This is a question that has been on my mind for a long time. I'm twenty four now and I've been exposed to pornography for a good half of my life. I've always wondered how / if my sexual life and sexuality would have been different if I had not been exposed to porn. Would I have enjoyed sex more? Less? Does it matter? Does what I like and don't like depend on what porn I watched? So on and so forth.
However, I have not had the experience that the author describes. My first sexual experiences were not very extreme and those that have followed continue to be very vanilla. I did not pressure my S.O's to do anything and they haven't pressured me, but whatever kinds of sex we don't practice are always there. With the omni-presence of all kinds of sex, I feel like what is "normal" is going towards "everything" being normal. If so-called "extreme" sex (anal, etc) wasn't so common, I wonder where sexual culture would be heading. I think that people should be encouraged to do what they want, but not pushed to do everything under the sun.
However, I think porn (to a certain extent) is an expression of an underlying notion that "mainstream" sex is too narrow. We need to have a more honest conversation about sex at a younger age than we do now. I grew up watching girls do anal, get tied up, etc. I think the reason I saw those examples of ways you could be rather than how you should be is that I grew up in a pretty sexually mixed group of friends. You need the person who enjoys anal, but you also need the person who doesn't and still has a S.O.. Without that mix, I might have felt that if I didn't do anything and everything under the sun that I wouldn't be "liberal" enough or that I would be too "vanilla" to have a "good" sex life.
P.s. About the fantasy / reality question. I don't think anyone thinks porn represents an accurate picture of how sex works. The problem is that, especially when you're young, everyone has watched a lot of porn and has had no real relationships. As things are, porn is most of what people use to understand sex (lacking real experience). Even though it's fantasy. If all of your sexual experiences are fantasy-related, then it's easy to give too much weight to inaccurate fantasy.
|