Make love, not porn

You don’t have to be a regular porn consumer to recognize its influence on sexual habits. I’ve only seen two or three porn movies in my life, but I knew right away when the guy I was seeing was a habitual user of porn because he kept reenacting these sexual parlor tricks, things that seemed designed only for a camera in the room – and not the person with whom he was actually having sex.

Some of it was fun, but after a while, it began to get on my nerves. “Look at me,” I used to say to him. (Because I wanted him to make an actual connection with me, and not some mental stroke movie.) “Just look at me.” But usually he didn’t, or couldn’t. Porn was his way of staying disconnected, and safe.

And really, who can compete with that movie in someone else’s head? All that air-brushed perfection, all those high-pitched, eager squeaks of simulated passion. It began to bore me, his inability to actually be there with me. To please him (and yes, to amuse myself, because I’m that kind of person), I started simulating, too. It went on far too long, and by the time I finally came clean with him, it was much too late to salvage things. I’d been emotionally cheated too long.

So if you asked me if I thought porn was harmless, well, no. And that’s why I thought this interview with Cindy Gallop was so interesting.