Porn and Me

I have been inspired to write this by reading a piece by Hugo Schwyzer and Amber Rhea's response to it. It occurred to me on reading those, that for all I have written and thought about porn and its place in society, I have never actually set down in words the history of my own relationship to porn. I have from time to time alluded to various stages in my development in which porn played a part, but it's never been the focus of a post.

I first became aware of sex as sex when we were taught about it in science classes at school, aged about 13. Before that, even though I didn't know it, the thrill I got from seeing bondage and peril was my association with sex.

However, I was also influenced by the ideas around me at the time, both from feminism and from the traditional religious ideas around, that both in some way saw sexual display as degrading to women. I simply adopted that line when it came to porn and didn't really question it. The ribald antics of my peers in my early-to-mid teens disgusted me anyway, and indeed, tended to embody the patriarchal attitudes of women as sex objects (which was partly the cause of my disgust). It was easy to adopt the "porn is degrading" belief system given those surroundings (the two paths I could have followed were, "porn is degrading, therefore porn is bad" or "porn is degrading because women belong in a degraded state" - the patriarchal option).

At the same time, however, my body was beginning to develop; hormonally, I was becoming an adolescent and eventually, a young adult. Sex was becoming much more interesting to me.

Like many young teenagers, I guess, my first visually-stimulated masturbation came not from porn but from the lingerie pages in mail-order catalogues. For all my parents were quite liberal about things, and freely discussed sex, a lot of the time their attitude was one of bawdy humour rather than actual acceptance or open discussion. And social attitudes towards actually doing anything with sexuality were (and in many ways still are) very negative. Consequently, I felt very repressed sexually (and that's even before we get into the realms of , "OMG I might hurt someone, I'm such a sick pervert" that goes with being a young sadist). I remember one very hot summer being terrified of getting out of my pyjamas to have a cooler night's sleep, because it would mean I was naked and OMG getting closer to being, like, sexual. Eventually, though, masturbation for relief of tension became more natural for me.

The first porn I ever bought was a copy of Escort magazine (Link NSFW, but don't believe the "XXX-Rated claim to be "hardcore", it was really pretty soft). The guilt I felt when I succumbed to my "male urges" in buying it was intense, not to mention it was illegal (I was only 16 at the time, and the legal age for buying such stuff is 18 - I lied about my age to visit porn websites, too). The Escort/Razzle/Fiesta range of magazines (all published by Richard "Dirty" Desmond, famous for being the pornographer who bought the Daily Express newspaper) really appeal to the lowest common denominator, aiming for a real sense of sleaziness, and thus epitomise the criticisms I make of "softcore" porn in this piece. No wonder I felt guilty! Also, they really weren't very erotic for me either. It's just that the hardcore fucking and bondage/sadomasochism porn that I really wanted, wasn't available to me at that time (and wasn't legal to sell in the UK anyway, except possibly in licenced sex shops). I mention this, because some people would otherwise think that I'm about to describe a classic "starter-drug" to "hard drug" type descent in my porn use. Such a narrative, while appealing to those opposed to the existence of porn, would be utterly false in my case. I just had to search harder and longer for the stuff I really wanted from the start.

Anyway, my first taste of porn seemed to uphold the beliefs I already had about it. In many ways, you could say that my early engagement with visual pornography was an addiction, because I still felt it was evil and wrong, and yet I still wanted more, and still wanted to use it. And, despite myself, I would end up buying another dirty magazine and hiding it under my bed. It was pictures of naked women, so it did the job of getting my willy hard, but it didn't really work for the stuff I did in my head afterwards. Aged seventeen, my relationship with porn was one of self-loathing - much like my relationship with my sadism (which formed the fantasies that came once my willy was hardened by the softcore porn pics).

At seventeen, however, I found a copy of Beauty's Punishment, which is part of the classic "Beauty" trilogy by Anne Rice, writing as A. N. Roquelaure. This was in the local stationers', tucked away in amongst the "romance" novels. It is a story of sadomasochism, hard sex, bondage and slavery - just what I had been looking for! No pictures, but I have a powerful imagination, and the words gave me all the visuals I needed. Erotic novels have been a core element of my porn-buying ever since. At 18, I discovered The Story of O and also found out about Goreans, but that's by the way. The fascinating thing about both The Story of O and the Beauty series, was that they were written by women. A lot of the erotic fiction I started reading online also turned out to be written by women. Some of them were obviously writing for a male audience, but some were, as far as could be ascertained, writing for their own reasons. What did it mean?

