boys and pornography, ii.
[First part here.]
Before I go further, I should say that I watch porn. A lot of porn. I like porn. When I take issue with porn, it’s the quality I dislike, not the genre. I dislike the tedium, the predictability, the fake tans, the plasticky breasts, the baseball caps, the lack of imagination, the boredom, the soundtrack, the lighting, the dialogue, the inauthentic orgasms, the lingerie, the decor, the overall assault on my sensibilities. But when porn’s good, it blows my fucking mind. And it’s getting better.
When I say that I can sense if someone’s watched a lot of porn, or too much porn, what I mean to say is that I can sense that their relationship to sex is largely visual. They feel absent when they touch my body. It feels as though there isn’t any real personal connection and my presence is easily interchangeable with the millions of other bodies out there. I can sense that they’re envisioning themselves fucking me, rather than, well, fucking me. Since 90% of my libido is fueled by the physical chemistry and psychology (or, in rare cases, emotion) of the experience, in those situations I just prefer to go home and jerk off on my own. Sometimes to porn.
A more obvious symptom is when the sex mirrors the choreography of virtually every porn video ever made. My fuckbuddy, for example, watches a great deal of porn and readily acknowledges that it’s influenced his approach to sex. Often he’s like some Rocco Siffredi as he pile-drives my throat, and if he weren’t so keen to have me swallow his come, I’m sure he’d go the facial route (and then I’d have to say, “Really? A facial? Really?”). It’s hot with the fuckbuddy, and it’s one way to do things, to fuck and be fucked. It might lack the psychological intensity of my best sexual experiences, but it gets me off. It’s also a fairly limited way to go. That’s why he’s my fuckbuddy and not my soulmate.
The twentysomething also watches a lot of porn. I’ve borrowed his porn; it’s the sort in which some pretty thing gets railed by a big-dicked beast, or several. But being with him you’d never know that he’s an aficionado. When he’s with me, he is absolutely present, buried face-first between my thighs or whispering into my ear while he thrusts into my cunt. Everything about how he moves his hands over my body, or bites my skin, feels very there. And knowing he’s there makes it easier for me to lose myself in the experience. The more present someone feels to me, the more pliable my body becomes.
*
A friend sent me a link to a piece in the Guardian by Marina Hyde, entitled “Porn is screwing up young men’s expectations of sex.” It’s written in the wake of the Manchester United controversy: a woman reported that she was raped, and gangraped at that, by members of the Manchester United soccer team at a Christmas party. Overall, the incident seems to be a complicated one. For one, when a party-goer asked the woman if she were okay, she responded, “They said I was a great shag.” This opens onto a great deal of grey area.
Hyde steps back to examine the larger implications of the controversy, rejecting the polarizing positions of “she was asking for it” versus “these men are animals,” and turns instead to the influence of pornography on an overall perception of sex. Remarking on why these men would choose to participate in a gangbang, she speculates:
It might be partly that they enjoy team activities and it’s a kind of extended goal celebration, but it is primarily because that is what they see in porn. And porn is screwing up sex. Not sex in relationships, but the kind of casual sex in which it would be nice to think people could indulge in a mutually enjoyable, non-exploitative fashion.
She goes on to conclude, “No matter where you stand on it, porn has undoubtedly skewed many young men’s expectations of sex, and many young women’s sense of sexual obligation.”
I’d agree that porn is having a clear influence. I feel like it lowers the bar on sexual experience, it reduces sex acts to cliches, it depicts deeply challenging experiences, like getting rammed in the ass by a massive cock, or by several massive cocks, as if it were effortless. Porn fails to communicate what it feels like, how disorienting or unnerving or painful it can be, just as it fails to express how euphoric or mind-blowing or life-affirming it can be. Sex, rough sex, intense sex, can be like a bad acid trip – it depends largely on the dynamic of those involved. In porn-land, it’s always very simple and even and consistent. That’s going to warp a man’s imagination until he experiences otherwise.
But Hyde introduces a separate issue, because we’re not just talking about men pornifying their sexual repertoire, but also the tendency for women to go along with something they might not want. And that, to me, is huge.
