Cinderella--Like Pornography for Women?

I had some final thoughts about our discussion of Cinderella before we move on. We discussed in class about how this fairy tale sets up unrealistic expectations, not only regarding a woman looking pretty and being happy doing domestic chores, but also the whole "someday my prince will come" fantasy. By hearing and watching this fairy tale as young girls, I wonder if women grow up with this thought---that someday they will meet a wonderful guy who is like a prince? He will sweep us off our feet and save us from mean family members and rescue us from the drudgery of housework. The sad thing is that the opposite is often true! When you get married, you take on in-laws as part of your family and they are not always that great to be around. And, your housework probably increases because you are taking care of your husband as well as yourself. If you have children, you can double or triple that workload. The only way to be rescued from all this is if you marry a real prince or perhaps a very rich man with live-in servants. But if Donald Trump and his many wives are any example of that lifestyle, I wouldn't want any part of it! Perhaps the truth about Cinderella and other fairy tales is what I heard someone say about a pseudo pornography for women. The theory goes like this...soap operas and what we might call chic-flicks are the same badness for women as pornography is for men. So, in essence, romantic movies and soap operas are porn for women. Why?? Because the men on these shows act the way women would like for them to act, but (this is a big but) in real life men don't really act this way. For example, the men are very communicative and romantic, they'll do anything for the woman, they often have to "rescue" her from something or somebody, by the end of the movie they love her so deeply that they'll do anything to find her and win her love, etc. It is based on female fantasy of what we want a man to be, not the way they really are. Now look at pornography for men and we can see why the comparison was made. When men look at pornography, they see a woman the way he would like them to be but they are not really this way in real life. For example, they are really confident in their own bodies, they are offering it to the man freely, they appear to love sex as much as he does, they are all about the physical fun with no strings attached, etc. Most real women are not like that. They have to have a comfortable relationship before they want to have sex, they need to communicate, they are not so comfortable putting their bodies on display. So, soap operas and chic flicks are to a woman's mind what pornography is to a man's mind. Have you ever watched a wonderfully romantic movie with a gorgeous, sweet man in it and you're starting to cry at the touching part and you look over at your husband and he looks completely unmoved?! And you get kinda mad at him because he's not like the guy in the movie? That brings us back to Cinderella. It sets up unrealistic expectations for women from the time they are young girls and learn the fairytale. We all realize at some point what relationships and marriage to a man are like, but I wonder if secretly, deep down, we're all still waiting for our prince to come. Or at least for our husbands to act like a prince more often!