Pay For Your Porn, Please!

Me on a shoot day in 2016

One of the many ways I’ve seen porn performers get insulted and degraded online is by dudes (yes, it is almost always dudes) yelling, “Why would I pay for your OnlyFans (or whatever) when I can get any porn I want for free?!”

Besides being super mean-spirited and unnecessary (not to mention reeking of whorephobia), this argument – if one can even call it that – is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how the porn industry works, and how art in general gets made. And yes, I would consider porn to be an art form!

See, as the world is learning in real-time right now from the Writers Guild of America strike, the art you love doesn’t just magically appear out of thin air – actual people make it (I’m not talking about AI art here, because it kinda sucks, both morally and artistically), and those people deserve to be paid fairly for their time, work, and expertise. This is true whether the art in question is something we generally understand to be expensive, like an oil painting, or something we generally understand to be cheap or free, like online porn.

As with any kind of art, if we want porn to keep being made, we need to ensure that its creators are able to sustain themselves financially so they can continue making it. I’m no porn-industry expert, but it seems to me that the emphasis has shifted massively from big porn studios to smaller creators and collectives over the last decade or so, and I imagine a lot of that has to do with how often people torrent porn, stream it on sites that have pirated it, and so on. Big studio productions are expensive to make, and can’t be continually cranked out if no one is paying for them. I love indie porn stars as much as the next hyper-online gal, but I can’t deny that I also sometimes appreciate the spectacle of a huge-scale porn production like Pirates (2005), which supposedly had a $1 million budget (!!), or Alice in Wonderland (1976), which had a budget of $500,000 (about $2.5 million in today’s money if we account for inflation!).

That’s not to say it’s impossible to watch free porn in an ethical way. Creators on YouTube and PornHub alike, for instance, can make ad revenue from people who watch their videos, at no additional cost to viewers. Many independent creators offer some free content as part of their overall marketing strategy, though of course the hope is that a substantial portion of their free viewers will become paid viewers over time.

It’s also definitely possible to pay for your porn even if you’re on a budget. Sites like Clips4Sale and ManyVids are chock full of videos priced at $5 or less, which you can then watch and re-watch to your heart’s content. Many performers offer sales to mark certain holidays or just when they need to drum up some extra cash, so follow your faves on social media if you want to be informed when/if that happens. You can even click here for a Naughty America discount. There is a TON of cheap porn out there, and every time you buy someone’s porn, or subscribe to their OnlyFans feed or similar, you’re helping them out and letting them know with your dollars that you want them to keep making wank material for you to enjoy.

I’m happy to pay for romance novels, because they make me giggle and blush; thriller movies, because they make me gasp and scream; and action video games, because they make my heart speed up and engage my brain. The other reason I’m happy to pay for these things (when I have the cash to do so) is that I want them to keep being made. By that token, it makes complete sense that I’d also want to pay for my porn – because it entertains me, inspires me, teaches me new things about my sexuality, and (of course) turns me on and gets me off. I hope you’ll pay for your porn too, at least some of the time, because a future without porn (or with porn created by soulless AIs) sounds pretty fuckin’ bleak, if you ask me.

 

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Why “Amateur Porn” is My Fave Kind of Porn

An Instax photo taken of me in my twenties. BTW, if you want more like this, click here, here, and here. 😇

It took me a long time to start enjoying porn. I had already been masturbating and reading erotica (especially erotic fanfiction) for several years before porn became a regular part of my solo sex routine.

Up until then, it just… hadn’t really interested me. What little I’d seen of it, online or while flipping through TV channels late at night, had seemed ridiculous to me: over-the-top, unrealistic, melodramatically acted. I’d never had sex, so I didn’t know what sex was “really like,” but I knew that the images in those videos didn’t resonate with me (or my vagina) anywhere near as much as the flirty banter in a great fanfic story, or the frisson I felt when talking to a crush at school. If devising fantasies and replaying memories felt more exciting than watching porn, why bother watching it?

There were a few exceptions; I liked the punk-rock pinup pics on the website SuicideGirls, and I had watched that one notorious Nina Hartley cunnilingus tutorial so many times that it had eventually earned a place of honor on my iPod Video. (Now there’s a throwback!) But most porn, especially most straight porn, was off-putting to me. I just didn’t get it.