I see this resonate in a piece by Moe Tkacik for the lady-Gawker Jezebel, entitled, “How About You Don’t Ask to Come on my Face on the First Date?” It’s not the most enlightened piece of writing, but I get it – I get what she’s saying, that these fairly awkward men are going about sex awkwardly; they’re jerking off in girls’ faces and smacking asses and using safe words and dirty language and from the outside it could look a bit misogynist and is most likely the result of heavy porn viewing. But what’s the problem here, really? If you’re not into it, you say no.
Chelsea wrote a great post in response to this piece, and it’s worth quoting a full paragraph:
I’m troubled by facile associations between porn and badness, and yet I’m not going to be the first person to champion porn as unequivocally good either. I think that there are questions inherent to the hot-and-cold running porntastic world that we currently live in, but I’m not convinced that those problems are, as Jezebel suggests, along the lines of “how the proliferation of porn is forcing women to do ‘things they don’t want to do’ in bed.” It seems to me that one thing that media outlets like Jezebel should be teaching is that women—and men—have the right to just say no to things that make them go “Ewww!” And likewise men—and women—have the right to request those things, even on a first date.
And that’s exactly it.
I do think porn is shaping a collective sense of what sex is, or should be. And the popularity of facials is evidence enough that life imitates art/artlessness, and why shouldn’t it? We certainly discourage the representation of sex elsewhere to round those points of reference out.
Porn will get better. But also, I suspect extensive sexual experience and a modicum of self-awareness will mitigate its influence. That, and the ready expression of what we do and do not want.
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I read a fair amount of erotica online (mostly user-submitted, so generally-speaking, it’s not great). I love porn, but don’t watch it for the very reason that it doesn’t usually portray how it feels or the emotions behind it that a story can, so it doesn’t fulfill me enough to, well, get off.
I absolutely wait for the day where the crap acting/dialog/cum shots etc are replaced by what could at least be passed as a genuine experience, if a bit over the top now and again. There’s little more satisfying when watching porn than being able to imagine that’s me in ‘Scenario X’.
I’m so grateful that you go into what’s most important — the Here, the Now, the Feel when you’re with someone. Screw what looks good; it’s about what feels good, and communicating that.
Why are facials so associated with porn? I barely watch porn, but love them. Never are you so up close to the moment of ejaculation; never are your senses so intertwined with his orgasm.
Yes, this is why I was looking forward to this second piece. This is also why I consistently decry porn, even “alternative” porn, to be monotonous representations of the very same going-through-the-motions activities that are just not exciting on anything other than a vicarious, or worse, detached experience after the first or second viewing.
Two things struck me about this post, but instead of writing about them here (as I originally did), I decided to write about them on my own blog.
Way back when, long before the internet, when boys like me had no real access to porn (no way was I setting foot in one of those jerkoff palace theaters with the raincoat dudes) I had a girlfriend –the same one I mentioned in a comment here last week– who very much liked having me come on her body and on her face while she uttered the most creative filth. You’ll just have to take my word for it that this was her idea– I was far too naive and callow to have ever thought of it. But I liked it. A lot. Maybe because it is so gratuitous and devoid of redeeming social content. Or maybe because it can be a form of domination that doesn’t involve or require props. Or maybe because in the right hands, it is just hot.
Anyway, fast forward about 15 years, to when I started watching porn, and imagine my chagrin at discovering that my nasty little secret style of play was just a trope.
Since then, I have watched some porn (less each year it seems) and I have ejaculated on some faces. But when I do, I try to keep firmly in mind the logician’s fallacy of “post hoc ergo propter hoc”. It helps me feel a bit less like Generic Derivative Porn-Watching Man.
That’s a really good point, Anon and Peccator.
I’d forgotten about this until I read these comments, but in my early-early twenties, I dated someone who’d said that he’d always wanted to come on a woman’s face but was too afraid to ask. I not only encouraged it but it also turned me on, and I think this was because it was so invasive, disruptive, and dirty.
Somehow, between then and now, it was subsumed by cliche for me. Maybe I shouldn’t let it.
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I completely agree, Opheliac. Maybe it’s the medium, in part, but there’s so much more than can be done. Fortunately, there are some very promising pornographers out there.
