With over 30% of the internet being porn and sexual images becoming more and more available for people to find is the pornography industry starting to take over, and is it ruining our sex lives?
A vast majority of men and women watch porn on a daily basis and this has led to more people becoming adventurous in their sex lives but also creating fantasies that reality just can’t live up to.
Women and men can both feel pressure from porn whether it be the way they look or different positions they aren’t comfortable with performing or doing something they just physically cannot pull off.
But there are a few things about porn that we need to remember.
Porn is acting
Where women look at romantic comedies and ask their partners ‘why don’t you sweep me off my feet like that’, it is men who look at porn and ask why their partners can’t do that.
Nothing will ever live up to a movie because it is fake and scripted. Although I am no expert, laughing on cue for an actor is practically the same as moaning or faking an orgasm on cue for a porn star.
Has a guy ever asked you to do anal with him and in your refusal he pulls the ‘it doesn’t hurt in porn’ card? Or ‘practice makes perfect’. Well professional porn stars have had a lot of practice and like actors; they may have time to prepare themselves, whereas the majority of sex in reality isn’t planned.
Holly Handy, 19, said: “If you perceive it to be real and what couples should aspire to then yes, couples may feel pressure to perform like a porn star.
“However if you realise that porn is just actors playing out a fantasy scene, trying to meet the demands of the viewer, then no.”
Ross Kent,21, added: “People do need to recognise that porn is nothing more than acting (not necessarily good acting) so the responses they see isn’t what they going to get if they try it in real life. And the people that don’t understand that difference are the ones who struggle sexually.”
[Image: PornHub]
Porn stars always look the same. They are what society believes to be sexy and handsome, or they fit into a certain cateogry, blondes, big bums, muscles, and we are the ones who pick those categories so are we doomed from the start to want to live up to a fantasy so well put together for our likes and dislikes.
Douglas Adams, 21, said: “I think women — and men, just as much — are absolutely pressured to live up to porn stars in their sex lives, the same way that both genders are pressured to look like the leading roles in almost every form of media. If anything, I think there’s more to compare with in a porn film and therefore more to feel pressured to live up to.
“As a man, I would absolutely hate to think women are pressured to be like the female porn stars; they are fake, awful role models that place unfair expectations upon both men and women.”
Porn focuses on the physical aspect of sex and not the emotional and intamte connection sex can create between you and your partner. How many times as a porn star said ‘I love you’ to the other person involved?
Not everybody wants to try anal
Now I know not all porn is staged as you get home porn movies made by everyday people and the odd celebrity. But every person is different; they have different likes, dislikes and limits. What one person may be comfortable with somebody else may be scared to even try.
Not all women want to dominate and tied up by a man and not all gay men like anal.
Emili Peake,28, said: “As an LGBT student porn has plagued my dating life. I’m constantly asked if people can watch, join in, or if I want to join them. Porn has created an unrepresentative view of lesbians.
“ I also personally believe that porn may have something to do with rise in one night stands and looks based “dating” such as tinder. Not solely the fault of porn, but this has created a culture of judgemental people.”
Porn vs education
It has been reported in multiple articles in The Guardian and The telegraph that pornography is replaces education when it comes to sex, and more and more teenagers are learning about sex though porn.
With the internet you can easily find porn making it easier for anybody to get access to it. But should we be looking to porn for tips and education around sex whether we be 16 or 36 or is this what is causing us to feel disapointed and pressured because we cannot do everything that proffesional porn stars can?
Kat Skeates, 21, said: “I don’t feel like I have to live up to anything. I’ve watched it and I know it’s not “real” – well the people are doing it but it’s not what real sex between people is like. And, what I think is more important, the man I’m with doesn’t expect me to be like the women in porn videos, to do what they do or look like they do. None of the people I’ve been with have said I should do this or that because they’ve seen it in porn. If we want tips or learn something new, we go somewhere intended to be educational/informative, not porn.”
Porn is like movies. There are different categories to choose from, you have your favourites that you always go back to, but sometimes you try watching something new, and some people just don’t bother with it. Some aspire to be like their favourite actors and some see it as that- acting.
Whether or not porn affects your sex life is down to you and how you perceive it.
Has porn ruined your sex life?
