What I Learned From Watching 500 Adult Films
Posted by: YourTango.com
Filed in:
sex
8:00AM, Wednesday April 29th 2009
Porn has played a starring role in my two most recent relationships—but not in the way you might expect.
I’ve been reviewing adult films for more than a decade. Over the course of those 10 years I’ve watched more than 500 porn movies, for fun and profit. OK, mostly for profit.
My porn writing career began when, while looking for a new publishing job, I answered an ad in the New York Times and landed a position as Associate Editor of Penthouse Forum. I had experience writing “semi-smut” for friends’ zines (this was the ‘90s, after all) but hadn’t watched an adult film besides a Deep Throat viewing with friends in college; I had been always been a porn supporter but never a viewer.
I’ve never been much of a prude and have always believed in freedom of speech. As such, my conscience about the porn industry always was—and still is—clear. Frankly, I felt more degraded working as a secretary than I ever did as a porn reviewer. Granted, there are women who wind up in the industry because they’re drug addicts or runaways and have troubled lives. But there are plenty of women go into porn as smart, savvy businesswomen and manage to build their own empires. Brittany Andrews is a perfect example, as is Danni of Danni’s Hard Drive. Plus, watching flicks of all varieties exposes the viewer to bodies and sexual preferences in all shapes and sizes. This exposure, in turn, leads to greater acceptance of diversity rather than an expectation of “perfect” bodies or fantasies.
Want to read the rest of this article? Visit YourTango.com or check out these stories:
TheFrisky.com is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on April 29 2009 @ 08:31 am: [report]
I learned nothing from reading about writing about watching porn.
Suck it YourTango.
Adam(aka)AP
wrote on April 29 2009 @ 08:43 am: [report]
I learned that porn shouldn’t go HD.
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on April 29 2009 @ 09:00 am: [report]
@Adam: The only problem with HD is the amount of space it takes up on your hard drive. A single scene in 1080p is easily over a gigabyte. Give me regular old dvd rips converted to .avi any day…you would get 4 for the size of 1 HD file.
Adam(aka)AP
wrote on April 29 2009 @ 09:06 am: [report]
@Cheese I don’t mind the size I’m just saying no one needs to see anything in porn that clearly!
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on April 29 2009 @ 09:15 am: [report]
@Adam: Have you seen some in HD? It really isn’t that bad. Another consideration is computing power, my laptop craps out at 720p, for 1080 you would need a nice new video card.
theattack
wrote on April 29 2009 @ 01:05 pm: [report]
I’ve always been a supporter of porn as well. People should be able to view pornography. The problem though is the way women are shown in porn. It’s always about thirty second of the guy going down on the girl (if that) and then ten minutes of an aggressive blow job, and then a long sex episode of male-fantasy sex. The women are used as their orifices and their breasts. Pornography would be fine if they could create it without degrading women so horribly.
Sofjna
wrote on April 29 2009 @ 07:12 pm: [report]
wow Cheeeesy- an article about watching porn, and you manage to get all tech geek.
roastchicken
wrote on April 29 2009 @ 07:13 pm: [report]
@theattack: I agree, but there is such a thing as “female friendly” porn. It’s by Playgirl.
Trust me, the guys go down on the females every time, and for a hell of a lot longer than 30 seconds lol.
And the guys in their movies are waaay hotter!
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on April 29 2009 @ 07:33 pm: [report]
@sofjna: It’s not much of a stretch.
portisheart
wrote on April 30 2009 @ 09:42 pm: [report]
porn is a pretty big genre. but I don’t think my appreciation for diversity is furthered by what I’ve seen