6 ms·

The quote "I wasn't just having bad sex. I was having bad porn sex." from Mary Elizabeth Williams pissed me off. Sex isn't something that is happening to you,

The quote "I wasn't just having bad sex. I was having bad porn sex." from Mary Elizabeth Williams pissed me off. Sex isn't something that is happening to you, it is something you participate in. So it is your damn fault if it is bad sex. Speak up about what you like, porn related or not.

sailormoon 17y ago
I agree. I also disliked this: One friend said she's dreading her boyfriend's upcoming birthday because he views it as his "anything he wants" night. While she doesn't mind dressing up, she's dreading the "porn requests" (she didn't specify what those are, so we can only imagine). That's not porn that is the problem. What is stopping this lady from simply telling her boyfriend what she does and does not like? And what kind of dysfunctional relationship is this if the boyfriend doesn't get to do "anything he wants" as a matter of course? Why is it a special birthday present for him to receive the satisfaction he obviously needs? Sounds like they're not really such a great match after all and porn is just a scapegoat.
- yequalsx 17y ago
  I think the perspective of younger women is that they have to acquiesce or else they will not have a boyfriend. That is, if it is fairly universal that younger men demand such things from their girlfriends then women must decide to acquiesce or be celibate. I'm not saying this is the case but it is the author's point. Well, I believe it is her point. They are saying that too many younger males have had their perspectives skewed by pornography and that something needs to be done about this. Maybe what the boyfriend really wants is something similar to '2 girls 1 cup' and that this want is the result of porn?
  - sailormoon 17y ago
    Perspectives skewed? Isn't that another way of saying expectations raised? You could just as well complain about people not being happy with a normal job because their perspectives have been "skewed" by reading PG's essays. Maybe the porn just opened their eyes to what was possible. I don't know, it just seems the whole thrust of the article is "sex is bad enough, but hardcore sex is even worse, and it's all porn's fault!". And for what it's worth, myself and pretty much everyone I know have seen our share of pr0n, and I cannot imagine any of us thinking that 2girls1cup-style behaviour is desirable. I mean geeze, talk about the absolute worst example imaginable. Well, except SWAP.avi. And yeah I'm aware I'm not arguing with you except as a proxy for the site .. ;)
    - ErrantX 17y ago
      > Maybe the porn just opened their eyes to what was possible. I think the point is less about the mechanics of sexual contact (which is what your more talking about I think) as the interaction and emotional experience. I watch a lot of pornography in my job; not in a sexual context but in a more abstract have to see the content way. It's quite an eye opener to see so much in an objective way. In most porn the woman is highly submissive and either pleading for more pleasure or eager to provide sexual favours to the men. I find it hard to disagree with people that say pornography shows people (mostly, but not exclusively, the women) as objects - I do disagree with the conclusions they ultimately draw from that; but if people are emulating what they see as pornography in real life it's not the basis for a healthy relationship.
      - sailormoon 17y ago
        Well, that's a whole different rabbit-hole you're jumping down there. My comments here have been seen as anti-female in the past so I'll refrain from airing my views on the matter but suffice to say I think sexual behaviour in general and pornography in particular reflects a very long-standing social dynamic. I have never known a man who was selected against because he was dominant.
        pyre 17y ago
        > I have never known a man who was selected against because he was dominant. Harem attendants where eunuchs for reason. :P
      - derefr 17y ago
        > In most porn the woman is highly submissive and either pleading for more pleasure or eager to provide sexual favours to the men. So, where do you find this... not most porn?
        ErrantX 17y ago
        Lesbian porn. Female Dom. female targetted porn. And all sorts of other genres. :-) There is also a small genre of pornography which shows realistic sex.
- orp 17y ago
  Do you seriously think that in a functional relationship (as opposed to a dysfunctional one) a boyfriend get to do 'anything he wants'? Or a girlfriend, for that matter? It's perfectly legitimate (not to mention a fact in 99.99% of relationships by my estimate) for partners to have different needs and wants. And limits. Yes. Compromises are a way of life for a good couple. Having 'special occasions' is not a bad way to go about these compromises, doing something for your partner you wouldn't want to do on a regular basis, with a nice socially acceptable rhythm to it. To pick an example at random, I wouldn't buy my jewelry every day (or week, or month), but a couple of times a year for special occasions (birthday, anniversary) are cool. Wrapping up, if there was an increasing cultural effect making my wife expect (and hint at) increasingly weird and tasteless things that she'd like for her birthday (I'd getting shivers just imagining examples), believe you me I wouldn't be happy about it, and saying no would still not be easy. BTW: if you comment above was sarcastic and I missed it, consider this comment moot.
  - sailormoon 17y ago
