3 Traits of a Porn Imitator
Do you act like an amateur porn star in bed?
When I recently did an article about the characteristics of a bad sex partner, licensed marriage and family therapist Natalie Finegood Goldberg told me about a kind of partner that I thought was both hilarious and intriguing: The porn imitator, which she described this way: “Someone who thinks they are living in a porn film and acts accordingly — this applies to both men and women. This can include over-the-top acting and dramatic sex noises.”
I had to know more, in part because I had a neighbor from hell once who, at least based on the sounds I heard coming from his place, seemed to fit the bill of the porn imitator. I also wanted to get more insights about what the porn imitator is doing in bed and what it’s like to be with a person like that. When she further elaborated on the topic, the following traits emerged.
“I think you see this a lot with young women trying to look super sexy while they’re giving a blow job.”
The Porn Imitator Is Overly Dramatic
The porn imitator, like my former neighbor, screams at the top of their lungs during sex — making sure that any poor soul within earshot knows exactly what they’re doing. (In fact, my porn imitator put on so many loud productions that kept me awake at night that I actually ended up moving.) But the drama doesn’t end there: The porn imitator may also be dramatic in terms of launching immediately into sex or dirty talk with a partner without working their way into these activities.
“There is that element of being overly dramatic or overly domineering or commanding in a way that’s just disconnected with what’s happening with your partner,” Goldberg said.
“There is that element of being overly dramatic or overly domineering or commanding in a way that’s just disconnected with what’s happening with your partner.”
The Porn Imitator Thinks Good Sex Has to Look Perfect
For the porn imitator, sex has to look like something that we would see on the screen — not taking into account that we’re not on a set with a director, makeup artist, or hair stylist whose job it is to make us look perfect.
“I think you see this a lot with young women trying to look super sexy while they’re giving a blow job,” Goldberg explained. “There are certain aspects of sex that are pretty raw and, in some contexts, can be considered gross. So your hair’s not going to fall in the right places, or you’re going to get spit all over your face, and there are sounds that come with sex and those sorts of things. It’s not perfectly manicured the way a sex scene is.”
The Porn Imitator May Have Unrealistic Expectations
In addition to thinking that sex has to look picture perfect all the time, the porn imitator may also have unrealistic expectations about what should happen in bed, such as the beliefs that a man should be able to get an erection right away or that partners can achieve orgasm at the same time whenever they have sex. According to Goldberg, these expectations are formed in part because many people are using porn to get their sex education, and it doesn’t teach them about the realities of sex.
“I think it’s more a function of, at this juncture in time, people turn to porn because it’s their only real version of sexual education and they’re not teaching how to experience pleasure in high school,” she said. “Until people have their own experiences, this is sort of all they’ve witnessed.”
Although the porn imitator may possibly be annoying to their partners, and can have skewed ideas about sex, Goldberg says that ultimately, the impact that their porn viewing has on them can be highly relative.
“I have some clients who say ‘how am I ever going to find a partner that I’m attracted to because none of them are ever going to look like a porn star’ to ‘yeah, I watch porn occasionally and it’s strictly recreational, it doesn’t impact my sexuality at all,’” she said.
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