And May, I’ll look forward to reading your thoughts.
I have to say, I applaud your approach here. A lot of feminists would be loath to claim that porn has any negative influence on women, but the fact is that they are raising it to a mythical status it doesn’t have. Porn is pop culture, plain and simple: sparkling soda and bubble gum. It’s Britney Spears and a 12 inch cock. And as such, it not only reflects our culture, it helps to shape it.
What’s interesting to me, though, is that porn is just one of the scripts by which we learn “how to fuck.” I roar and rally a lot against constructs like the romance plot and other scenarios by which we are pre-programmed to recognize attraction and lust. However, sociologically speaking, we have to be programmed in *some* form of narrative, or a socio-sexual infrastructure would not exist. Porn has traditionally been one of the strongest of these narratives; and while I am often disturbed at what it has to say, I think we are all probably very influenced by it. I strive to write my own narratives which focus on ambivalence and deconstruction of sexual binaries, but ultimately it is also a narrative, with the potential to enact narrative oppression.
Well done.
I’m going to invoke my favorite writer here and quote Angela Carter’s proclamation that “pornography is propaganda for fucking.” Carter hatched that concept in her 1978 Sadeian Woman, and the work is very much a product of its time, so the pornly propaganda Carter rails against is decidedly anti-feminist. I like to think she would be both pleased and appalled in equal measure were she alive to see porn today, for porn has changed as much as it has stayed the same.
What you bring up–and this was my point exactly, and I thank you for recognizing it–is that sex encompasses choice: the choice to partake in whatever acts you like, the choice to say no to the ones you don’t, and the choice to experiment in the quest of figuring out what those acts are.
Porn can serve as propaganda for people who want to approach sex with the mindless machinations of visually pneumatic fucking; it can also give a big shiny permission slip to people looking for ways to feel ok about enjoying acts they feel shame about. It, like most aspects of culture, can neither be neatly demonized nor simply lionized.
I’ve thought of a few misconceptions that someone learning about sex may have if they only watch porn:
-Women will have an orgasm no matter what you do.
-All women are bisexual
-Pubic hair does not exist.
-The smallest cock is 10 inches.
-Pizza boys have lots of sex.
-Every high-school and college woman that stays after class will have sex with her teacher.
-Every guitar has a wah-wah pedal attached to it.
I was going to write a long post in response but realise Kenneth Tynan has described porn and its functions better than anyone else, in my opinion, so I set out an extract from his biography below.
He makes some good points: i.e. pornograhy may be art or not art, it may be good or badly made, but it is essentially masturbatory or solitary for the viewer. A brothel I konw of once installed monitors in the rooms to show porn. This didnt work. It was distracting for the girl and the client. In some cases it actually put them off as it was out of context with what they were doing or trying to do – make their own interactive fantasy, and it cut across their intimacy and privacy, and their communication which is always important. So the monitors were removed and everyone was happier. A gang bang or onstage sex is a very different thing by definition, both are in a sense a performance. But thats getting off the point of porn, as to which read on:
“It’s difficult to be an enemy of pornography without also disapproving of masturbation. To condemn the cause, it is logically necessary to deplore the effect.
“The debating society at my school was discussing the motion ‘That the present generation has lost the ability to entertain itself.’ Rising to make my maiden speech, I said with shaky aplomb, ‘Mr. Chairman – as long as masturbation exists, no one can seriously maintain that we have lost the ability to entertain ourselves.’ The teacher in charge immediately closed the meeting.
“In a letter to the Sunday Times, a respected liberal clergyman wrote: ‘To be sexually hungry is the fate of thousands, both young and old. There is nothing evil in this hunger, but it is hard to bear. To have it stimulated when it cannot be honorably satisfied is to make control more difficult.’
“Here, in three short sentences, all the puritan assumptions are on parade – that sexual deprivation is the normal state of affairs, that it is morally desirable to grin and bear it, and that masturbation is a dishonorable alternative.