    I was not sarcastic. Far from it. I think there's a big difference between buying people whatever they want, whenever they want it, and sexual satisfaction. Of course you do not buy your partner jewellery every day or week. Good jewellery is expensive. And you can only wear so much. But sexual satisfaction is different. Sex is free. And if the guy is not satisfied in their normal sexual behaviour, and has to wait until his birthday when he can really do all those things he wanted to do the rest of the year - well, I think that is weird and kind of pathological. So yes in summary, in bed, of course each person in a couple should be able to "do whatever they want". Why wouldn't they? Just like they should be able to talk about whatever they want and watch whatever they want. If they can't do these basic things then .. what's the point of even being a couple?
    - nkohari 17y ago
      This sounds good, but it's not true in reality. Couples rarely see eye to eye on 100% of topics, so in a stable relationship, many things become a compromise of sorts. Everyone should feel fulfilled by sex, but that doesn't mean that the woman should be expected to do depraved sex acts that she's uncomfortable with, just like the man shouldn't be expected to spread rose petals on the bed and sing sonnets each time.
kareemm 17y ago
the tone of the article is that sex is something that happens to women. this perspective is damaging because it both precludes women from taking responsibility for enjoying sex, and gives men responsibility for their partner's satisfaction. sex is, to a certain degree, about selfishness. i think it's great that gallop started MakeLoveNotPorn - being aware that both men and women can / should speak up when you like / don't like something is a good first step towards taking responsibility for having a good sex life.
- pyre 17y ago
  The idea that porn is to blame is wrong though. There is plenty of porn where the sex is not 'just happening' to the woman. The fact that people seek out porn where sex 'happens' to women and/or adopt it as their point of view says more about society than about porn. Porn is just a scapegoat.
  - potatolicious 17y ago
    Couldn't have said it better - there's a huge variety of porn out there - and I personally dislike anything overtly "porn-star" like. There's truly something for all tastes when it comes to pornography on the internet - the fact that your significant other is seeking one type of porn above others probably signals his preferences moreso than his porn is dictating things to him. It's the age-old causality question: do men choose porn based on existing sexual preferences, or does porn dictate people's sexual preferences? I'm more inclined to think that it's mostly the former and a bit of the latter.
dkarl 17y ago
Totally. I mean, he's begging for feedback. It's not like "You like that, baby?" has a subtext of "of course you do, because I'm awesome" or "of course you do, because my power to treat you like this turns you on." It's an honest question.
- cgranade 17y ago
  As much as I think that the article is problematic, I can totally imagine someone saying "you like that, baby?" in a rhetorical sense, rather than meaning it as an honest question. If that is the case, however, then it is a real problem that needs to be addressed rather than being blamed on porn.
  - tome 17y ago
    I think dkarl was being sarcastic.
    - cgranade 17y ago
      Perhaps. On the Internet, it can be hard to tell sometimes. If so, then my bad.
  - westbywest 17y ago
    Agreed. I see many parallels in in article's argument against porn and and arguments against violence in video games. Both, i.e. the porn and video game violence, can do well-acknowledged and serious harm against social mores: degradation of sexual intimacy in one case and simulation/glorification of violent behavior in the other case. Both are also frequently made scapegoats and blamed for problems with society at large, be it lack of adequate sex-ed in school, unhealthy gender role models, or deeper, unacknowledged cultural glorifications of violence.
- necrecious 17y ago
  I laughed when she mentioned the asking seven times part. First of all she counted, and she doesn't respond, and then she blames the guy. I am so thankful for my girlfriend right now.
rauljara 17y ago
You are absolutely right that you should speak up if something bad is happening to you. For example, if someone is smacking you in the face, you should speak up about it. But that person shouldn't be smacking you in the face in the first place. The author's complaint about porn is that it makes a lot of people think that unacceptable behavior is acceptable. I know I only have anecdotal evidence to back it up, but I went to a boarding school where a couple of guys had a pool going about which one of them could cum on their girlfriend's face first. The reason they had a pool going is that all of them knew their girlfriends wouldn't be cool with it. There definitely exists a class of men who do shitty, immature things in things in the bedroom. Don't blame the victim.
- pyre 17y ago
  I think that the point is that she wasn't even blaming the guy. She was blaming the porn which is stupid. "He wouldn't have been such an asshole if porn wasn't around," is a naive statement to make.
DougBTX 17y ago
I really disagree with your reading of that quote - other example uses of the verb to have without connotations of helplessness: "I am having a bowl of cereal", "I have a web site", "I wasn't having fun".
telemachos 17y ago
I got curious, and for what it's worth the actual Mary Elizabeth Williams article is better than this one quotation might suggest. Near the end of the piece, she says herself more or less what you say here: So When Mr. Jackhammer asked, "Does that feel good, baby?" he may well have really been trying. And did I pipe up and say no? I did not. I ran away and never saw him again, prompting a friend to say with a sigh, "Now he's just going to go do that routine to some other poor woman." For all the sex we watch and all the fancy moves we know and all the people we've ever seen without their pants, sex remains one of the hardest things in the world to speak truthfully about. http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2009/11/01/make_love_like_a_porn_star_not/index.html http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2009/11/01/make_love_like_...

