What Porn Doesn’t Teach you…
I always aim to write from a professional point of view, but also a personal one. I find that sometimes talking about a topic is great by providing facts, but without reading about someone’s experience I feel that sometimes it can lack sincerity. I want to talk about porn, particularly the consumption of porn and the things that we don’t see, that aren’t included and the way it can translate into our sex lives now!
I would be a massive hypocrite to say that I don’t consume porn, I do. I consume various types of porn, whether that be videos on porn sites, onlyfans or erotica, but I feel that I am able to realise the fantasy within these types of media and understand that these things don’t always translate into sex. I first started watching porn at a young age, particularly with my friends; we would flick through the tv channels at sleepovers and end up on Babestation, usually accompanied with giggles and someone rushing to turn it off incase anyone else came in the room. I watched porn as a teenager, well under the age limit and I do believe this shaped my belief on what sex should of and would be like. So i’m here to talk to you about the things I thought, the things that we see and how they don’t translate into the bedroom!
Bodies.
Something that mainstream porn doesn’t teach us about, is our bodies. Although porn isn’t a great source of education, it is something that young people tend to view. What we’ve seen a lot of is slim women, with large fake breasts, ‘innie’ vulvas that are hairless with no razor bumps or shaving rash. This isn’t the reality for your everyday woman.
Similar to bodies and breasts, vulvas also come in all shapes and sizes. Labia minoras being bigger or small, majoras sticking out slightly, larger clitoris’ and hair of different colour and coarseness. This isn’t something seen in porn unless you actively look for it. Teenagers are finding this unrealistic standard of bodies and perpetuating it into their ideas on how people should look. The natural body v’s the porn body are quite different and that’s something that should always be considered. Yes these women are real, but are they natural? There is nothing wrong with the way they look, the way they chose to present their bodies, but it’s up to us to be educated enough to know that that is not the beauty standard.
What
looks
good on
camera?
What we see during porn scenes is what is visually pleasing. The directors are making sure to get the best shots, make sure the actors/actresses are positioned in a perfect way to be able to see what’s going on to provide an intense visual experience. This, contrary to the moaning and groaning, is actually not what feels the best.
Sex with your partner isn’t always being watched or filmed - unless that’s your thing. But this means that you can get into comfortable and pleasurable positions without having to worry about who can see what, what angle the camera is pointed at, it’s just about being together in that moment, being intimate. Some of the positions seen in your average porn film do not work for creating stimulation to be able to achieve orgasm. We see a lot of fast pace, hard, one speed sex, when in actual fact pleasure and orgasm can be about changing speed, changing pace, slowing down instead of speeding up.
Speaking of orgasms, this is another thing that we see can be over dramatised during porn. The screaming, the loud moaning, the dramatic performances, when it reality some peoples orgasms are quiet, they’re subtle, they're not overly loud. If you’re watching porn and begin to believe the only way a person orgasms is when they’re loud, this can affect your self esteem and how you feel you ‘perform’ in the bedroom when it actually may not be the case.
TIMING! STAMINA! These two things are very widely spoken about. We see men going to town for what sometimes, looks as though it can be up to an hour! This isn’t always easy, no matter what you hear from men at the bars 👀
The average time for a male to reach orgasm during penetration is 5.4 minutes. What we’re not seeing is the actors taking performance enhancers - viagra? - we’re not seeing the stopping between takes because they’re about to bust. We are only seeing the edited, clipped version.
Safe & Healthy Sex
How many times have you seen a porn performer wear a condom? Stop to add lube? Ask if this position is okay?
Next to never right? This is because again, it’s not sexy for the camera. These are things that aren’t seen in mainstream porn due to the fact that is doesn’t create a good shot. This creates the notion that condoms are needed, that STI preventatives aren’t necessary when in fact, it’s one of the most important parts of sex, along with consent.
Adding lube during sex isn’t a bad thing, it’s something that we’ve all needed at one point. By not showing this in porn, we add to the stigma of vaginal dryness and feed a narrative that ‘girls get wet and stay wet’, when this isn’t always the case and some need a little bit more help, which is perfectly normal!
We don’t see any check ins, which is something I think a lot of us have experienced during sex. ‘Is this okay for you?’ a simple sentence, that we never hear in media.
MY EXPERIENCE
As mentioned above, I definitely had a preconceived notion of what sex should of been like because of porn. I had sex with my top on for the majority of my teen years, due to the fact that my body was not the ‘beauty standard’. I have never been a slimmer girl, i’ve always had bigger thighs, a bum, and boobs that gravity hasn’t been kind too. My type of body was not represented in porn much at that time and so I preconditioned myself to believe that my body wasn’t the kind that was attractive. I was constantly shaving. I remember at one point I was shaving every single day and I would do everything I could to make my vulva look like the vulvas in porn, completely smooth. As I grew older and got into a relationship, I started to realise that not everyone cared about body hair, and I started to care less myself. I started to realise that my body wasn’t actually my enemy, but the societal ‘norms’ were. That being a thin, hairless woman was actually only to appease the eyes of immaturity and that wasn’t what I wanted to attract. None the less, this wasn’t all about attraction, this was about finding comfort and peace within myself and my body. I’m not one hundred percent there yet; but i’m on the way.