As a trainer, I need to keep my body in rockin’ shape. Lead by example and all that. Besides, I never know if they’re gonna call me for a reunion of Unicorn alumni, so I have to be ready at a moment’s notice to strip down to a jockstrap. Like the Boy Scouts taught me: be prepared. Anyway, I try to watch what I eat, but every once in a while, a pizza sounds amazing. So last week, I ordered a pizza and as luck would have it, the delivery guv knocked on my door right when I was getting in the shower.
I wrapped a towel around me and opened the door and the boy who was standing there with my pizza was CW superhero beautiful. Dark curly hair, big green eves, muscles that look like they’re ready to explode out of his tight t-shirt and a smirky half smile full of bright white teeth.
“You ordered the pizza with extra sausage?” he asked, his eves raking up and down my wet torso.
“Uh no, it was just a veggie pizza,” I replied, my eves skipping down the veins in his biceps.
“I know” he said, reaching down to squeeze the tightly packed crotch of his jeans. “This is the extra sausage.” He put his other hand on my towel and…
All right, hold on just one second. That never happened. But it does happen repeatedly in porn movies with varying scenarios. Hot, right? Realistic? No. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had many porn-style encounters in my day, but the glossy world where these things happen on a daily basis is as realistic as Pandora, Tatooine or Middle Earth. Strangely enough, many people believe that the way events unfold and how people behave in triple-X entertainment is how sex should play out in real life. We scoff at the idea that Clark Kent can fly and we groan at the rain-soaked declaration of love in a rom-com, but we have absolutely no problem believing that if a handsome mechanic offers a lube job what he’s really saying is that he wants you to bend over the nearest car hood.
Do I love porn? Of course I do. But porn is nothing like real sex. Real sex can be unbelievably hot, but the translation from film to reality is incredibly muddled. Slamming hip deep into someone the first time you meet isn’t always met with approval, not to mention that condoms don’t magically appear on your dick. The physicality of sex in a hayloft, on a beach or in a strangely empty locker room is a lot more difficult than it seems. And most importantly, the bronzed, buff automatons that populate this fantasy world where everyone is ready for sex at anytime and anywhere, are not an ideal representation of the real people who populate this earth.
Sex, like many other goods and services, is now only a click away. Any time of the day or night you can see people engaging in whatever nasty thing your mind can dream up — if you still use your mind to fantasize, that is. Interestingly enough, out of the million most trafficked websites in the world only a little more than 42,000 are porn sites. That’s only around 4%. Crazy, right? I would guess it would be about 50%. When you Google the words “gay porn” you get 314,000,000 results. Sure, not all of that is actual porn, but I’m guessing about 99% of it is, especially if you are using Google Image search. 314 million results. Think about this: the population of the U.S. in 2012 was 313.9 million. It’s mind-boggling.
The unbelievable access that we now have has erased the mystique and taboo of porn, along with the now extinct back rooms of video stores and tightly wrapped issues of Jock and Honcho (magazines, for those too young to recall them). When I was a kid, the only way I could see a naked man was in a grainy, pause-buttoned still frame from The Blue Lagoon or Porky’s or in a shiny skin magazine that I was too petrified to actually purchase. Now I can pull up a movie full of gym-built gods in a sweat-soaked gangbang on my phone while I’m in my dentist’s waiting room.
The general consensus is that the ability to see sex of any kind in seconds is blunting the nerves that used to crackle with excitement when you meet a real flesh and blood person that you’re attracted to. The comparison of what we’ve seen online or how we should go about initiating it is a drastic departure from what could be considered normal human behavior, and everyday behavior takes the control out of the hands of someone who has become increasingly dependent on porn as a sexual touchstone.
Scientifically, porn doesn’t prevent you from lusting after living, breathing men, but it can provide easy access to sex with multiple partners without commitment. No need to talk after sex, just turn off your laptop. The aftereffects, however, run much deeper. I won’t bore you with a science lesson in the middle of a column on porn, but scientists theorize that humans possess something called “mirror neurons”. This is a neurological response that tells us to perform actions that we see other humans performing. In other words, the more porn we watch, the more we want to re-enact it with another person. Take away the threat of disease or — god forbid — fidelity, and it makes porn and all of its twisted positions even more desirable. This is followed by the expectation that what happens in XXX entertainment is what we will begin to define as “normal sex”. But in the kaleidoscope of sexuality what exactly is normal?
The truth of the matter is this: porn is an escape. Just like video games, porn puts you in control and it allows you to feel more in control of your sexuality. When you’re faced with a real person with real feelings in a real world environment, it can jolt you back to the cold actuality of human interaction. That’s when you have to make a decision: do you see how this plays out or do you go home to your computer and turn on the guvs that do what you want when you want? Are you willing to risk rejection when you have RocketTube at your service?
So, what of those rampant porn aficionados that try to balance their porn use with a real, human relationship? It’s easier when you aren’t cohabitating, but when two people become one household, do you hide it? Do you only watch it when your partner isn’t home? Do you watch porn together? All these scenarios come into play, but the real question is, how does it make you view your partner? Many men whose partners watch a buttload (get it?) of porn tend to develop feelings of inadequacy and lack of intimacy. If they don’t measure up to the horse-hung himbots of the worldwide web they may instinctively draw away and feel substandard in the eyes of their partner.
The key here is to accept that porn is merely a fantasy. You wouldn’t begrudge your partner’s desire to fantasize that he’s a vampire or a spy or the captain of a spaceship, so why worry that porn will affect how he thinks of you? As a matter of fact, porn can be used as a reference point to experiment with things you never thought possible. Whether its bondage, dirty talk, domination or role-play, finding the perfect balance to incorporate what your mirror neurons have stored up can make your sex life even more exciting than you thought.
The beauty of porn is that you can experience all the oh-so-nasty flavors of sex safely and without sacrificing your loyalty to an existing partner. And the beauty of real sex is that even when it’s hot, it can be clumsy and funny and a safe place for deciding if what you see onscreen or in your mind is truly something you want to do. Now if you’ll excuse me, the two guys from the lacrosse team who mow my yard need to be paid and I don’t seem to have any cash on me. Maybe we can work out a deal…