sailormoon 17y ago

I agree. I also disliked this: One friend said she's dreading her boyfriend's upcoming birthday because he views it as his "anything he wants" night. While she doesn't mind dressing up, she's dreading the "porn requests" (she didn't specify what those are, so we can only imagine). That's not porn that is the problem. What is stopping this lady from simply telling her boyfriend what she does and does not like? And what kind of dysfunctional relationship is this if the boyfriend doesn't get to do "anything he wants" as a matter of course? Why is it a special birthday present for him to receive the satisfaction he obviously needs? Sounds like they're not really such a great match after all and porn is just a scapegoat.

yequalsx 17y ago
I think the perspective of younger women is that they have to acquiesce or else they will not have a boyfriend. That is, if it is fairly universal that younger men demand such things from their girlfriends then women must decide to acquiesce or be celibate. I'm not saying this is the case but it is the author's point. Well, I believe it is her point. They are saying that too many younger males have had their perspectives skewed by pornography and that something needs to be done about this. Maybe what the boyfriend really wants is something similar to '2 girls 1 cup' and that this want is the result of porn?
- sailormoon 17y ago
  Perspectives skewed? Isn't that another way of saying expectations raised? You could just as well complain about people not being happy with a normal job because their perspectives have been "skewed" by reading PG's essays. Maybe the porn just opened their eyes to what was possible. I don't know, it just seems the whole thrust of the article is "sex is bad enough, but hardcore sex is even worse, and it's all porn's fault!". And for what it's worth, myself and pretty much everyone I know have seen our share of pr0n, and I cannot imagine any of us thinking that 2girls1cup-style behaviour is desirable. I mean geeze, talk about the absolute worst example imaginable. Well, except SWAP.avi. And yeah I'm aware I'm not arguing with you except as a proxy for the site .. ;)
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    > Maybe the porn just opened their eyes to what was possible. I think the point is less about the mechanics of sexual contact (which is what your more talking about I think) as the interaction and emotional experience. I watch a lot of pornography in my job; not in a sexual context but in a more abstract have to see the content way. It's quite an eye opener to see so much in an objective way. In most porn the woman is highly submissive and either pleading for more pleasure or eager to provide sexual favours to the men. I find it hard to disagree with people that say pornography shows people (mostly, but not exclusively, the women) as objects - I do disagree with the conclusions they ultimately draw from that; but if people are emulating what they see as pornography in real life it's not the basis for a healthy relationship.
    - sailormoon 17y ago
      Well, that's a whole different rabbit-hole you're jumping down there. My comments here have been seen as anti-female in the past so I'll refrain from airing my views on the matter but suffice to say I think sexual behaviour in general and pornography in particular reflects a very long-standing social dynamic. I have never known a man who was selected against because he was dominant.
      - pyre 17y ago
        > I have never known a man who was selected against because he was dominant. Harem attendants where eunuchs for reason. :P
    - derefr 17y ago
      > In most porn the woman is highly submissive and either pleading for more pleasure or eager to provide sexual favours to the men. So, where do you find this... not most porn?
      - ErrantX 17y ago
        Lesbian porn. Female Dom. female targetted porn. And all sorts of other genres. :-) There is also a small genre of pornography which shows realistic sex.
orp 17y ago
Do you seriously think that in a functional relationship (as opposed to a dysfunctional one) a boyfriend get to do 'anything he wants'? Or a girlfriend, for that matter? It's perfectly legitimate (not to mention a fact in 99.99% of relationships by my estimate) for partners to have different needs and wants. And limits. Yes. Compromises are a way of life for a good couple. Having 'special occasions' is not a bad way to go about these compromises, doing something for your partner you wouldn't want to do on a regular basis, with a nice socially acceptable rhythm to it. To pick an example at random, I wouldn't buy my jewelry every day (or week, or month), but a couple of times a year for special occasions (birthday, anniversary) are cool. Wrapping up, if there was an increasing cultural effect making my wife expect (and hint at) increasingly weird and tasteless things that she'd like for her birthday (I'd getting shivers just imagining examples), believe you me I wouldn't be happy about it, and saying no would still not be easy. BTW: if you comment above was sarcastic and I missed it, consider this comment moot.
- sailormoon 17y ago
  I was not sarcastic. Far from it. I think there's a big difference between buying people whatever they want, whenever they want it, and sexual satisfaction. Of course you do not buy your partner jewellery every day or week. Good jewellery is expensive. And you can only wear so much. But sexual satisfaction is different. Sex is free. And if the guy is not satisfied in their normal sexual behaviour, and has to wait until his birthday when he can really do all those things he wanted to do the rest of the year - well, I think that is weird and kind of pathological. So yes in summary, in bed, of course each person in a couple should be able to "do whatever they want". Why wouldn't they? Just like they should be able to talk about whatever they want and watch whatever they want. If they can't do these basic things then .. what's the point of even being a couple?
  - nkohari 17y ago
    This sounds good, but it's not true in reality. Couples rarely see eye to eye on 100% of topics, so in a stable relationship, many things become a compromise of sorts. Everyone should feel fulfilled by sex, but that doesn't mean that the woman should be expected to do depraved sex acts that she's uncomfortable with, just like the man shouldn't be expected to spread rose petals on the bed and sing sonnets each time.

