Howl

A Lament for All the Crappy Porn I’ve Watched

When you just want to have a little sexy alone time, but every video turns you off…

I want to like porn. I really do. I don’t indulge in it much — maybe 5–10 times a year. And I probably wouldn’t indulge much more than that if I did like it. (I like to keep my imagination sharp.) But how wonderful it would be to have access to porn that I find genuinely sexy and fun.

What’s my beef, you ask? I don’t even know where to begin. Here are a few thoughts that spring to mind.

What’s with all the saliva?

How long has this been going on, that spit has been a regular feature in porn films? I don’t remember encountering this until about five years ago and I have to admit, I hate it. Not because I think spit is gross — I mean, if someone’s going to come in or on me, they can certainly get their saliva on me.

But first of all, I find it annoying to watch people use spit as lube. What is that? Is something wrong with my saliva, because I was never able to complete a decent hand job without actual lube. Saliva dries out in about ten seconds or less, depending on how much friction you’re employing, which leaves whatever you just lubricated dry as a…well, bone.

I also hate the whole “I’m gonna give you a steamy look while I lick my fingers and then touch your clit” thing. I don’t know why, but I find that really annoying. Please use the lube my body is making down there. If there’s not enough, I’ll let you know and we’ll get out the backup.

What really gets me, though, is the whole loogie thing. I hate it when one partner drops a huge gob of mucousy saliva onto someone’s genitals or breasts and then proceeds to re-ingest it while licking or sucking on the body part they just anointed. Or when they drop that slimy ball onto their own body and make their partner lap it up.

Yeah, okay, I admit it, that one turns my stomach. I’m sorry! I try so hard to be open-minded, but I cannot handle the juicy, stringy spit ball. If a man dropped a loogie on my vulva, that would be a really big wet blanket for me (excuse the expression). And if he expected me to suck his dick while drooling and letting loose strings of saliva stretch between his penis and my lips…again, I’m sorry, but that’s not gonna happen. I just can’t. (No shame on people who like it.)

It’s formulaic to the point of absurdity

I literally cannot get over how predictable porn is. A blow job, and then a series of 3–4 positions which typically include speedy cunnilingus, cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, doggy-style, and spooning. Even most amateur porn is like this. I find it utterly boring and uninspired.

It’s not fun for the woman

I don’t care how many times she squeals, there is no way the woman is having fun in 99% of these videos. Most of them feature positions in which there is literally no contact with her clitoris (unless she’s fingering herself), and the male partner is just thrusting away at breakneck speed.

First of all, the thought of being jackrabbited for 20 minutes makes me squeeze my legs together. Been there, done that, not going there again, thank you very much. For me, slower thrusting is so unbelievably pleasurable, it blows my mind. I want to feel it — and jackrabbiting is like punching someone when they just want to be gently massaged. I know I can’t be the only one who feels this way, so why aren’t we seeing more of the slow stuff?

And why doesn’t the male partner give more attention to other parts of the woman’s body? Again, in the vast majority of videos I’ve seen, the male partner flicks her clit from time to time or occasionally gives her nipple a quick lick, but that’s it. Do these people not know how sexy it is to watch slow cowgirl with the woman doing all the (slow) thrusting and the male partner tugging at her nipples with his lips? I mean…yeow. It drives me insane that reverse-fucking-cowgirl is a standard in almost every hetero porn video, but this routine is not.

Which brings me to reverse cowgirl. Can anyone please tell me who gets off in this position? Please? I’m dying to know if any woman has actually orgasmed in this position without fingering herself or using a vibrator. I know you kinda have to, but that’s my whole point — why the hell is this position so damn popular? It’s awkward and impossible to get proper stimulation in it.

I get it — everyone’s junk is right out in the open, for a good, solid view. Porn gold. But it’s an instant turnoff for me, when I know how impossible it is for a woman to come in that position. (Or maybe it’s just me?)

It’s still all for men

It drives me crazy that even “porn for women” is still “porn for men.” I’ve found some fun female-owned porn sites that advertise themselves as made for women, and they’re not bad. I appreciate the clean-looking, high-quality sets, and actors who seem to pay more attention to one another than in traditional porn.

But it’s the same damn sequence of positions (almost always starting with a blow job), the same jackrabbiting, and the same ads — distracting and unsettling with their misogynistic imagery and words.

Even the lesbian porn is unsatisfying and seems to be created specifically to arouse men. I’ve never slept with a woman before, but I have fantasies that I assume are pretty normal, and they do not include giggling while jiggling my breasts against another woman’s breasts like two drunk sorority girls trying out a lesbian experience because they think their boyfriends will find it sexy. Please.

The most problematic of all for me is that I almost never find videos that feature a woman having an orgasm. How many times have I had to watch a man come on a woman’s face, but god forbid she have an orgasm. To me, that is one of the greatest turn-ons of porn: watching a woman experience pleasure. Obviously. That’s why I go to porn — to watch another woman get off and imagine what it would feel like. So why is that so rarely featured?

What do I want?

Every once in a while, I find a good video. Unfortunately, it’s really more accurate to say that I find a 30-second clip that really turns me on within another formulaic video.

I love, love, love seeing that slow cowgirl, where she’s in control of the thrusting and he’s sucking on her nipple like he’s got all the time in the world. I love the very few girl-on-girl films I’ve found in which they seem to be genuinely having fun.

And what is better than a film featuring a female orgasm? I have seen so few of those, I can literally remember them distinctly. It was such a novelty to see that and so incredibly sexy.

I also wish there was more diversity even on average porn sites for people’s tics and fetishes. I mean, you can hone your search so specifically, when it comes to gender, race, number of participants, where the guy comes… And yet, try finding a sexy video of someone having sex with a lactating woman, or a video that showcases nipple play, in general. It’s not easy, believe it or not. Not because there aren’t an abundance of those types of videos out there but because most of them are made to please and arouse men. Most do not look pleasurable to me, therefore, I derive no pleasure from it.

I know, I’m not the best person to criticize porn, considering how little I watch it. If I’m gonna go down that route, I should start doing more research, I suppose, and shell out some money for something of better quality. That’s a fair argument.

But still, I wish it was easier to access good, female-centered porn. I can’t believe it’s 2020 and we are still primarily making porn for and about men.

Can you imagine how it would change the world if men were regularly exposed to porn in which women orgasmed? I mean…that’s something to think about.

Author’s note: Literally less than five seconds after I submitted this piece, I clicked on the Medium main page and found an article about porn by Lillian Grover — and I had to include it here.

This article was written for Howl by Yael Wolfe, a weekly column. © Yael Wolfe 2020

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