I have decided to denounce the widely accepted myth that “men are just visual” because it’s insulting. It assumes that men are one-dimensional and can’t decipher real from fake. It insults that men can be easily manipulated. That men don’t have sex they just get off. And that is true. The advent of pornography has hustled more men than las vegas
prostitutes.
I thought it was a joke, as I watched Kirk Franklin on my television reveal to Oprah that he was addicted to pornography. I just laughed and said to myself that all men liked porn. It seemed harmless so I couldn’t understand how one could abuse images on a TV screen or in a magazine. It wasn’t like it was drugs or alcohol or sex. But anything can be abused if it allows you to disconnect from reality. If it allows you to disconnect from people. It’s the escapism. I didn’t realize how damaging porn could be until it started ruining my sex life.
I had a friend, and every time we had sex he needed pornography in the background. At first I didn’t think too much of it, just thought it was part of his kink and then I realized that I was competing with the pornography while we were having sex. He had a fresh live body willing to do whatever he wanted right there in his presence and all he could do was fantasize about what two strangers were doing on a TV screen. He couldn’t connect. But it just wasn’t him. I was also disconnected. I was moaning like the guys in the porno thinking that’s how I was suppose to sound. I allowed my body to be twisted in uncomfortable position thinking that I looked like the fantasy. I wanted more to be the fantasy I had scene in porn or dirty magazines than actually have good sex. I didn’t know how to be real because I had watched so much damn porn.
Having sex with a person obsessed with pornography is like having sex with a person on drugs, they are not there mentally. You get the body and not the mind.
As I get older, pornography is becoming an annoyance in my life. I love sex. I make no apologies. It is my life goal to have had the best sex life ever. I mean good sex. Uninhibited sex. Soul searching sex. It’s because I believe sex is emotional. I believe who you are in bed, is who you are in life. I like to be fearless in bed. I like to lay my soul on the sheets. But it took me a long time to get free of fantasy and smut and start learning real touch. I wanted to hear my voice in bed. I wanted my emotions. And in the beginning I found that to be a problem because I had porn in my head.
What is the purpose of porn?
Every mannish boy ends up breaking into his father or uncle porn stash around age twelve. We huddle with our other sneaky horny friends and look at the forbidden in the dark with a flashlight. It’s the curiosity of the body. I probably saw my first porn around age 11. I was having a sleep over at my cousin’s house and his father left his porn in the downstairs den. It was surreal. And it was 70s porn, which will always be the freakiest porn ever. I remember we pressed play and the porn was something about these freaky women on a farm riding horses bareback. I had so many questions.
I didn’t see my first gay porn until the summer I was out of high school. It was at a friend’s house. He just had it on in the background like it was music. I remembered being shocked. I had already had my first gay experience but seeing two naked male bodies grinding on each other made me feel like a virgin again. I figured I had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea about gay sex. And I wanted to learn.
In the beginning I thought the purpose of pornography was to teach me. It was to answer all questions I was too afraid to ask. It was to give me tricks and inspiration. In the beginning I thought I watched porn to become a better lover. I wanted to learn. But porn couldn’t talk back to me. It couldn’t tell me its secrets. It was setting me up for failure.
I guess I started collecting porn sometime after college. I figured it a hobby. I was increasing my jack-off material. But what was all that porn watching doing to me. What was I thinking when I was watching it? Why did I rewind certain scenes over and over again? It was the fantasy. I often imagined myself as one of the people in the porn. I wanted to re-create the fantasy. I wanted to have someone else’s sexual experience.
But porn isn’t real. It’s scripted. It’s edited. It’s directed. It’s cheated. I’ve seen many porn movies where they make it seem as if the two guys are fucking but what they are really doing is cheating. The guys limp dick is pressed against the bottom but it isn’t in him. So if I aimed to create what I saw in a porno, wouldn’t I just be faking sex?