“Because hard core performs an obvious physical function, literary critics have traditionally refused to consider it a form of art. [But] As Lionel Trilling said: ‘I see no reason in morality (or in aesthetic theory) why literature should not have as one of its intentions the arousing of thoughts of lust. It is one of the effects, perhaps one of the functions, of literature to arouse desire, and I can discover no ground for saying that sexual pleasure should not be among the objects of desire which literature presents to us, along with heroism, virtue, peace, death, food, wisdom, God, etc..’
“But I mustn’t lurch into the trap of suggesting that pornography is defensible only when it qualifies as art…. A reviewer in the International Times declared: ‘In the brave new world of sexuality, perhaps we can forget about art, and read Henry Miller as he was meant to be read: as the writer whose craft describes intercourse better than anybody else’s. If we have learned nothing else from Genet, we can be sure of this: his result may have been art, but that’s not as important as his intention, which was pornography.’
“[One frequently raised argument against porn is that it does our imagining for us.] It sounds like a fearful affront, a chilling premonition of 1984; but it is exactly what all good writers have done since the birth of literature. The measure of their talent has immemorially been their ability to make us see the world through their eyes. If they can heighten our perceptions, we should thank them, not resent them.
“One inalienable right binds all mankind together – the right of self-abuse. That – and not the abuse of others – is what distinguishes the true lover of pornography. We should encourage him to seek his…pleasure as and where finds it. To deny him that privilege is to invade the deepest privacy of all.” (The Sound of Two Hands Clapping by Kenneth Tynan. New York, 1975.)
I actually love porn. I am not a particular fan of more recent porn actually, because the quality to me tends towards unimpressive. It’s just very repetitive, which is obnoxious to me. And whiel I like most porn, bukake and facials just don’t do it for me.
This is a great post, and great links. It’s definitely interesting to discuss whether or not there have been actual changes in male expectations on sex because of it, but I wonder too if there won’t be a change in female expectations the more gender acceptable porn becomes–I know many more woman comfortable with watching porn now, so maybe women will change their expectations too.
Again, just a great post.
My shrink says essentially the same thing. He thinks that pornography alters men’s and women’s expectations of sex. He also feels that our culture as a whole has been influenced to be more sexualized, more pervasively pornographic. I doubt humans are any more lascivious now than we were 500 years ago; I do think there’s more frequent, more explicit, and most importantly more commodified representations of sex in our current culture than we have seen in some time.
I’ve actually thought about this from a different perspective. I’m a woman, and I watch a bit of porn online (alas, usually the same video, because it’s somewhat real (the girl getting fucked has a true orgasm), instead of the robotic girl-watching-the-camera and face cum shot showcase of most porn). What I fantasize is often formulated, to some extent, on what I’ve watched, and it is very different from what I want and what I do with live sexual partners. I always worry that I’ll start behaving porn-like with a lover, when that isn’t how I want to be with them. I used to say my partner’s name a lot when I’d have sex, and then after a couple more partners who didn’t reciprocate that and then I saw some porn, I realized I was behaving porn-y without realizing it.
Though, I must say that I really hate the “Do you like my big cock?” that I’ve been asked by both men in the US and in Europe. I’ve had my share of large cocks, and to me, anything 6″ or less is just average — and it’s always the 6″ers who think they’ve got a “really big” cock.
wow. I stumbled on to your site, and it’’s actually good. thanks for being someone who understands what sex truly is. your series on porn is clarifying some things for me that I knew, but didn’t know…if you know…
long live debauchette.
A recent article said that men are now shaving their pubes because of porn. It certainly influences our culture, and like all commercial endevors, not always in a good way. I, too, object to the quality of porn, not because it doesn’t have good production values, but because it leads us to expect wildly unrealistic things from our sexual partners, disappointing us when they don’t like up to pornstar standards, and pressuring both men and women to act in ways that have little to do with pleasure and everything to do with commerce and performance.
