Cindy Gallop has created a website, Make Love Not Porn, whose goal is to educate people, primarily men who have sex with women (though also a bit for women who have sex with men), about how sex in real life might differ from sex in porn. She did a brief, very enjoyable, presentation at TED about the website and the reasons that she created it.
Here's part of that presentation (self-transcribed. Apologies for any errors!):
In an era where hardcore porn is more freely and widely available on the internet than ever before, and where kids are therefore able to access it at a younger and younger age than ever before, there's an entire generation growing up that believes that what you see in hardcore pornography is the way that you have sex.
And this is particularly exacerbated because we live in a puritannical double standards culture where people believe that a teen abstinence campaign will actually work; where parents are too embarrassed to have conversations about sex with their children; and where educational institutions are terrified of being politically incorrect if they pick up those conversations. And so it's not surprising that hardcore pornography de facto has become sex education.
Now as a mature, experienced, confident older woman, when I encounter this, I have no problem realizing that a certain amount of re-education, rehabilitation and re-orientation has to take place.
The website right now is mainly about straight porn (or should I say "different-sex porn?"), but I think it's a great idea, and perhaps it would be great for people who have sex with those of the same sex to think about how real sex and porn sex differ as well. I have one thing to offer up for man on man sex vs. man on man porn:
Porn World: Bottoms can be feminine or masculine, but tops are always masculine, and either talk dirty, don't talk at all, and only pause to ask "do you like this?" to which the answer, of course, is always "yes."
Real World: Some tops are feminine, and some bottoms love that. Also, it's ok as a top to ask non yes/no questions, and it's great for bottoms to let a top know when they don't like something, and to suggest something else that they would prefer.
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I really like that idea, though I was a little disenchanted when she said that women absolutely need some sort of rhythmic clitoral stimulation to have an orgasm. I know several women who would strongly disagree with that.
ReplyDeleteI agree, but I think the point is that most women don't come simply through penetration. I have on a few occasions when the angle and position was right, and I can count them on my left hand. (Ironically, it was usually w. guys w. small dicks). I've met several men who claim that they've been able to make all their girlfriends come through penetration alone and suspect they are largely full of shit, or lied to.
ReplyDeleteI'm really mixed on this issue, because it's a minor example of the clit vs. gspot wars that I'm so dead sick of.
ReplyDeleteMost women do need some sort of clitorial stimulation to come. Even if they can have gspot orgasms, most of those women also value and desire clitoral orgasms. So I never, ever want to say that we shouldn't emphasize the importance of the clitoris.
On the other hand, there's so much weird politicing around the issue and all the people who claim the g-spot doesn't exist and g-spot orgasms don't exist, which directly contradicts the lived experiences of actual women, and that shit pisses me off too, so in that vein I was also somewhat disappointed not to have that touched upon, but given the shortness of each "fact" or whatever I guess it would have been kind of complicated to try to convey the full spectrum of female orgasm.
yeah, the spectrum of the female orgasm deserves a post of it's own.
ReplyDeleteI really fucking hate in sex manuals when they say you shouldn't penetrate a women too soon or at all during oral, when really I get bored if I don't have that stimulation and can't get off at all. So Yes for clits! Yes for G Spots! and Yes for A Spots too! (I promise to talk abt that later.)
Also, I finally looked at this website (when I wasn't at work) and realized that I'm guilty of about 80%-90% of the porno M.O.s. Not sure if it's my age or just because I like dirty sex.
ReplyDeleteI think the whole thing is overblown, especially when you consider that a growing number of "porn" sites aren't the commercial fare featuring professional performers that everyone seems so down on, but amatuer couples filming their lovemaking without recourse to a production studio, agent, or craft services. That's authentic sex, and something can be gleaned from watching it. But in general, you don't learn how to be a spy by watching James Bond movies. And smart adult people should know that.
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