It's like the porn fantasy woman is a whole different kind of being than what I am, while celebrity hotties are the same kind as me, just a whole lot prettier.

I agree. They're utterly artificial. You might as well have a porn-bot.

Who is the "us" that has a common language of erotics? Isn't it all just all a collection of subgroups, many of whom don't overlap?

You don't think there's a common language of erotics? I mean, it's a pretty seriously hedged language, being spoken mostly in mass media who don't do full-on nudity or penetration, but there are a lot of images that a lot of people can agree are erotic. (Like, photo shoots in magazines; famous movie sex scenes; internet pinups.)

It may be that the common language falters when it comes to actually describing sex acts in words or pictures -- certainly, men I've talked to tend to find fanfic sex scenes hilarious, and Susan's not the only one who finds your standard porn scenario repulsive -- but there are "terms" available to the mainstream about sex and sexiness that most people reasonably understand and respond to in similar ways. Or, they might disagree about responses, but don't do the big "Huh???" that signifies total communication failure.

Personally, I find as many "conventional" descriptions of erotica as not-hot as men-porn or slash, but I guess I'm minority on that. To some degree, these alien women may really react that way, so standard man porn only asks me to suspend my disbelief the once, at the very start

Forgive me for interrupting this interesting discussion, but Nutty's tagline broke me.

"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."

This is even more of a mind boggler in UK English, which translates the above as Spock being on a male somebody's ladyparts. Are we talking Kirk sexchange Mpreg?

(I mean, I'm sure it's out there.)

No, in America, your fanny is a cute way of talking about your butt.

And it's all English, which makes it so much funnier.

nods.

Yes indeed, fanny = butt - it's an ongoing source of entertainment. Just checking that it wasn't Kirk Sexchange Mpreg, 'cause you never can tell. ;)

So you read:

"Mister Spock is on his butt, sir. Reports heavy damage."

and I read

"Mister Spock is on his pussy, sir. Reports heavy damage."

And upon reflection, I'm still not sure which is funnier.

Wrod.ETA: I remember reading where JM had a similar encounter with "fit" which to us= healthy and buff but as you know, for your lot=hot and sexy. So he was on UK TV and the host says " You're looking fit, James." And JM says "Yeah, well, I work out." and gets a HUGE laugh.

I've seen the butt variation.