I can’t say I am a big fan of “porn” as it is generally thought of in society-being baseless, it seems to promote the ugliest aspects of the act. All that goes through my head is “Well, I could be watching someone eat, or use the bathroom, and it would be about as interesting and certainly as vulgar” or “Hey, was that guy wearing a Versace belt?”. I’m more turned on by textures or random brushes against strangers, or even certain editorials in fashion magazines. Justin Timberlake drenched in blood for Arena Pour Homme…
The best things about sex have little to nothing to do with the act itself. I doubt porn will ever be able to portray this effectively, in large part due to the audience: most of the avid porn buyers are not the most discriminating lot. That will have to change before mainstream porn changes. I’m not going to hold my breath.
It’s interesting that the piece by Hyde stems from a gangrape issue-it made me think of a piece written by Peter Saville on Showstudio:
http://showstudio.com/projects/dressmeupdressmedown/onpornography/peter_saville.php
From his essay: “In this country the term by which something was deemed ‘obscene’ or ‘pornographic was whether the material was likely to ‘deprave and corrupt’. I can say categorically that porn depraves and corrupts. Absolutely. Frequent exposure to pornography changes your sensibility about personal behaviour. I am fascinated to see the gang rape scenario puzzling local authorities, health workers , care workers and the police. I’m astonished that they are puzzled by this. It’s very easy to explain. Go and look at any contemporary pornography. Gangbang is the contemporary sex style. That’s what happens with pornography: these things become really normal after a while.”
Porn is sexploitation. The issue is whether it works and why.
From my perspective nudity itself is erotic. I was allegorically lambasted by a group of nudists called “Nudists for Bush”. This was in the late 90s. I simply asked if it was alright to have a hard on at one of their nudist events and the person I was corresponding with essentially went apeshit and that was that.
So for most people a lot of it depends on how often you have your clothes on which for me is very seldom; and going beyond that point there is the erotic aspect – e.g., Playboy Magazine which I don’t even look at any more used to depict nude women so unerotically that I never noticed they were nude.
Porno then is a sort of ‘ok let’s cut the shit and get right to the point we have product to sell’ – viz., it is erotic seeing people nude and fucking or sucking cock however it is very much the same in effect as how often you have your clothes on which is where the market is targeted and like pop music it sounds great the first time but wouldn’t you rather listen to the album. Sometimes there’s nothing there but sometimes you have The Beatles or the Rolling Stones &c too.
Facials to me were invented as an evolutionary stage of the money shot
Everyone likes to see cum. I remember the first time I saw cum it put me in a dream trance. I didn’t have jizz yet was with three older guys in this littlel shack on stilts out in upstate NY woods one summer and one of them just took off his clothes giggled jerked off and came for us. It was fabulous. I couldn’t wait until I had jizz of my own
Most people are repressed in some way. I mean look at these “Nudists for Bush”. Younger men know that you just get a hard on every now and then it just happens so these people are essentially saying that you have to repress that which to me spells psychological impotence. So too, there is still a lot of Homophobia, racists are still trying to find their new slave to liberate as separate but equal, so to a degree almost any sort of porn is to some degree liberating.
Gay porn is probably more evolved than Hetero stuff simply because Heterosexuality devoid of procreation becomes unnatural. Do you get pregnant from facials? So I think eventually the mainstream will be bisexual. 10 years from now guys holding hands making out in public &c will be common in most places, unless John Edwards hires some new Billy Graham to re-establish born again traditional family values like Jimmy Cracker did
And if you honestly and openly look at it in the aforesaid light you will see that this is truly the culprit. Evolution works best when it’s left alone … for to allow pent up things to unravel and proceed in a new manner from that unraveled state
So the problem is sexual repression, this is not to say everyone ought to be promiscuous have anyone’s baby try cock sucking and ass fucking and do it with anyone but merely to be accepting of what works for others or if you;re at a nudist camp merely say to yourself yep by golly that fella has a hard on, damn nice one too and now back to volleyball maye I’ll ask him for a drink later
Personally I’m an old fashioned type and I like things like sweet talk, cuddling, being devoted &c. Those things deliver me to my best orgasms but I use porno for edging simply because so few people are into said traditional sweetheart aspects. Sex has become something like ‘yeah everybody does it so I should too it’s cool like money and Las Vegas’ and by said decadence sex is thus rendered meaningless.
