Early Porn Experiences

I remember when I was a new consumer of mainstream pornography. It made me nervous, shy, and eager all at the same time. I wanted to go into the back room to rent an XXX video, but I didn’t want anyone to know I was a sexual person. So, I stayed outside as my boyfriend made a selection based on my guidelines, “choose something with a plot, please.” Same thing with buying my first Playgirl. Nah, I wasn’t actually going to get off looking at slick hunks in tight underwear. My friend babbled something to the cashier about it being for a school project as I looked at my feet. I wonder how many times the cashier had heard that one? Since then I have had plenty of practice as a consumer of porn. While the world has changed since the explosion of Internet porn and most adult video shops have closed, I do remember a few of them in the downtown core of Montreal and how I lost my shyness and was able to  proudly push the curtain aside to enter the adult section.No longer did I ask my male partner to bring my selection to the counter. At the magazine shop I would reach up to the top shelf  and choose the right porn magazine for inspiration and amusement. And as many people know I even got into the producing side of the porn equation. Even so, it has been a bumpy evolution. First, to make things clear, let’s begin with a definition of pornography. Good old Webster’s says it is literature, photographs, paintings etc., intended to cause sexual excitement. They also throw in the word obscene which in many people’s views is too vague and subjective to be relevant. I agree and I am going to throw it out. It is my essay after all, so I can do that. With that in mind, there many works of art and source of entertainment in today’s mainstream popular culture that could be considered pornography. Things intended to elicit sexual excitement. In fact, there are so many teen type shows that clearly are more visual content than plot. I certainly felt that way when as a young teen I watched the comedy “Young Doctors in Love” on video. There is scene where a topless stripper sits on the lap of the head doctor. He makes a joke and she laughs. As she does, her breasts bounce and giggle. I would rewind and watch the scene a number of times before moving on. The film was designed to make you laugh. It was filled with juvenile humour and sight gags and I am sure quite a few jokes that went over my head. Likely, the producers would not consider themselves pornographers, but they did purposefully include a scene with a young woman in a sexual situation. The scene was entertaining mostly in a sexual way and not so much in a comedic way. As such, it caused sexual excitement in me and I can’t imagine it not being at the very least somewhat intentional on the part of the producers. When I was a little bit older I saw the movie “My Beautiful Launderette”. My friends and I were open minded and looking for sources of information that could help us prove that. Watching a British movie about gay men was as good as it could get since we didn’t have any gay friends at that time (or so we thought). We were also secretly delighted by the depiction of romance between the two men. In a conversation in our mid-twenties we all confessed to how hot and bothered we felt as we watched the deep kisses shared between the menl. The movie told a story of outsiders and people from different cultures making a go at a forbidden relationship. It gave us an awareness, as well as sexual stimulation and fascination for other types of erotic relationships. A few years later I indulged in what I call wanna-be-porn. Remember, that Alyssa Milano vampire movie? Those B movies are just the best. They have lots of heavy petting, nudity, lust in everyone’s eyes and some lesbian action thrown in for good measure. What is so wonderful about wanna-be-porn is that you can rent it in the regular section and with most of your dignity in tact. The clerks know what it is all about, but they don’t have to slyly open the box and show you the title. Also female clerks need not blush as much, nor the female clients. These softcore “erotic” movies are win-win and they served me well during my early porn years. Another other classic from that era: Two Moon Junction. I really was aroused and confused by that one. Viewing of very explicit sexual acts came later. By the time I had sexual intercourse and oral sex I had still not seen images of these acts. Well, perhaps drawings in the “The Joy of Sex”, but those images were not as powerful for me as the ones I was to glimpse in a XXX video. I was baby-sitting and while the infant in my care was sleeping I perused her parents’ collection of videos in the VCR cabinet. There was an assortment of mainstream titles and below them a larger selection of adult videos likely taped from pay per view. There were 3 titles per cassette neatly hand-written on the labels. I was incredibly curious. I searched the titles and was overwhelmed with the words: pussy, cock, wet, babes, cunts, fucking, action. I grabbed one carefully remembering where it was stored. I sat back with my hand gripping the remote. I had the volume on low. There was no need to wake the child I was baby-sitting. The title was briefly shown. Radio 69. OK, I knew that position well. Next, I saw a DJ chatting before a microphone and a woman standing by his side. In a matter of seconds she was on her knees, unzipping his pants and then sucking on his penis. Yikes! It was such a shock. I quickly pressed stop, rewound the tape and put it away. This pornography stuff was not for me. Way too explicit. I decided to stick with wanna-be-porn. Things changed for me at around age 22. My boyfriend at the time had a collection of porn videos. While he was at a party I took a peek at the not-so-secret stash (he was open about it with me). Again, much like when I had watched the first adult video, I was very curious. However, I decided to watch in it’s entirety before making a judgment. This time I was much more comfortable with what I saw. I was not as afraid or overwhelmed by the images of the thrusting penises or the “money shots”. What did bother me stemmed from my own insecurities. Did my boyfriend want me to look like these women, act like these women? My style is more natural than made-up. Sure I am a girly-girl who enjoys make up and high heels, but with my body type and my more “classic” way of dressing, I don’t usually get mistaken for a Penthouse Pet. At the time I also could not imagine myself to be as sexually free as the women in the video. Of course, I know now that pornography for the most part is a fantasy. Bloopers are edited out, most everything is planned and the action is extremely stylized in the professional productions. Real life sex is just not that way. Through a little work on my own and some serious discussions with my boyfriend, I was able to acknowledge these things about porn. Porn has it's place, but it is not real life. As I discovered later when I started my own adult site on the Internet, it isn't even my life.  When you knowingly film yourself having sex it is never quite as real as it is when there is no camera. Originally published at Seska for Lovers 2000.