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Well, if we're all just going to trade anecdotes at each other, I may as well do so too. Unlike the author of the original piece, I'm happy to use my real name.
by tommorris 14y ago
Well, if we're all just going to trade anecdotes at each other, I may as well do so too. Unlike the author of the original piece, I'm happy to use my real name.
I looked at porn on the Internet as a teenager. I'm gay and back then I was deep in the closet. And I grew up when Section 28 was still in force. It was a law passed in the 80s that said schools "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality... [or] promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".
In practice, that meant the sex education we got in schools didn't cover those of us with a preference for what the law called unacceptable "pretended" relationships.
Back then, it it was still dialup and early broadband. No high-quality video, so it was almost all pictures. But porn gave to a lot of gay kids the reassurance and sexual freedom that society more generally was unwilling to even see or mention. Porn was a paracetamol for loneliness: it didn't solve it, but it eased the pain. You opened the newspaper and every time they mentioned something related to being gay, it was framed as some giant moral debate, a culture war, a political football. But on the Internet, there wasn't any of that bullshit, just sex and porn and other people (albeit behind screen names). If schools don't want to teach the gay kids about their sexuality, then the Internet and porn will do it for them.
My friends didn't need the Internet: probably every school in the country has an underground trade in porn, whether it's Internet-based, magazines, hacking satellite/cable TV, whatever. Heterosexual teenage boys will get their hands on images of naked ladies and distribute/trade them. That's just how it is.
Access to porn throughout my teenage years made life bearable. And, at risk of oversharing, the thing I find most attractive in porn isn't the whips and chains, as the author says, but simple expressions of real, genuine emotional intimacy.
- exim 14y agoRegarding differences in easy accessibility of "materials" for different orientation persons, one interesting thing worth mentioning - unlike heterosexuals, homosexuals carry this "material" all the time with them - their body...
- chubbard 14y ago"intimacy - a close, familiar, and usually affectionate or loving personal relationship with another person or group." Therefore, you can't experience intimacy by yourself. It requires at least another person.
- tommorris 14y agoYes, but my own body is more like that of a Hacker News reader and less like a Calvin Klein underwear model. It's just not the same...
- CKKim 14y agoI really don't think that's how it works any more than seeing one's siblings naked is a turn on. With the disclaimer that of course narcissism and incest are some people's thing, but while the former may be more common than the latter I certainly don't think it's an automatic inclusion of homosexuality.
- neumann_alfred 14y agoEver noticed how moving your own tongue about in your own mouth is totally not like french kissing someone else? Kinda counterintuitive I know, but those have been my findings.
- bigfudge2 14y agoLikely related the fact that you can't tickle yourself: http://www.skidmore.edu/~flip/Site/Lab/Entries/2007/1/31_Forward!_files/BlakemoreWolpertFrith2000Tickle.pdf http://www.skidmore.edu/~flip/Site/Lab/Entries/2007/1/31_For...
- exim 14y agoYes, but my comparison was about paper/picture/magazine materials vs real body.
- Mz 14y agoThank you for writing. I am pleased to see this as the current top comment. I wrote my own erotica as part of therapy in my twenties, while recovering from child sexual abuse. Generally speaking, porn does little for me, but I am not against it. I believe it plays a vital educational role in society. I think part of why it is such a controversial big deal is because people are so hung up about sex. Thank you for giving testimony to a healthy use of porn in the face of overwhelming societal baggage instead of adding to the cacophany of voices vilifying both porn and their own need in one breathe.