gonna love it, so I knew it would be beef cake-Channing Tatum-fest but I honestly was shocked at how filthy it was.
I guess I lied to myself because I knew it wasn’t something I should see but I went anyway and then I just felt horrible for watching 30 minutes of it and for letting Evangeline watch it.
Magic Mike is definitely Girl Porn.
“If I got married and then my marriage fell apart because I was looking at porn all the time, I’d be branded a porn addict, but women can watch that stuff and read 50 Shades of Grey but then if they leave their husbands they aren’t going to be called a porn addict”
That’s what my friend Jeremy told me this morning at church and it’s true. We were discussing how “Erotica” is really just another word for Girl Porn. How porn for men is “seeing the action” but porn for girls is the fantasy, imagining the emotional and physical attachment. Erotica books like 50 Shades of Grey stimulate the fantasy and give enough detail to root that fantasy in the brain of a needy female and movies like Magic Mike give you visually stunning men simulating sex with all their clothes off except a G-string.
I haven’t read 50 Shades of Grey. I have read about it online, in Time magazine and I’ve listened to book reviews of it on the radio so I know that I’m speaking the truth here when I say that it’s Girl Porn.
I wont be reading 50 Shades of Grey, and I’m praying that God erases from my brain the 30 minutes I watched of Magic Mike. Lord knows, I wish I hadn’t.
e·rot·i·ca
Literature or art intended to arouse sexual desire.
Porn is porn as defined by the definition above regardless if it’s for girls or for boys. As I told my friend Jonah when he asked why I didn’t consider Twilight Girl Porn but I consider Magic Mike Girl Porn, it’s because Twilight didn’t have “Sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal.
But, every woman I know that struggled with porn addiction or currently is addicted to porn, is dealing with classically defined pornography, not girl porn. Now though, there is more Erotica in the main stream and again, movies like Magic Mike so who knows what the future of female porn addiction will look like.
The book, 50 Shades of Grey, has very sexually explicit S&M sex in it. It is written to capture the reader, attach them to the characters emotionally, and take them along on the highly graphic sexual journey of this sick Master-and-servant relationship.
That answer is simple; Magic Mike is porn, Ted isn’t. There isn’t even a sex scene in Ted. You see a ladies boobs quickly and there are lots of sex jokes made about sexual acts but Ted is comparable to Taladaga Nights or Wedding Crashers (which is actually nastier then Ted), but it’s not porn.
Magic Mike opens with a naked Channing Tatum getting out of bed with two naked women OK? And the 30 minutes that I saw were pretty much solid G-strip action, dancing in them, walking in them, grinding on ladies in them, etc. The entire movie is for one purpose only, sexually arouse women and/or gay guys. That’s it.
In closing let me just say this, No, I don’t believe that every woman that goes to see Magic Mike or reads 50 Shades of Grey is a porn addict or will become one any more then I believe that every man who ever views a porno movie is a porn addict. All of these opinions are from my perspective, this is my experience. From that experience, and from studying what is porn and the effects of porn on the brain, I believe that Magic Mike and 50 Shades of Grey fall into that category.
Yes, I have a more tainted view of sex because of my past. I can’t walk into the lingerie store, “Hearts” without getting nauseated and feeling dirty (they sell sex toys and stuff too, not just lingerie) because of my past experience with porn. This is my reality. It’s like a recovering crack head going to hang out in a crack den, there is a feeling, a knowing, a warning goes up that your in dangerous territory, you feel the pull..former addicts know of what I speak.
Tags: 50 Shades of Grey, Magic Mike, pornography
9 Comments
I’m going to respectfully disagree with you that Magic Mike is “Girl Porn”, and here’s why:
1) You only saw the first 30 minutes of the film, and are judging your entire view of the movie on that. The first 30 minutes were meant to be “shocking” and had almost all of the sex and nudity in them (except for maybe one more pair of boobs) of the entire film. This was not a film made by Penthouse or Joe Francis, it was one made by Stephen Soderbergh, who’s made movies like Contagion, Oceans 11, and Traffic. His movies often have sex or violence but not to be erotic, but for an effect necessary to the story. Had you watched the rest of the movie (I won’t spoil the ending) you’d see that this was a not a movie that glorifies stripping, casual sex, or that culture. While yes, there was nudity and sex and graphic images, I think the film itself was excellent, and had a good message.
2) Personally, I think that calling something “Girl Porn” makes it sound cutesy and less significant than what it really is. Porn is porn. If it doesn’t involve watching other people have sex for the express purpose of arousal, it’s not porn. It can be “Emotional Porn”, like romantic comedies are, or “Real Estate Porn”, which is what many people call viewing expensive celebrities homes, but if you’re calling it “Girl Porn”, people are going to assume you mean something involving lesbians.