So the remainder is the erotic aspect which is in actuality a temporary or transitory thing, it doesn’t lead to anything and consequently one that comes to be involved in sex in this manner has to find new sensations, new flesh and new varieties of inputs in order to get off
Finally then the real issue has been around for a long time – viz are such products a reflection of what is or does it make what is — this was used in the analysis of violence.
If you have dumb sexually repressed people they will learn from porn, no doubt, in fact this has been addressed in a documentary i believe is called “Sex in the Cinema” wherein Tony Curtis confesses – {p}’this is where i learned how to act on dates’ … the movies.
~~~~~~~ oXo♥♥
I don’t watch much porn– and what I do watch is all girl-girl or girl-solo. (Yes– I make a point of never having porn with males in it: I’ll admit to male gayness fear) But I do know that for me sex is far more about envisioning what’s happening (who will it look if filmed? how would it be described in a novel?) rather than the physical act. The physical act can never compare to the act in imagination— though that’s true of every act, far and away beyond sex.
I am 5 months late to this thread, but I think about this topic a lot. I have three daughters and the pornographication of our culture bothers me. Not because sex bothers me. But for the very reasons suggested by the referenced article. Kids learn about sex from pornography (I had Penthouse, Playboy, and Last Tango in Paris) — todays kids have easy access to hard core videos on the web. And what do they learn? They learn that women don’t have pubic hair. That all girls want to get fucked hard up the ass. That sex does not actually involve any touching other than dicks and cunts. That kissing is for sissies. That nobody uses condoms. That what constitutes a climax is a woman gratefully milking the cock that has fucked her for the past 20 minutes and rubbing cum all over her face. Give me a break. When did the human race become a bunch of humping Mexican hairless chihuauaus? I had more interesting sex with my Barbies when I was 8.
The problem is if this is what you think sex is (or should be) then you play the part. Girls especially. Most girls will do anything to be liked. It’s sad, but its true. Where exactly are they going to learn that they don’t have to do things they don’t like? That they can say, no thanks. Certainly not from films, books, graphic novels, TV shows, Teen magazines, advertisements, and Myspace. “Girl Power” seems to be about being good at the Science Fair and having friends with benefits. Everything says suck cock, fuck every which way and LIKE IT. The implication is that if you do not, then there is something wrong with you. It’s easy to say that women should know what they want. But that is naive. At what point in the gang rape is the woman supposed to say “You know guys, I’m really not that into the group scene.” And who exactly would be listening to her if she did say it? Porn 101 seems to be that all women are sluts and they are grateful for rough treatment.
I want my daughters to love their bodies and learn when they are ready that they can give and receive pleasure. I want them to know that their sexuality is a very special gift that should only be given freely to people who will appreciate it. I want them to know that they should listen to the voice inside them that tells them if something is good or bad, right or wrong. I want them to know that sex should be a two-way street and that their needs should be met. I’m not sure how I will do this. But I do know that I will be working against a culture and media that think that a woman should be on her knees with cum all over her face.
Although I much prefer the written word to film, and am an avid reader of all types of erotica I THINK I would like porn if I ever saw a good one – I never have – can anybody care to share what titles actually qualify as good ones? What are your favorite pornos? I’m not talking about sexy R-rated stuff – actual XXX rated porn that actually has a plot, decent acting and of course, hot sex. And since the author of this blog and the readers of it seem quite intelligent and enlightened, I know you will be able to help. Thanks!
In response to Tara— try Rinse Dream’s surrealist porn, or the early Andrew Blake. Blake’s “Secrets” and “House of Dreams” are eeie-beautiful. Try “Party Girls a Go Go” 1 & 2— porn with a wicked sense of deadpan surreal style.
Thank you, Doctor I’m currently seeking the titles you suggested in your post, I can’t wait to curl up on my sofa with some surrealist porn!
Tara– thanks. Look also for Veronika Rocket’s “Smoker” and Rinse Dream’s “Cafe Flesh”… also his soft-core “Dr. Caligari” and “Nightdreams”…
I recall hearing Larry Flynt make the remark that there are two types of people in the world: those who like porn, and those who haven’t seen good porn. I would like to follow that up with a quote from Susie Bright: If you don’t like the porn you’ve seen, make your own.