And it’s a vicious cycle. For the longest time I couldn’t understand what it was I was suppose to say in the bedroom. I would watch porn and think that I was supposed to do all that moaning and panting. I was supposed to do all that bitch screaming. It was annoying. It felt stupid. It felt fake. I was with this guy and he kept talking dirty. He wanted to know if he was the best I ever had. I mean he was good, but others have been brilliant. His constant questioning made me feel like I was taking a survey. It wasn’t sexy.
Porn is not an instructional video. Those people don’t really care about sex. They care about money. They care about instant gratification. They care about cheating the potential buyer with a hot scene and the rest of it is fluff. It’s a business. And if I mimic the fraud, that would make me a prostitute for the business. I wouldn’t be having good sex, I would just be entertaining. The porn industry would like for us to think we’re having good sex by mimicking what they do in porn, but honestly committing the fraud just keeps us disconnected and junkies to buying more porn. It’s because we’re never going to be satisfied.
I look at porn like low budget action films. When I go to a Die Hard film, afterwards I don’t’ go jumping off buildings and speeding down highways. I know that it was a movie. I know that a lot of it was fake. When I watch porn, I know that the camera stops and starts again. I know that it isn’t one long gang bang session. I know that the models are often high or on some type of drug or alcohol. I know that a lot of them are pros at what they do.
The problem with the male fantasy is that it’s unrealistic. It’s arrogant. It’s inconsiderate and disconnecting. It sets you up for disappointment if you try to make it real. I know a lot of gay men who are size queens think they like a big dick. They’ve seen big dicks in porn. They like the image. But when it comes to the reality, their body can’t really take a big dick. They don’t know how to open up. It’s more than just mental, it’s also physical. A lot of us don’t know our bodies. We are so busy watching other people’s bodies on the flat screen and don’t know a damn thing about out own body. The guy taking the big dick in the porn knows his body. He knows he has to be clean for the camera.
The problem with the male fantasy is that it’s one-dimensional. The people in the porn don’t get to have souls, lives or dream or aspirations. The guy with his dick out in the magazine doesn’t get to be funny, clever or intelligent. Instead he hustles you. The porno hustles us. It gives us what we want at that second for a price. It isn’t free. It doesn’t care if we’re satisfied or happy. It’s business.
I haven’t stopped watching porn. I just watch it differently. I don’t consider it real. I know it’s a show. I don’t try to re-create it. I want my sex. I want my life.
I don’t consider porn, sex. I may jack off to it every once in awhile, but it isn’t sex for me. It’s a distraction. It’s a fantasy. The thing about fantasies is that they aren’t real. It’s the shit you dream up in your head while you jacking off but would never work in real life unless you hire some actors, write a script and hire a director. It’s not natural.
I used to like to perform in the bedroom because I wanted to be the fantasy. I wanted to be what the guy saw in porn. I thought that made me sexy. I thought that made me desirable. I didn’t know I was cheating myself. What really made me sexy was what made me sexual. It was how I liked to touch and be touched. It was natural and no porn could teach me my body and heart. Being sexy was what made me feel good.
Lately I have been somewhat sexually frustrated. Every time I go to have sex the person wanted to talk about or relive a past sexual experience or what they’ve seen in a porno. It’s almost insulting. I believe Good sex is a recycling of all the best sex you’ve had in your life but it isn’t reactment. When you have good sex it’s suppose to teach you exactly what it is that you really like not give you bragging rights. You are supposed to recycle the touch. At least that’s what I think.
So I have made it a rule of mind that when I’m having sex to not have porn in the background. I don’t want to compete with a business whose main objective is instant gratification. I’m a real person not a blow up doll. I also made it a rule that I don’t want to speak of past sexual relationships. It’s pointless. It either makes me feel inadequate or competitive. It doesn’t make me feel sexy. Porn doesn’t make me feel sexy.
So do men just get off, is that what I’m supposed to believe? I’ve been jacking off since I was a teenager, using anything for motivation, going inside my head, creating ridiculous scenes but that was just sex with myself. I feel as if too many of us, even if we have someone to hold us and touch us are still having sex with ourselves because we don’t know how to connect.