 

Eventually, though, I discovered amateur porn. In comparison to the slick overproduction of mainstream studio porn, these amateurs making sexy videos from their bedrooms or basements felt like a revelation. Their work turned me on, not just because their bodies and lives looked closer to my own, but because – what with so many amateur porn makers being real-life couples – they showed me a vision of what a future sex life could look like for me: intimate, fun, sometimes a little silly, and hot. Very hot.

I was always the type of anxious kid who would Google things like “how to know if someone wants to kiss you” and “what do dicks taste like?” so there was something calming about watching real couples have the kinds of sex they apparently regularly had, even when the cameras were off. They showed me that you didn’t have to be an industry professional to be “good at sex” and to be thought of as sexy. That comforted me.

I’ve also always been turned on by the idea of someone knowing your body so well that they can get you off easily and consistently; I eroticized the thought of being known that deeply. And there’s no better place to watch that fantasy unfold than in amateur porn, where performers are often intimately familiar with one another’s bodies and know all the right buttons to press. This seemed romantic to me, and helped me dream about the sexual futures I wanted for myself.

 

While “amateur porn” is still an extremely popular porn category, the term itself has evolved over time. Its popularity prompted many mainstream porn studios to adopt an “amateur” aesthetic in some of their work, hoping to draw in some viewers who (like me) had previously been unimpressed with big-studio porn.

Meanwhile, the internet continued evolving, eventually empowering some performers to attract bigger and bigger audiences and to use more powerful platforms to reach new people. Both then and now, it almost feels disingenuous to call some of these people “amateurs” when they may have as much industry knowledge as, if not more than, many performers for mainstream companies because they’ve always been responsible for doing their own lighting, filming, editing, etc.

Some purists might argue that the well-lit and well-marketed independent performers on OnlyFans, ManyVids, etc. aren’t amateurs in the true sense of the word, because their production values are too high or their videos are too pre-planned and performative. While it’s fine if you prefer the low-res, low-lit amateur videos of yore, I actually think it’s wonderful that video technology has become accessible enough that you don’t have to have big studio bucks to make porn that looks great. And I also know – particularly from talking to friends of mine in the industry – that just because something is “performed” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s inauthentic. Some people find exhibitionism exciting, and so, in their videos, you may see performativity and authenticity blended together seamlessly into something gorgeous and hot.

 

Still to this day, it’s incredibly rare that I watch porn made by mainstream studios. Most of it just doesn’t interest me and doesn’t turn me on. I can’t relax and enjoy myself if I don’t feel that the performers on-screen are also relaxed and enjoying themselves, ideally with someone they like to fuck off-camera as well. And sure, that kind of thing can be found in some mainstream porn, but it’s much more readily available (and more believable to me) in the “amateur” category.

I want to feel like what I’m watching could plausibly happen in my bedroom, or my friends’ bedrooms. I want to feel the performers’ real flirtation and attraction and deep knowledge of one another’s bodies. I want real orgasms, real squirting, real giggles and real romance. And I want to pay creators directly (or as directly as possible) for what they’ve made, with no bigwig middle-man standing between us. I want to feel connected to the porn I watch, and to the people in it, almost as much as I feel connected to my actual sexual partners and my friends.

And so, I still love amateur porn, and probably always will – although I hope it’s eventually given a name more befitting of the immense work and expertise that can go into making real-life sex look real damn beautiful.

 

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Can Demisexuals Enjoy Porn?

A blurry still from a porn scene I once performed in for Spit

One of the most striking changes in my sexuality as I’ve grown older is how much more demisexual I’ve gotten. I went from being a horny, flirty 23-year-old who could spot my next fuck from across a crowded swimming pool, to being a grizzled, grumpy 30-year-old who needs to have a 3-hour conversation with someone before deciding whether she wants to hold their hand. (That’s a slight exaggeration… maybe…)

I’ve seen the question of demisexuals’ porn consumption come up in a few of the online sex discussion spaces I participate in, and I think it’s an interesting one. If the primary purpose of pornography is to arouse the viewer, and the viewer is someone who is far more aroused by brains than bodies, and far more interested in intimacy than insertions, can porn really do its job? I have a few points I’d like to make in response to this question.

