I just watched this TED talk by Amber Mallery, called, “Can Porn Be a Part of Sex Education?” and she made so many great points I wanted to share it here along with my refections. Namely, she argues that we are learning from porn when we watch it; it is a form of sex education, for better or for worse. Mainstream porn, or whatever porn we watch, can shape our expectations about sex, create in us a desire or perceived need to look or perform similarly during sex, and impact our own thinking about our sexuality, our bodies, and our desires. Amber wants a world where we can learn from porn in a healthy way, where porn frees, rather than cages, our sense of what is possible for and during sex, where porn is a responsible, honest, and inclusive teacher. I want that too!
It got me thinking about my earliest porn consumption: typing “dicks” into google and taking off safe search when I was 10 or 11. What I saw was violent. So many dicks. Huge dicks. And the links often took me to violent sex: huge dicks penetrating dry vaginas and women who looked in pain. I didn’t like it. I did like the dicks, but I didn’t like the violence. I got into gay porn for a while, not able to bear the depiction of women–women who didn’t look anything like me or how I imagined I’d look as an adult–in the porn I could access for free. Turns out, I have a thing for watching men fuck. I did then, and I still do.
“How are we supposed to know what’s good or pleasurable sex when no one is talking about it? Or even teaching about it, except mainstream porn?”
Amber Mallery
As I got older I tried different things. I tried reading erotica, but it was often too long and winding for a quick masturbation session. I spent a lot of time on metacafe watching sex scenes from movies. I liked these because they weren’t hardcore: there wasn’t violent penetration happening, and it often depicted foreplay and teasing, the things leading up to sex, which I find arousing. I watched a lot of lesbian sex, again, due to my aversion to seeing violent penetration, these scenes were softer. Turns out, I also have a thing for women. I wasn’t willing to acknowledge that then, but I am now.
In this way, what a great education I got from mainstream porn: I can see now the early roots of my pansexuality. But on the other hand, it was a terrible educator! Everything I saw involving heterosexual sex made me not want to do it. Indeed, like Amber mentions, I got concerned about performing. Would I do it right? What if I didn’t want to do it like I saw? What if I didn’t look like the women I saw?
As an aside, I also have a videographic memory. It is really hard for me to un-see something I’ve seen. So, after all that violent porn, I grew an aversion to it. I didn’t want to see it. But what a shame! Sharing porn with Mr. Honey makes us so much closer, opens so many conversations about desire, my miseducation through mainstream porn got in the way of connection with other partners.
Anywho, Amber’s talk reminded me of an era of during the Golden Age of Pornography when they were tightening the regulations on what kind of art could be made & shown in an adult theater. For a time, legislators imposed a requirement that the porn be educational. What did this mean? Actually, it made for some pretty cool pornos, and some scenes I think Amber would be happy with in her vision of inclusive, educational porn. For example, Aphrodisiac: The Sexual Secret of Marijuana is one of my favorite films from the Golden Age, and lots of its scenes are chalked full of sincerely helpful information about cannabis and sex. Here’s an excerpt for you:
There is also Carnal Haven, which has this fun scene about anatomy and genitalia. It had me thinking, maybe the type of porn Amber and I both want to exist already existed. Maybe it’s possible again.
It also had me thinking, that maybe people don’t know that not all porn is that violent, penetration-oriented stuff. When Mr. Honey initially asked me to watch films from the Golden Age I was reluctant because I deeply feared more of that. But none the hardcore golden age films I’ve seen, whether produced during the “needs-to-be-educational” era or not, gross me out in the way mainstream porn did. Maybe this is also because it is rarely reliant on two people (a limitation of low-budget, free options), and typically features group sex, queer sex, people of color even, all the things we are asking of porn today. Maybe it’s because they are generally lighthearted. I’m not sure. But in case you didn’t know, there is good, gentle porn out there. I have a post about where to start, and you can stream most movies from the era on Adult DVD Empire (search under “on demand”).
“Be empowered by your desires. You can enjoy the porn you watch, but you don’t have to live by it.”
Amber Mallery
What questions do you have? What did porn teach you? I want to know!
Titty squishes ~Honey
