There’s nothing wrong with a bit of slap and tickle, if you’re into that sort of thing. This article isn’t a prudish attempt to persuade you all to wear chastity belts, especially as I can’t exactly claim to be chaste myself. This article is about men drooling over internet videos of couples doing extremely naughty, explicit, and sometimes disgusting things (depending on which end of the kinky spectrum you’re on) and how this impacts on a guy’s perception of how he should treat his main squeeze.
And don’t think it doesn’t have an impact. I am one of the boys – but with boobs – and my guy friends are very open about porn, watching it, discussing it, and demonstrating their prowess by demonstrating they know where to find the most explicit forms of sexual acts on the internet (thanks guys). I’m an expert by default, a female virtuoso of men and their pornography. What I have taken from this bizarre learning experience is that men are stupid and aren’t able to discern the line between fantasy and reality.
Porn = fantasy. That equation should be easy enough to understand for most of us. That movie where the busty woman wiggles her way to the stranger in her skimpy, skimpy underwear to exchange brief dialogue before jumping his bones? Fake. Doesn’t happen in real life. The way the virile man treats the woman; throwing her to the conveniently placed leather coach and ordering her to do this, that and the other? Not appropriate under normal circumstances. And if we conduct a poll we may find that this kind of treatment is actually considered demeaning by many women – by say, the women you guys want to date.
Ah, but the titillation is strong and the bad acting is convincing. Some men genuinely think that women enjoy being treated like porn stars and try to slip appendages where they don’t belong without permission, resulting in WTF moments.
“But. But. I saw it in a movie…”
“What kind of movie, you freak? Get out of my bed, get out of my house, get out of my life.”
Well, that’s the scenario that plays out in my head if I imagine something like that happening to me. Of course, the threshold for WTF moments is different for everyone. What I don’t like, you may love, and vice versa – but the thresholds of what is and is not taboo is being sorely tested thanks to online porn. I’d also go so far as to say that a rewrite of sexual culture and sexual initiation is underway for the young ones growing up with complete and total access to online porn hubs.
The days of the missionary position could be over. Men see much more than guy on girl online – girl on girl, threesomes (swimming into the deep end now), golden showers, gaping, tossing the salad – apparently of increasing interest, although I’ve only recently heard of it. Makes you pine for a bit of good old fashioned S&M and shoe fetishes doesn’t it? Online sex is becoming more invasive, literally, which is fine except that there is no one to mediate, explain or initiate the porn lovers interested in dabbling in a bit of what they see.
I’m not a fetishist, but my understanding is that there are rules. If you are a dominant looking for a submissive, you don’t simply take a whip out and start getting your jollies on an unsuspecting partner. You ask first, and you know to ask because there is a culture in place that respects all parties involved in the fetish and doesn’t just throw noviciates into the deep end without their floaties.
Strip that culture away and sit a person down in front of their computer. That person can learn everything they want about sex: what positions and acts are possible, where and with what kind of person, people, or inanimate objects. Essentially, young men can form their sexual identity online and alone. Yeah – that is completely safe. So when a guy who watches an awful lot of online porn decides that anal sex is for him, there is absolutely nothing to stop him from simply slipping up behind his credulous girlfriend. He doesn’t know any better. That’s how the guy did it in the movie and that busty chick loved it! His girlfriend, not so much.
Relationships between men and women are more and more beginning to resemble the pornographic movies our boyfriends, brothers and guy friends so adore. Women give in once to a naughty escapade and then all of a sudden, what was supposed to have been a one time session turns into a regular event. Soon some light spanking is initiated, maybe some hair pulling. Then he suggests that a video camera is set up to capture the action and you’re making your own porno. Now that’s a Wednesday night to remember. Some guys have truly been ruined by the porn industry and think porno sex equates to relationship sex, but I think some of the damage is self-inflicted and our menfolk are overlooking the sweeter side of porn (if you can even call it that).
I asked my guy friends if they have ever seen porn that wasn’t all throw down, moaning, groaning action. They hadn’t. So I decided to look for myself. There is porn out there is almost romantic and when I found it I screened it for my friends. First words out of their mouths: “Oh. They’re kissing”. Yes. We were watching a clip of a couple lovingly kissing on a bed. It progressed to nudity and sex, and their lips remained entwined. This portrayal of intimacy seemed to bother my friends despite the fact that you could see all the requisite bits and pieces. That sex should involve acts of affection, tenderness and passion was genuinely confusing for them. “What the hell kind of porno is this?” One that more accurately reflects what you bozos should be doing in the bedroom, I’d say.