Quick refresher before we hop in: Demisexuality is an identity on the asexuality spectrum. Demisexuals find it difficult or impossible to experience sexual attraction until and unless they’ve developed an emotional connection to, or at least an emotional familiarity with, the subject of that attraction.

 

Point 1: Sexual attraction and sexual arousal are not the same thing.

Sexual attraction, generally speaking, is the visceral pull you feel toward someone you want to kiss, touch, and/or fuck. It is aimed at particular people; if someone said to me, “Do you feel like having sex right now?” my answer would be rather different than if someone said to me, “Do you feel like having sex with James Dean circa 1955 right now?” (My answers at the moment, respectively, are “Ehh, not really, ask me again after I’ve had my coffee” and “OMG, yes, give me 10 minutes to throw on some red lipstick for him to mess up.”)

Sexual arousal, on the other hand, is the physical (and, arguably, also mental) state of being horny. It can involve noticeable changes in your physiology, like engorged genital tissue and a quickening heartbeat, as well as more psychological effects, like the pressing desire to be imminently touched by yourself and/or by someone else.

These two things are different. Certainly one can facilitate the other – and for many demisexuals, sexual attraction precedes sexual arousal and is itself preceded by emotional attraction – but fundamentally, they are separate, and don’t always occur at the same time, in the same situations.

Without trying to speak for other demisexuals on this matter, I’ll say that I can become sexually aroused by porn without feeling sexually attracted to the people in it. It certainly helps if I’m attracted to the people in it (more on that below), but just witnessing certain sexual acts can rev me up, especially if they’re acts I’m already intimately familiar with and/or acts I already fetishize to some extent. And so, yes, I can jerk off to porn, and often find that it adds measurably to my arousal and pleasure, just as it does for many allosexual people (i.e. people who are not on the asexual spectrum).

 

Point 2: Porn can become familiar.

In an age of OnlyFans feeds and live sex cams, it’s easier than ever to follow the careers of porn performers you enjoy. Whether you become a fan of theirs because you think they’re cute, because they remind you of someone you used to date, or because your favorite sex acts and kinks are fairly aligned with theirs (or all three!), you can definitely develop an “emotional connection” – albeit a one-sided, parasocial one – to certain performers over time.

This noticeably increases my enjoyment of porn, as a demisexual person. Of the porn performers whose work I follow closely, what they all have in common is that there’s a lot of personality infused into their work, so that I get a sense of who they are (or at least, who their porn persona is) on a deeper level than I would if I’d just watched them get fucked once. This creates a sense of heightened connection and therefore generates heightened sexual attraction on my end.

I’ve noticed that this effect can also occur even if I’ve just seen a particular porn clip several times. It’s like the raunchier version of how I feel more attracted to Jennifer Beals every time I re-watch one of her sex scenes from The L Word

If you’re not sure where to even find porn performers you might develop a fondness for, I’d suggest scrolling through clip sites like ManyVids, or flipping through the pages of free adult webcams listings, and clicking on anyone whose aesthetic or vibe provokes a positive response in you. Follow that little glimmer of potential attraction and see where it leads you.

 

Point 3: You can make porn that’s familiar.

Now, granted, not everyone wants to set up a camera to film themselves while fucking. You may have concerns about this related to cybersecurity, future employment, etc. and that’s fine.

But if you are willing to make your own porn, I think this can be one of the best solutions for demisexuals who want wank fodder but don’t connect with much/any of the porn they see online. After all, what could be more demisexual than jerking off to the sight of a person you know IRL and already have a deep connection with?

I’ve made amateur porn with a few partners over the years, and it’s always served me well when incorporated into my spank bank. It reminds me of hot sex I’ve had, because it depicts… hot sex I’ve actually had! And it’s therefore a lot easier for me to get turned on by it and get off to it.

 

Fellow demisexuals, what’s your experience with porn? Does it turn you on? Bore you? Or does it depend?

 

This post contains sponsored links. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

3 Porn Clips I Wish Existed

What my computer sees when I’m watching porn

I don’t know, maybe these already do exist. Maybe I just haven’t looked hard enough. It can take hours to stumble across the right search string to locate what you’re looking for, or to search for the perfect webcam performer who can fulfill one’s exact fantasies. Usually I end up just jerking off to whatever I find in the meantime, if it’s any good, even if it’s not the highly specific image I had in my head before my search began.

