Interwebbing: Thoughts on P*rn

In an ideal world, pornography as an industry wouldn’t exist, or would exist as a tool to facilitate healthy relationships and attitudes towards sex, especially for women and kink groups. It would help people understand the varying ways pleasure can be found and love can be expressed. This is, of course, a long way from the ideal world. And even if this kind of sex work wasn’t exploitive, there are tropes within it that are damaging to how men and women view and treat each other.

If you believe any of the following tropes, you watch too much porn:

• Consent is optional, and these videos are from real life.
• Commentary: In my opinion, made of silly notions and some articles I read, the run-of-the-mill porn you find on the internet is put out by legal, adult professionals and enthusiastic hobbyists. They know they’re being filmed, no matter if it’s voyeuristic , looks rapey or rough or degrading, or seems to involve a minor—they are pretending. They may even have signed a contract on what they will agree to do. And although the sex part is real, the staging part is fantasy. Most of the porn I have seen has average to exceedingly poor acting, so I feel you would know if someone was really being abused—so, should you suspect you are watching an actual crime take place, please report it.
• Whenever two or more gay men, or two or more gay or straight women hang out, every situation quickly turns into a sexual encounter.
• Commentary: It’s more likely to turn into a Pinterest party.
• Body hair is bad.
• Commentary: This has been, um, uncovered before. Hair is distracting to film (gets in your teeth and whatnot), and you can’t see all the privatey parts.
• Those women are related. Muslim women have to have sex with their headscarves on. For an Asian woman, all penises are SOOOO huge and scary. Gay men have no gag reflex.
• Do I even have to comment on this?
• Any time two people are having sex, more naked people may show up and jump in. No one should be surprised.
• Commentary: I believe that the differences between group sex and gang rape are consent and planning. This is not something you should surprise someone with.
• All kinks are interchangeable. The fact that the woman in the BDSM clip was also in the foot fetish one tells you so.
• Commentary: Never mind she probably gets paid per video.
• Everything will fit everywhere. At any time.
• Commentary: People's orifices aren't portals to alternate dimensions. Neither are they baseball gloves, which get stronger and more comfortable when you beat them up bunch. For all those men out there who think you can just start jackhammering away at your partner the minute you're aroused: Finesse (and foreplay and lubrication and respecting the limits of people's physiology) is the name of the game.
• Women should expect to be cum upon during sex.
• Commentary: This is another one that has to do with staging. Male ejaculation is traditionally/reproductively an internal process, but viewers obviously can’t see that. The face cumming part is just an added misogynistic twist.
• Existence=normality=probability.
• Commentary: I think that porn has done a lot to show folks what is possible in a sexual relationship, and has even normalized stuff like anal sex. However, “possible” and “probable” are two different beasts. Just because you watch a video or even a series of videos where a certain act is performed, it doesn’t mean it’s a given that your current or next partner(s) will automatically do or enjoy that act.
• Everything always feels oh, so good. Or oh, so bad. (Depending on your flavor.)
• Commentary: Once again, it’s a fantasy created by paid professionals. The women are paid to act as if everything they do and have done to them excites them terribly, and while, because of physiology, men are not generally known to be able to fake interest, there are little blue pills that can turn on/up even the most reluctant performer.

I had wanted to comment on the manicures on the women, but didn't know how to phrase it. Do you have any you’d like to add?