I also at about that age, started to discover internet porn, which isn't governed by the same strict censorship laws that govern material available to buy in the UK, and therefore tended to include the bondage and sadomasochism material that really works for me. This was of a very different character from the sleazy material of "Dirty" Desmond's publications, and while those sleaze images could easily support the idea of porn being degrading to women, I could not find the same degradation in the hardcore, BDSM porn that I was now finding. Furthermore, on the internet, you could read web pages set up by women who were into BDSM, who were into exhibitionism, who just loved the idea or the fact of being photographed for these images. It was a real challenge to everything that I had believed about porn, and by association, about myself.

When I started to be able to accept my sadist/Dominant sexuality, I also began to accept that not all porn is evil. While the packaging and presentation of "Dirty" Desmond's empire was definitely not good, I realised that this was hardly representative of the whole of porn. Online, there is much softcore stuff that manages to be much classier than "Razzle" while still being unmistakably "porn" as opposed to "art nudes" (you can kind of tell the difference, when there's dildos and whatnot lying around in the frame!) I will return to some of these points in a future post I have planned about the harm that is involved in porn. Suffice to say for now, I realised that it is not the porn that is harmful in Dirty Desmond's magazines, but all the things around the porn.

The censorship laws have relaxed a bit since 1990s when I first went looking for porn, and now newsagents can sell hardcore magazines and BDSM porn magazines, so long as the magazines are sold in opaque coverings, and are kept on the top shelf. I find these magazines, although about 5 times the price of a Dirty Desmond publication, to be far superior in quality, and presented in a much more respectful way - even when the activities portrayed are suppsoedly far more disgusting or degrading or harmful. Therefore, when I actually have that kind of money to spend on frivolities, I like to buy these magazines.

I have documented elsewhere (link very definitely NSFW and may be triggering) a very serious incident that demonstrates one way in which porn for me has been a positive influence. As explained there, it was at a very dark period of my life, and I firmly believe that extreme porn saved someone's life (not mine) at that time.

Since then, porn has played a significant role in some of my relationships with women (including Julie), in that I have used some of the BDSM porn clips I've downloaded as a "bribe" in D/s games. That's right - they sought the porn and were eager for it, and I was threatening to withhold it! I have watched porn in the company of Julie, to our mutual pleasure. I've searched for any kind of harm from these, and apart from the fact that I may possibly have contravened the Obscene Publications Act in sending these clips by email or lending my DVDs to my female friends, I can't see any.

The greatest harm that I can find in the story I have to tell, is that when I thought porn was evil, it had a negative effect on my confidence with women, and in myself; it led to psychological issues for me, and it meant a denial of my true sexuality. That ideology was harmful to me in the same way as it appears that certain right-wing Christian ideologies can be harmful to young gays in their midst. I am glad to accept erotica and porn as being not in and of themselves evil or wrong.

I continue to use "extreme" porn, and BDSM porn, in video and picture form. I also read "Silver Moon" ("it's SM, geddit?"), "Chimera Publications" (again, "it's CP, geddit?") and "Nexus" novels, which all tend to have bondage and D/s themes. All these forms have the basic purpose for me of getting me horny and giving me ideas for masturbation fantasies. As I've already mentioned, the visual forms, I often share with women who enjoy that sort of thing (but naturally, I don't show it to women who aren't into watching porn!) I can use it to demonstrate something that I think would be hot to try, or to express an idea for an online roleplaying session. I have used it to show that the fantasy a partner has just described to me is not "sick" and "disgusting", as she had taught herself to believe, but that porn depicting it exists, and that other people have that fantasy too (and it definitely isn't going to make me think any less of her or want to dump her), thus helping her to become more self-accepting, more free and more self-determining sexually. That is, liberating her from attitudes imposed by the Patriarchy.

That's the story of my relationship with porn.