For a long time porn has had a bad rep thanks to the misogynistic, male-dominated videos that many of us associate with it – not to mention the poor standard for those working within the industry. But in recent years there’s been a shift in erotic movies: women are making sex content for women, and the result is that many of us are starting to, or at least thinking about, welcoming porn into the bedroom (and elsewhere).
We spoke to four of our readers who all have different experiences and ideals surrounding porn. These are their stories…
Trigger warning: abuse.
Porn helped my abuser tell me I wasn’t enough.
“I was always someone who had no problem with porn. I watched it alone sometimes, I liked watching it with a partner and it didn’t bother me if my partner chose to watch it on his own either – but then I went through an abusive relationship.”
“Initially the sex was normal, respectful and healthy. We both initiated it, although it was always all about him. Then things changed. I wasn’t allowed to initiate sex anymore. He would only have sex with me when I had ‘earned it’ with a long, stupidly, painfully long blowjob. The aim of which was to make his not-quite hard penis (through drug use) become and stay hard. Eventually, he would only have sex if I’d done what he said, and whilst watching porn. He would make me give him a blowjob whilst he was finding porn he deemed good enough to have sex with me to. This could take hours. He would start and stop videos, moving on to the next, me trying not to hate myself, waiting for the few minutes of ‘normal’ to happen. This experience nearly broke me.”
“I don’t watch porn anymore. I have no problem with people that do, but I wouldn’t be comfortable hearing that a new partner did either. They can, I just don’t want them to tell me they do. Porn helped my abuser tell me I wasn’t enough.”
My husband finds it sexy that I use porn to masturbate.
“I don’t remember my relationship with porn starting, but growing up as a teenager in the 00s meant that it probably began on Tumblr or thereabouts. I’m a very sexual person and as a teenager had a couple of long standing ‘fuck buddy’ type arrangements with friends, mostly who were a couple of years older. They taught me a lot about sex, enjoying myself, female pleasure etc and for that I’m wholly grateful because it could have very easily been the complete opposite. “
“I met my husband when we were in our first year of uni. He, like me, had experimented a lot and is also a very sexual person but my libido is much higher. Because of this, I masturbate a lot. On average it’s probably every other day, and I use porn to get myself off most of the time. What I really love is that my husband thinks it’s really hot that I get myself off a lot, and really supports me in my quest for taking charge of my pleasure. He knows our drives aren’t matched and isn’t threatened by it, and is completely open to me watching porn.”
“Porn for me is essentially an outlet and a creative medium I really enjoy and I love porn that is typically woman-centred. I like watching porn that shows things I’d not be able to try in real life; in particular, I get a lot of pain having penetrative sex these days from having bad endometriosis. I’m also a fan of audio porn like Dipsea – I love dirty talk so this really appeals to me in that way and it also puts you at the heart of it.”
“Porn has helped show me a lot women who love sex and are taking charge of their own pleasure and it’s inspiring. I think more needs to be done to support and protect sex workers and more needs to be done for a lot of safety, but porn can be ethical and so good – my tips are finding a format or style you like and working with it, and supporting channels and directors that are open and discuss their work. I tend to stay away from free tube sites, and try to mostly support small channels putting in good work.”
I’m ashamed that I enjoy watching porn.
“My first experience with porn was when I was around 14 or 15. I found some that one of my older brothers had downloaded onto our shared computer and so I watched it and never told anybody.”
“I started to watch this video regularly in secret. My relationship with porn has stayed the same since that moment all the way through my adult life up to now (I’m 31) and I watch it in secret occasionally for masturbation. In fact, this is actually the first time I’ve ever told anyone I’ve ever watched it.”
“My husband tells me he’s never really watched it much, which of course I can’t be sure is true, but I don’t get the impression he’s that bothered by it which is why I never felt I could be open with him about it. I don’t watch it often, but if I do it would only be if he was out. He also doesn’t know that I masturbate sometimes – I think he’d feel hurt that our sex life isn’t enough for me (which it is, I’m very happy with it). I would never think this of another woman, but for myself I feel shame for watching porn and masturbating, like it’s always been my dirty little secret. I’m sure I’ve told friends before about masturbating, but never porn specifically – that to me is a step too far, something I would feel embarrassed about.”
Porn gave me unrealistic expectations.
“Sex education at our school was next to non-existent and my parents would never address such a taboo subject. Therefore, porn was my teacher. To start with, I didn’t watch it to ‘get off’ but just to learn about what it should look like, from body image to orgasm expectations. This meant that when I became sexually active at the age of 15, I thought something was wrong with me. I wasn’t the same size as these girls, I wasn’t perfectly waxed and manicured. But mostly, I couldn’t orgasm. I was too embarrassed, insecure and ashamed to let anyone close.”
“Those ‘lessons’ that porn taught me were deep seeds in my heart, and it wasn’t a simple lie to shift. When I started watching porn for pleasure, it took me a long time before I realised that it left me feeling empty.”
“I am not against masturbation, even as a married woman with a good sex life I still masturbate unashamedly. But porn told me that any man I was with was never good enough. That a real man would never live up to the fantasy that porn is. It started to become an issue when I got into my first ‘adult’ relationship. The expectations drove a wedge between us.”
“After that relationship ended, I decided to ‘quit’ porn. And the fact that sometimes it was hard to quit only confirmed to me more that it was something that had a hold on me and my mind and heart. When I met my husband, he had had a very similar journey and so porn just never entered into our relationship. To be honest, we’ve never needed it to, and having lived both sides, I can confirm that our sex life is better without it. We have real, honest expectations and very open communication about what we like, don’t like etc, and we discover it together.”
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