So I stumbled upon this well-meaning little website and I felt compelled to spread the word, at least to my minuscule little chunk of cyberspace. The amusing little "Porn vs Reality" bit isn't anything genius (unless maybe, you're a clueless preteen boy) but what really got me were the comments.
In the comments section were two absolutely heart-breaking stories about how lots of exposure to hardcore pornography at a formative age had permanently damaged the sexual behavior of the individuals who (willingly and regularly) consumed it. One guy had a porn addiction so bad that, when his (sexually active) girlfriend came to visit for a few days and he couldn't jack it around her, he actually went through physical withdrawal symptoms. I suppose it's not surprising that, in a world where fastfood companies put salt in their drinks just to make you buy more, the Porn industry might somehow subliminally make their products as addicting as possible, but this was just too sad.
As I probably should have mentioned earlier, the premise of the website is this: In the world we live in today, hardcore porn is more freely available to everyone than it ever has been, and it is possibly the most significant change that has been affected on our society by the dawn of the internet. Most men are now significantly educated about sex by porn, leading to beliefs like "all women love it when you cum on their faces" and "no attractive woman has a bush." The concern here is that even people who don't enjoy these things (AKA most of us) will still feel obligated to enjoy them (or at least, pretend they enjoy them) thus leading to pretty mediocre sex all around. The website is not at all pro-censorship or antiporn though. Overall, it encourages people to have honest and respectful dialogs with their partners about their individual tastes, stand up for themselves, and also encourages the creation of more "sex positive" porn. (more realistic, and one might even say, 'lovvy-dovvy' recordings between happy looking, respectful partners.)
Obviously as a 20 year-old woman I'm all for more porn where the girls look legitimately aroused and happy instead of confused as to why a cock is being shoved down their throat. (Maybe dudes can't tell if that orgasm is acting, but we sure can). But that isn't the point.
What I derived from reading the comments section was another problem. Let's say you're spending the night in, alone, online, looking for your regular dose of nudity. Since the porn industry gets more use (I would imagine) from people who have obscure tastes to begin with (since they are less likely to find their satisfaction with a 'normal' partner) what you are presented with is mostly fetishized and exotic to begin with, with only a few more 'tame' videos interspersed. What you're really turned on by, in all likelihood, is the nudity and raw sexuality of the whole ordeal, but let's say there's some other kinkier stuff there too and you're just like "ok, whatevs, ass." But if you're young and this continues over time, however, the 'kinkier stuff' you had to endure in the first place becomes something you strongly associate with sex, and voila, a kink is born.
I have nothing against kinkiness, and this is where it becomes hard to be this website (which is both accepting of hard-core tastes, and admonishing of its domination of the porn industry). We are the way we are and sometimes there's not much that can be done to change that. (Though I can see why, if you're still in your formative years, it might be hard to tell the difference between a "that's so gross and shocking" physical reaction and a "that's so arousing" physical reaction, which could make things complicated). Overall, however, I do think that more realistic, sex-positive porn would lead to more realistic, sex-positive fantasies, thus leading to everyone having better sex as a whole.
But then there's the scary question: What if, even after sex positive porn flows just as freely as your typical "HOTT 18 YRS DOUBLE PENETRATION XXX" Pop-up add, we still en masse prefer the kinky shit and our dominant hand? Is there something about base human sexuality that would actually prefer Porn to real people? Or being spat and cum on instead of tenderly caressed? Sure, most people might say that each individual is different, and likely desires a balance of both. But what if somewhere deep in our neurochemistry porn just does a better job? Have we created the crack cocaine of our arousal and are slowly leading towards an addicted and autosexual world? Many people already would rather type online than chat face to face, so is it logical that sex will inevitably go that way too?
I wonder if any of the great dystopists ever thought that one up...