3) While certainly not all, many women just do not get aroused watching movies like Magic Mike. I saw it with my sister, and laughed uproariously during the stripping scenes, as they were done to be funny. When I saw the guys on stage, I did admire their bodies, but seeing a guy in a thong is not exactly sexy to the many women who view men’s bodies as “90%” attractive. Some women need the fantasy to go along with the erotica, which is why “porn for women” often involves a story line that regular ol’ porn just doesn’t have. Moral of the story, Magic Mike was NOT mostly a romantic movie, even though one of those story lines was pushed in at the end. It was mostly about Mike himself, and coming to terms with his life.
I do really appreciate your honesty and transparency, but as a film lover, I just think it was unfair to label this movie porn, when you only saw 30 minutes of it.
by “Sex” I should clarify, there were some scenes right after, and right before a sex act, and one you could argue “might” have been a sex scene but it cut away before things really happened, but no actual full scenes showing sex. Which I think is necessary for something to be called porn. I’ve not read or plan to read 50 shades, but from what I can tell, that would definitely qualify as porn, as it’s filled with sex scenes.
I have to agree with you, Emily. Although I haven’t seen Magic Mike, I find it a huge double standard to call that movie (which is released in regular theaters) “porn” when there are movies made and released every single week that objectify women in exactly those ways and receive little or no comment for it. Not to mention basically everything on HBO and Showtime.
Like, really? The second a movie comes out that might POSSIBLY evoke some erotic pleasure in women, it’s porn? Even though, as you say, it still manages to make those male characters human in ways that are still withheld from the majority of female characters in your standard action or scifi flick, much LESS an actual porno. Please. I’m not pushing for the expansion of the porn empire into the female market, by any means, but let’s get some perspective.
I posted the definition of porn in this article, even used the words “porn is porn” so I feel my opinion is valid and based on the definition and the content of what I saw of the film and what others like yourself said the rest of the film contained.
I appreciate that you explained why “Ted” didn’t offend you but “Magic Mike” did. While I was shocked at first (I don’t watch R-rated movies as a rule; if even secular people recognize that a movie has filthy content then that’s a pretty good indicator that I as a Christian should stay away), it reminded me that what is offensive to one person is not always offensive to another. Paul speaks about something being “sin to you,” and the Old Testament about “it became sin to them.” We all have different thresholds for what we find offensive, so while I would find both of those movies offensive, you can tolerate one but find yourself pricked by the other on account of your past.
Fascinating thoughts that your article has provoked. Well done.
I didn’t and won’t read Fifty Shades, won’t leave commentary on it, and not the slightest bit interested in Magic Mike either. Not my kind of entertainment. I do wonder why it’s not okay for the daddy’s to look at Penthouse, but it is okay for mummy to read Fifty Shades. Duplicitous in the extreme if you ask me.
I was going to say porn is porn, but both you ladies already did, so I won’t badger the point. But it was the only one I had.
Right, but my point was that there’s no actual sex scenes in Magic Mike, there’s one that cuts away RIGHT as it’s about to become one, and there’s the “morning after” but they show no sex. So how can it be porn?
I just want to weigh in as a male who has a past of problems with porn. I know exactly what Carol is talking about. I liken it to Alcohol or Drug addicts who must stay clear of drink or marijuana because of the pull it has on them. Others may not have the same reactions, but it helps if they understand the problem for those who do.
As far as the definition of porn goes… Jesus said that to even look on another person with lust is to commit adultery – pretty harsh and pretty black and white. Movies like Magic Mike pull people in with a good story and sexual titillation, causing many to be tempted to stumble. In my opinion – that is what we have always called soft porn.
By the way, my wife and I usually stay away from R rated movies, but made the mistake of seeing Ted. Sorry, but it was just plain disgusting, like watching a bad Saturday Night Live skit that just went on and on and on. Don’t recommend it at all.
Carole – I commend you for your bravery in this discussion and disturbed by others desire to define pornography by the letter rather than the spirit. We are each tempted to profane the sacred, and in terms of our sex-saturated culture, anything that can cause a desire for sexual sin should be understood as pornographic in nature. Even if the scenes in Magic Mike do not stir up sinful desires for an individual, we are often allowing ourselves to be entertained by those who and to whom those desires of lust are inflicted. Such saturation has affected our collective disposition towards pornography, and as a father of three daughters, I fret over the culture they are inheriting.