Porn Is Not an Educational Video

“Porn is not an educational video.” I say this often to my sex therapy clients and I really believe people know this on some level. They understand that porn is meant for entertainment purposes, the majority of it with the male gaze in mind, and that like the rest of Hollywood it has all kinds of movie-making secrets and techniques to trick the viewer into believing what they are watching is really, spontaneously happening between the actors.

Yet in the absence of comprehensive sex education in our country, coupled with the inherent curiosity everyone seems to have about sex, I think it’s inevitable that some people look to porn to answer their questions. Examples of those questions and curiosities are:

• “My body sexually functions a certain way—is that normal?” (We generally don’t use the word “normal” in therapy.)
• “What do different shapes and sizes of bodies look like naked and how do they function sexually?”
• “I’ve heard about or read about X but I’ve never seen it myself; in my imagination, it turns me on. I wonder what that looks like.”
• “I’ve always been turned on by and wanted to try Y yet I’ve never had a partner who expressed interest in doing it. Porn is where I get to experience Y.”

So much of porn is vicarious experiencing—of different bodies, activities, scenarios, and sexual appetites. It is fantasy brought to life. When we can understand and appreciate porn for this, then almost all of porn’s controversies disappear.

I learned about the concept "suspension of disbelief" as an undergrad when I took a few film classes. This phrase is often used to describe how viewers of film and television agree to follow along, so to speak, with the fictitious world they are watching. They stop thinking critically whether or not whatever is being portrayed can actually happen in real life—they are putting their doubts and skepticism on hold in order to join in with the fictional story. If you watched Game of Thrones you suspended your disbelief. (Dragons are make-believe.) Doing this makes watching the story that much more fun for us the viewer and gives us a greater, more intimate and emotional experience with the film or show.

When people suspend their disbelief with porn and believe “it’s real,” it’s in part because much of it does look so darn real. Maybe the bedroom is messy (like yours). That is precisely what porn producers intend to do—make viewers believe what they’re watching is really happening exactly the way it seems to be—and they go to great lengths to make the viewer believe. Yes, the actors are engaging with each other sexually but there are things like good editing, certain camera angles, and perfectly placed “ooohs” and “aaahs” and moans and groans. So suspending one’s disbelief and believing porn is real can deepen the emotional investment for the viewer and thus give the viewer an even more enjoyable viewing experience. In online porn, this translates to more views - and that is how the sites sell advertising. What is so interesting, however, is that we don’t seem to suspend our disbelief when it comes to animated/anime porn (a human-shaped cartoon character having sex with a unicorn, for example). In that situation, we know with certainty that it’s just make-believe. So why can’t we understand that all porn is just make-believe, enjoy it for the entertainment value it offers, and not draw any conclusions about real life sex from it?

Perhaps because porn is about sex, and we don’t know how to think critically about sex. There are common tropes in porn—the pizza guy delivers a pizza and a beautiful, lusty woman answers the door. Do we really think this happens to every pizza delivery guy in real life? Of course not. If we did, I can think of a few men I know who would quit their current jobs right now and go get a job delivering pizzas. Other, more noteworthy tropes in porn are: women are always willing to have sex; women don’t have any sexual boundaries or say, “ouch, that hurts." Men are always able to get an erection without an issue, maintain their erections, control when they orgasm, and demonstrate no anxiety about any of this/always appear confident; everyone’s always so enthusiastic to have sex/no one’s tired or had a stressful day and just not in the mood for sex. I think you get the idea.

If porn was intended to be educational, it would present what are actually helpful ways individuals and couples can cope when sex does not go as expected. For example, imagine if porn demonstrated how to be supportive when a woman says “ouch, that hurts,” or how men can practice resiliency when they lose an erection and what their female partners can say to ease the man’s anxiety and shame. Better yet, imagine if porn depicted how couples can negotiate their sexual boundaries. But porn producers believe their viewers do not find those things sexy. Too bad. Like I said, porn is fantasy.

Finally, a common critique of porn is that it leads to unrealistic expectations about sex and your partner. This may be true if you do not understand that porn is fantasy and entertainment and instead rely on it for learning. Porn can also lead to unrealistic expectations about sex if your actual sex life leaves you unfulfilled. But porn isn’t responsible for your sex life. You are.

© 2019 Diane Gleim