Once, when I was growing up, my mom found a porn video hidden in the house. She took the VHS tape out onto the driveway and made us watch while she smashed it to pieces with a hammer.
It's safe to say that a lot of women hate porn. But why?
For some answers, I turned to my friend and super-smart sex educator, Carlin Ross. Carlin is an attorney and sex educator living in NYC. She is the editor-in-chief of dodsonandross.com and author of the forthcoming book, How to Make a Girl Come.
Carlin, what is the origin of porn?
Porn has always been with us. The earliest nude drawings were discovered in the Chauvet cave complex dating back to the Paleolithic period. They discovered engraved images of female reclining nudes and vulvas created by man in 10,000 B.C.
Video-based porn started in the 1920s, with short films called "smokers" that depicted both heterosexual and homosexual sex acts. Watching images of other people "having sex" is sexually arousing. In other words, porn is here to stay.
What are the main concerns that women have about porn?
Many women feel that porn is degrading. Some feminists would argue that porn is a direct threat to the status of women in the culture. If we want to understand why some women hate porn, we need to understand that the majority of porn depicts the male model of sexual response. Taken as a whole, the sex acts depicted are the sex acts that bring men to orgasm, not women. Only about 20 percent of women achieve orgasm from vaginal penetration alone. The majority of women need direct clitoral stimulation to achieve orgasm.
We buy porn, we watch it, we get turned on, but when we copy what we're watching, we don't achieve orgasm. We don't experience the same heights of pleasure as these porn stars, and we internalize this failure. We believe that there's something wrong with us. Then add the body-image issues created by watching idealized images of women with surgically enhanced bodies and genitals, and now we feel even worse. We believe that we're genitally deformed, we're broken, and we'll never have great sex.
Now that porn is online, do you think more women are tuning in?
Yes. Nielsen/Net ratings indicate that about one in three visitors to adult entertainment websites is female, with nearly 13 million American women checking out porn online once a month. In addition, according to a survey conducted by The Sun, over 1,000 men and women were interviewed about "risqué behavior." The survey found that:
How do you think women could be more comfortable with the idea of porn?
The majority of porn is sex entertainment for men. If we viewed it from this prism -- like a Hollywood action movie -- then we could embrace porn as something that aids arousal. And if women were taught to accept their bodies and, more specifically, how to achieve orgasm, then porn wouldn't be seen as a threat at all. I enjoy porn in my personal life and use it to get aroused, but when I have sex I know that I must engage my clitoris, use lubricant, and take my time.
A big thanks to Carlin for her insights. She will be back next month to help me dig deeper into my gay guilt issues.
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Also, the older I have become, I've found my level of arousal, and overall enjoyment of sex is directly related to the level of arousal and enjoyment of my partner.
It's absolutely inaccurate to say men aren't turned on by sound - what is the sure fire way for a woman to bring sex to an end if she's ready for it to be over and doesn't want to cause disharmony? Start talking dirty...
And physical touching doesn't turn men on? If I spell out what the default sex act is, when a man's horny and his partner isn't, the post won't get posted. Think manual vs automatic.
I beg you.
I hate porn in that it is encouraging practices of cosmetic surgery - women once had labiaplasty because they had issues with discomfort. Now they are having it so that their genitals "look right". As if women don't have enough shame issues with their genitals to deal with, now people are trying to craft the perfect vulva, by porno standards.
But mostly I think porn is just dumb. It is done for the audience, so the positions are always with an extra person in mind - the camera operator - so it looks forced and ridiculous. And without emotional resonance, it does nothing for me. I would sooner see a dramatic episode of TV that culminates in a female/female kiss, than watch lesbian for pay porn actors doing things that just make me laugh.
Now, so long as porn performers are all safe, sane and consenting, I couldn't care less what they do. But I wouldn't waste so much as a single penny on it. What I can imagine is always better.
It's anti-sex and anti woman. I don't see how any woman could watch it and not be sickened.
Operant words in this: 'young guys'
"I hate porn in that it is encouraging practices of cosmetic surgery"
Isn't our looks oriented society, and society's over-board adulation of celebrities more to blame for women's insecurity about their physical appearance, and more of an influence than porn?
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Unlike the stereotype that all men get turned on by watching two women, I generally don't find it arousing. But when I stumble upon a porn scene where the women are obviously enjoying each other to the point of forgetting about the cameras, (and the real of the world), that's a TOTALLY different proposition - it IS rare, but it does happen.
And in terms of cosmetic surgery like labiaplasty, that is coming from porn because there is no other pathway for so many people to see so many other people's genitalia. From shaving bald to the perfect shape, it is causing women to feel enough shame about themselves that they have having their genitals mutilated to serve some vile ideal. And that is entirely from porn, from expectations of men about porn (I don't see a woman suggesting to another woman that she have a labia trimmed).
I haven't seen a lot of porn, it's true. My own mind is better. But what I have seen, when girl on girl, just makes me laugh. It's all fake. All of it. I don't think that I've ever seen porn that I didn't find ridiculous.
Sure, I have my own beef with The L Word, but my gf and I find it more of a turn-on to watch Bette and Tina go at it. I mean, at least then we're not dealing with women who stop what they're doing to a) stare into the camera with that "are you jer. king off, yet?" look that lets you know they're not actually tuned into pleasing one another, or b) caress their own stiletto heels. And what's with all the slapping and spitting down there, anyway? To us it's just...odd. On top of all that, I find the close-up shots of bare hoo-hahs to be more Discovery Medical Documentary than sensual or sexy.