You may have been told before that you shouldn’t watch porn, but is it really as bad as people make it out to be?
When you’re at school, you’re fed information about all things sexual to prepare you for when you get to the stage in your life where you actually need to apply it. For the most part it was interesting and necessary and sex ed was never short of a few giggles stemming from either nervousness about discussing the more awkward stuff, or just plain immaturity. We found out about sexual diseases, consent and contraceptives, as well as less physical things like being careful in the world of sexting and nudes and how bad porn can be for you.
From what I was taught at school, it made me incredibly cautious around certain subject matters, including the latter. I completely avoided watching any porn for a very long time, fearing that by watching it, I was contributing to something bad. Plus, I had always assumed that it was something only horny, sex obsessed men were interested in. After all, porn represented women who were the perfect ideal fantasy for males, not at all realistic. The men weren’t much better either, more than likely making boys feel like that’s exactly how they would need to perform in bed. Or at least that’s what I was basically told when I was slightly younger, to discourage us from becoming interested in it.
I believed it entirely, but I never felt the need to watch people having sex anyway. It just didn’t really interest me, especially knowing it was so aimed at men. I genuinely believed women didn’t watch porn, and I was happy to agree with that. Until I realised this wasn’t true and I found myself plagued with interest as to just exactly what it was and why people did watch it. I was 18 years old when I first watched porn, desperate to become aroused, but mostly wanting to know why porn was always conveyed as bad.
I understood that as well as the fact that porn created unrealistic portrayals of both parties, it could become dangerous if a person became addicted to it and felt they had to rely on porn when having sex. In school, we were also too young to watch it, which was another reason, maybe the most important, why we were told not to engage in it. As I had reached adulthood though, and was safety in a fulfilling relationship, I thought it was finally time to make my own mind up about how bad porn really was.
I went into it being as open minded as I could possibly be about something I had never wanted anything to do with. The conclusion was it wasn’t nearly as bad I had thought it was, and I could almost see the appeal. At the same time though, I couldn’t help but feel slightly shaken up that I had made the decision to do it after basically vowing never to.
I discussed the matter with my boyfriend and asked him whether he thought porn was bad to watch. I hadn’t ever actually spoken to anyone before about porn, and I realised my pre-conceived ideas were based on nothing of real substance. If it was so bad, there wouldn’t be a market for it, surely?
The conversation I had with him resulted in him asking me what sort of porn I had watched. Having not dabbled in it before, I didn’t realise there were a lot of categories. I told him it was ‘normal stuff’, which translated, just meant nothing kinky, which was one of the few things I knew existed. As the chat progressed, the arty angles and average man and woman that had featured in the video, were unveiled as something my boyfriend called ‘female porn’.
Watching porn didn’t stop at one video. After research into the idea of ‘female porn’, I found multiple websites that were targeted at women, completely changing the idea that porn was just for men. In these videos, the men and women were completely normal and the angles weren’t all vulgar and male orientated. The women didn’t all have large breasts and perfectly shaved vaginas, and most of the videos looked like well-made movies rather than a couple filming a home video of a quickie. They were not anything like the videos you would find on more well-known websites including pornhub.
Of course, all porn is sex based. That’s what makes it what it is. Because of this, you still should watch it in moderation. Porn is not a source you should permanently rely on for arousal. I am also not saying that other porn websites are disgusting and bad, they just weren’t really my cup of tea. I would much rather see elements of realism if I was going to watch anything. And finally, if you don’t feel comfortable watching porn, you definitely shouldn’t, but if you do watch porn, you also shouldn’t feel guilty about it. If you are of the right age, and you don’t feel like there is a problem with it, then watching porn may be something you want to watch every now and then.
Porn has certainly evolved to include a range of viewers, and you can now be safe in the knowledge that the stereotypical “porn star” does not always feature if you don’t want them to. Despite what we’re told about porn, personally, I don’t think it is nearly as bad as some people make out, especially not now with so many options. I was pleasantly surprised by something I was previously so repulsed by. It just goes to show, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, or in this case, you shouldn't judge porn by what other people say.
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