All I can think is it’s rather sad that men in our generation, but more so generations to come, will learn about sex and what they should do in the bedroom through what they see in porn. Porn is becoming more hardcore and kinkier, and women will increasingly have to fend off sexual deviants who want hedonistic porn stars in the bedroom. Women will then need to decide whether to fight or fold in the face of this changing sexual culture (I have my water gun in hand). But I don’t have a problem with porn in and of itself. I have a problem with guys huddling in front of their computers alone and getting strange and unnecessary ideas.
As women, we have a right to say no to questionable overtures, but as men become kinkier will we have to reach those same heights to keep them interested? Just imagine what fun advice columns will become to read – “doggie style is so passé; experiment with bodily fluids and keep your sexually evolved man”. Please. I know better. You know better. But some young women will jump on the kinky pink bandwagon (don’t know why I associate kink with pink) and perpetuate the misunderstanding that porn stars and girlfriends all enjoy the same kind of fun and games in between the sheets. Not cool.
Now I don’t know about you, but I am not a porn star, nor am I prude. I’m probably a reasonable representative for a typical Gen Y woman and as such I have some pointers for our gentlemen readers. Ask your girlfriend before you put that there. Ask her what she wants in the bedroom. You don’t need to be gratuitous to have a rip rollicking time and if you want to learn some new tricks for the bedroom, go buy a copy of the Kama Sutra, light some candles and get some hands on experience with your girl. It’s much more fun when you learn in pairs. And watch porn in moderation.
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“All I can think is it’s rather sad that men in our generation, but more so generations to come, will learn about sex and what they should do in the bedroom through what they see in porn.”
True that. Not to mention that their idea of a naked woman is that of the porn stars they see on screen…
This would have been easier to swallow without the gross generalisations of men in almost every paragraph.
The ‘bozos’ you refer to in no way represent an accurate cross-section of the male population who do know the difference between airbrushed porn actresses and real women. I’d go as far as to suggest that your ‘bozos’ are the minority.
In this reader’s experience, the vast majority of men do prefer a real woman to a little miss plastic fantastic.
If you truly think that internet porn is somehow altering the collective male sense of what’s right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable in their relationships with women, you are both sorely underestimating every man’s intelligence and utterly missing the point of the pornography they watch.
Pornography is not something a man turns to for advice, role models or an instruction manual for his love life.
It’s a quick fix. Nothing more. It’s like a bad action movie – there’s no story, the acting is terrible and it’s poorly produced, but hey, it’s good for a laugh.
Give the boys some credit.
Not all guys watch porn, and not all guys who watch porn turn around and reinact what they see on their girlfriends. I get that. That’s why I said “some men genuinely think that women enjoy being treated like porn stars” – and then went on to explore those men and their porn.
I think the main point to take out of this article is that this is a growing trend. Ten years ago when I was 16 online porn wasn’t quite as accessible and the guys I was hanging with were more than happy to just make out. The situation is shifting, and will likely continue to shift as younger people start watching porn at ages when they’re forming their sexual identities.
It’s already happening. Oprah was condemned in March 2004 for explaining to parents their children’s secret language for their hidden sex lives, including ‘rainbow parties’ (oral sex parties with color coded lipstick), ‘high five’ (to be HIV positive), ‘tossing the salad’ (which as I mentioned in my article – I’ve only just heard of so prepubescent teens are higher on the sexual food chain than I am). Don’t know about you, but I was ready my Sweet Valley High novels until I was 14 – not attending sex parties.
I’ve been asked to give the guys some credit – and I do (just not clearly in this article because I’m trying to make a point). Should we give that same credit to 12 year old boys watching hardcore online porn now? They’re going to grow up one day and keep all of their learnt sexual preferances and predilections and the little trend we’re seeing now will skyrocket.
Another article, from Time in 2004 looks far deeper into this topic than I do – http://tinyurl.com/6rmso2 – and importantly cites sex therapists. In theory, these guys know better than I do.
Key takeouts:
- Porn was once never ever cited as a reason for divorce in the US. Now it plays a significantly higher role.
- Studies show a correlation between exposure to porn and increased aggressive behaviour in boys
- Some men can develop unhealthy body image ideas – so that the ideal body is Jenna Jameson’s.
Sure this is worst case scenario stuff, but why shouldn’t we look at the worst case scenario? The trend is men and young boys watching more porn, and more hardcore porn. Surely that will have long-term consequences.