kareemm 17y ago

the tone of the article is that sex is something that happens to women. this perspective is damaging because it both precludes women from taking responsibility for enjoying sex, and gives men responsibility for their partner's satisfaction. sex is, to a certain degree, about selfishness. i think it's great that gallop started MakeLoveNotPorn - being aware that both men and women can / should speak up when you like / don't like something is a good first step towards taking responsibility for having a good sex life.

pyre 17y ago
The idea that porn is to blame is wrong though. There is plenty of porn where the sex is not 'just happening' to the woman. The fact that people seek out porn where sex 'happens' to women and/or adopt it as their point of view says more about society than about porn. Porn is just a scapegoat.
- potatolicious 17y ago
  Couldn't have said it better - there's a huge variety of porn out there - and I personally dislike anything overtly "porn-star" like. There's truly something for all tastes when it comes to pornography on the internet - the fact that your significant other is seeking one type of porn above others probably signals his preferences moreso than his porn is dictating things to him. It's the age-old causality question: do men choose porn based on existing sexual preferences, or does porn dictate people's sexual preferences? I'm more inclined to think that it's mostly the former and a bit of the latter.

dkarl 17y ago

Totally. I mean, he's begging for feedback. It's not like "You like that, baby?" has a subtext of "of course you do, because I'm awesome" or "of course you do, because my power to treat you like this turns you on." It's an honest question.

cgranade 17y ago
As much as I think that the article is problematic, I can totally imagine someone saying "you like that, baby?" in a rhetorical sense, rather than meaning it as an honest question. If that is the case, however, then it is a real problem that needs to be addressed rather than being blamed on porn.
- tome 17y ago
  I think dkarl was being sarcastic.
  - cgranade 17y ago
    Perhaps. On the Internet, it can be hard to tell sometimes. If so, then my bad.
- westbywest 17y ago
  Agreed. I see many parallels in in article's argument against porn and and arguments against violence in video games. Both, i.e. the porn and video game violence, can do well-acknowledged and serious harm against social mores: degradation of sexual intimacy in one case and simulation/glorification of violent behavior in the other case. Both are also frequently made scapegoats and blamed for problems with society at large, be it lack of adequate sex-ed in school, unhealthy gender role models, or deeper, unacknowledged cultural glorifications of violence.
necrecious 17y ago
I laughed when she mentioned the asking seven times part. First of all she counted, and she doesn't respond, and then she blames the guy. I am so thankful for my girlfriend right now.

rauljara 17y ago

You are absolutely right that you should speak up if something bad is happening to you. For example, if someone is smacking you in the face, you should speak up about it. But that person shouldn't be smacking you in the face in the first place. The author's complaint about porn is that it makes a lot of people think that unacceptable behavior is acceptable. I know I only have anecdotal evidence to back it up, but I went to a boarding school where a couple of guys had a pool going about which one of them could cum on their girlfriend's face first. The reason they had a pool going is that all of them knew their girlfriends wouldn't be cool with it. There definitely exists a class of men who do shitty, immature things in things in the bedroom. Don't blame the victim.

pyre 17y ago
I think that the point is that she wasn't even blaming the guy. She was blaming the porn which is stupid. "He wouldn't have been such an asshole if porn wasn't around," is a naive statement to make.

DougBTX 17y ago

I really disagree with your reading of that quote - other example uses of the verb to have without connotations of helplessness: "I am having a bowl of cereal", "I have a web site", "I wasn't having fun".

telemachos 17y ago

I got curious, and for what it's worth the actual Mary Elizabeth Williams article is better than this one quotation might suggest. Near the end of the piece, she says herself more or less what you say here: So When Mr. Jackhammer asked, "Does that feel good, baby?" he may well have really been trying. And did I pipe up and say no? I did not. I ran away and never saw him again, prompting a friend to say with a sigh, "Now he's just going to go do that routine to some other poor woman." For all the sex we watch and all the fancy moves we know and all the people we've ever seen without their pants, sex remains one of the hardest things in the world to speak truthfully about. http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2009/11/01/make_love_like_a_porn_star_not/index.html http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2009/11/01/make_love_like_...