Chineze Aina: Porn & Its Influence on Your Sexual Preferences

Nancy’s faithful husband was out of the country on an extended work trip and to spice up their long-distance sex life, he had recommended cam-sex. No, it wasn’t a recommendation, it was an order: “when you come online tomorrow, put on that red lingerie I bought for you in August, we are having cam-sex”. This was followed by a laugh that was meant to lighten the weight of his words but sounded more like a snicker.

She instantly froze on her side of the call but didn’t object.

She consulted Google, a few ‘experienced‘ friends, and proceeded to arm herself with enough information to forge ahead. When the call occurred, she was nervous as hell but dutifully appeared, scantily clothed, as instructed during their video call and tried to act as though she had watched dozens of cam girls act. It was a near disaster, but weirdly, he was happy and scored her an A for effort.

A couple of months later, she was happy he was back – at least no more embarrassing shows. But she rejoiced too early; he returned home with an acquired taste for violent sex, a porn habit, and hell-bent on re-enacting what he keenly watches in their bedroom. He blamed it on the months away.

Nancy is worried about this new life and her ability to cope because, contrary to what she was told that she will get more comfortable with her partner as they grew older, it wasn’t so in her case. Ironically, the longer they remained married, the more inhibited she became. It was as if mutual familiarity has created a weird new kind of self-consciousness, so much that introducing new habits may depend upon expert convincing.

Nancy and her man are not the only ones navigating this new reality.

The complexity of sex as we knew it is changing. People are copying the sexual acts that they view on the internet and expect their partners to catch up. What was once forbidden is the new normal.

When you ask the average person if they watch porn. They’ll most likely say no. You should believe them. Porn use is not what many people admit to for obvious reasons: shame, fear of addiction, religious beliefs, and so on.

However, stats don’t lie – more and more people are scouring the internet for porn as you read this. However, everyone shouldn’t be worried they have fallen to the sordid side. A study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine revealed there are three types of porn users: recreational, compulsive and distressed porn viewers.

The compulsive users are a tiny 11%. While the recreational viewers account for 75% of all participants in the study – watching an average of 24 minutes of erotica a week. This group consisted of mainly women and people in relationships. We assume this is the most established category and perhaps they account for the shocking number of porn site visitors.

Rough sex is the new standard

Porn is more popular today than ever and the lines between normal and abnormal have never been more blurred. Our sexuality is influenced by porn, and porn is normalizing things we used to require consent to do. Because they are portrayed nonchalantly in porn as normal, everyday sex acts, they are influencing the culture of how we have sex. For example, consider things depicted in erotica:

During fellatio, a woman’s head is maneuvered (sometimes forcefully) to take more and more of the penis into her mouth.
During sex, a woman’s body is maneuvered through a succession of acrobatic stretches that look cool but aren’t actually pain-free. (Yoga is amazing but how can you reach a climax when your hamstrings are on fire?)
A woman is penetrated roughly for many minutes or even hours and she smiles delightedly through it all.

Choking is portrayed as normal and again the woman acts excited.

The women are portrayed as hungry for sex at the drop of a hat with freshly dolled-up faces and salon-style hair ready to be touselled or pulled. Their breasts are generally perky and frequently enormous. This is often a far cry from the real woman.

During fellatio, a woman gags repeatedly from desperately trying to deep-throat. Never mind that many real-life people have a sensitive gag reflex.

The Results

Many people’s  aggressive sexuality imitates the roughness they see on-screen; their partners begin to feel that they should enjoy these things or make a particular type of noise to show their enjoyment. After all, that’s what’s the models do. These days, those noises are part of activities leading up to an orgasmic experience.

To me, this forces sex to be prescriptive, a sham, and often involving non-consensual acts. Like Nancy, the man assumed his wife would want to spice things up by getting naked in front of a camera or would enjoy spontaneous anal sex.

The most disturbing trend is the failure to secure consent before proceeding. Most women I know lead busy lives and although we may have pretty healthy sex drives or naughty desires, we simply don’t have the time or energy to be waiting in various locations, perfectly air-brushed, and enthusiastically ready for a two-hour sexathon.

What people see in porn is dictating how they choose to have sex and the grave risk is having an incredibly important and intimate aspect of our lives conditioned by an industry that is predominantly concerned with personal profit, not with portraying actual good sex.

Good sex requires consent. This doesn’t mean it should lack spontaneity or bore you to tears. It also respects – with as much consideration as possible – the wishes of those involved.

Are you inevitably having porn-conditioned sex or good old awesome sex?