Why I don't watch porn (but still have a huge collection)

Last week somebody said to me, “it’s surprising, for somebody so open-minded, that you don’t like porn”.

And I wanted to explain, but the person was on twitter. So once I’d angrily demanded he show me exactly where I’d ever said I dislike porn, and speculated about where he got off making assumptions about my life, I’d run out of characters.

But I do want to explain properly. Because I don’t dislike porn, at least, not all of it. In fact there is a whole category of pornographic material of which I am an avid (and often very aroused) consumer.

What I actually said was that I don’t watch porn. And I was referring to traditional, video pornography. I don’t watch it, but I don’t object to it, or dislike it particularly. Small sidebar here: I do dislike, of course, anything which harms or exploits women, or degrades them against their will. The adult entertainment industry as a whole needs to take responsibility for protecting every adult performer, and I know it has a long way to go in this respect.

But I don’t subscribe to the view that the very existence of porn degrades all women. I think that’s nonsense. We choose what we do with our bodies, including who gets to see them. If I take my clothes off and dance for my boyfriend, while he sits there with an erection, is he exploiting me?

If I offer to give him a blowjob if he does the washing up, am I exploiting his biological urge to receive blowjobs? Yeah ok, maybe. But the point is, choosing to allow somebody to see me naked and performing sexual acts doesn’t affect my value as a woman. It doesn’t mean I’m any less of a feminist. It doesn’t change anything at all.

So no, I don’t hate porn. On the whole I see adult entertainment as an artform, and it has a quality spectrum like any other. At one end, the fine and beautiful erotica produced by the worlds best adult filmmakers. At the other, goats.

 But I don’t watch it, at least not on my own, and that’s because for me, it doesn’t work. Adult films are unusual in that they all, even the most high-concept and artistic, have an actual common purpose, and that is to turn people on. It might be art, but it’s art you enjoy with one hand, while the other one is in your knickers, beavering away. We all know this. Guys don’t browse Pornhub with a bucket of popcorn, dragged into the next episode by the cliffhangers. Gah, I must know what happens next? Will the co-eds have another threesome? And what’s the story with that plumber?

No, they watch with one hand on their cock and a box of tissues at the ready, and quite right too.

But when I watch it, I just don’t get turned on. I can watch with interest, or admiration, or disgust… but very little arousal. It just doesn’t do it for me. With a partner, things are a little different. I’ve watched porn with guys, and enjoyed it. Somehow their reaction triggers mine, and I respond to their arousal, enjoying it together as we act out what we see, or just play along. But on my own, it doesn’t work.

Which brings me to the one exception, and that is written pornography. You can call it erotic fiction if you want, but let’s not get fancy. It’s written with the intention that people will masturbate to it. It’s porn. And I love it.

When I read well written sex stories, it’s almost like I can see the characters in my head. They come to life for me, I hear their moans and I smell their bodies. A good piece of written porn can leave me soaking wet and inches from orgasm, without my hands ever leaving the kindle. Reading it alone and in private is a strictly one-handed affair. (Small tip, if you ever need to borrow a kindle, don’t borrow mine! I sometimes change hands.)

There are two big advantages to written porn. One, unless someone is really looking over your shoulder, you can read it in public as much as you like. This can lead to extreme frustration, which can be fun in itself.

Secondly, it takes almost no storage space, and you can keep your whole collection discretely on one USB stick, safe from anyone who borrows your laptop and has a good old rummage around.

So, there you have it. I don’t hate porn. In fact I have what some would consider an embarrassingly large collection. You just won’t find any of it on Pornhub, not unless they branch out into the written word.

I wrote this piece after reading (and masturbating to) GirlOnTheNet’s fantastic and ultra erotic blog about two guys together. (https://www.girlonthenet.com/2016/06/26/touching-another-guys-dick/)

Her beautiful writing built such a clear and erotic picture for me, once I finished reading I was able to carry on the fantasy, the images crystal clear in my head. That’s the beauty of erotic writing, it can look any way you want it to look, and once it’s in your head, take you anywhere you want it to go.