I know, too, that if I really wanted clips made exactly to my specifications, the best way to do that would be to commission custom clips from porn performers who specialize in whatever fantasies I had in mind. I wish I had the budget to do that more often. But for now, let’s imagine I’m the God of Porn and I can conjure whatever clips I’m craving out of thin air, like a pervy holodeck. What would I want to see?

 

1. Gag-free, facial-free deepthroat blowjob porn

You would think this would be easier to find, but as a longtime BJ porn connoisseur, I can tell you, I often have a tough time sleuthing out these types of clips. So I tend to watch the same reliable performers over and over again – mostly Heather Harmon and Little Oral Andie.

I don’t like gagging. I’ve got nothing against people who are into it, and can even understand why someone might be into it, but it just squicks me out and stops my arousal cold.

I also don’t like facials – not because I have an issue with cum on faces, but because I strongly prefer when oral sex ends with someone orgasming in someone’s mouth, whether I’m the giver, receiver, or spectator in that interaction. I get that facials are popular because they’re demonstrative; they make the cum visible to the viewer, plus many people consider them a hot visual for various kinky reasons. But I just always feel disappointed when a stellar BJ ends in this way; to me, it’s, ironically, anticlimactic.

 

2. Story-driven porn that takes place backstage after opening night

One fantasy my spouse and I share, having been lifelong “theatre kids,” is hooking up on a stage, or near a stage, or behind a stage, or… well, you get the idea.

I don’t think it’s really an exhibitionistic fantasy, at least not for me. In my head, the theatre is always empty except for us. Maybe it’s late one night after a dress rehearsal, or maybe it’s the morning of opening night before anyone else arrives. Maybe I’m the star and I’m fucking the director for clout and bragging rights. Maybe we’re co-stars who kiss on stage every night during our romantic duet but are just beginning to consummate our off-stage chemistry. Maybe I met a hot fan at the stage door one night and invited them in out of the cold. Who knows.

I’d love to see this fantasy played out in porn, though frankly my hopes for its production value and the depth of its plot and characters are probably such that this would be a better notion in my head than on screen. Think, like, Glee if it was about grown-ups doing professional theatre and then also fucking each other. I mean, how great would that be?!

 

3. Sleuthing out a new sweetheart’s hot spots

One of the things that most drew me to Brooklyn Nine-Nine fanfiction, back in the days when I was reading and writing it voraciously, was the fact that most of its main characters are detectives – and I’m suuuuper turned on by someone solving the mystery of my body, hunting for clues about my sexuality, fitting puzzle pieces together to understand my pleasure more deeply.

I’m not saying I want to see detectives in porn, necessarily – ACAB, baby! – but I would like to see an attitude of exploratory curiosity more often. There’s an instructional porn video that Tristan Taormino shot of performers Dylan Ryan and Danny Wylde for the Smitten Kitten once, in which we see Danny and Dylan negotiating what they’re going to do, giving each other feedback on technique in the moment, and locating each other’s erogenous zones through trial and error. I’d love to see more of that kind of thing in porn.

As much as I love and appreciate porn, I think a lot of it presents sex as something that everyone already knows how to do, even with people they’ve never fucked before. That just isn’t the case – even if you’ve had a ton of sex, a new person’s body is still always gonna be a learning experience when you first start trying to please them. I think a lot more people would relish this process if it were represented positively in porn more often!

 

What types of porn would you love to see, that don’t yet exist as far as you’re aware?

 

This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

How Audio Porn Helps Me When I’m Depressed, Insecure, or Sexually Apathetic

I think I liked audio porn before I ever liked visual porn. And I don’t think this is an uncommon experience, particularly for women.

It makes sense. Much like some people prefer novels over their movie adaptations, sometimes you want to be able to visualize and fantasize inside your own head while consuming a piece of media, rather than having the visuals spelled out very literally for you.

But there are other reasons I still, to this day, often prefer audio porn over the traditional, cinematic variety. Namely:

1. Words are hot. There is not nearly enough dirty talk in most mainstream porn for my personal tastes, especially from men and masculine people, who are often nearly silent, I guess to keep from grossing out their cis-het male viewers?! As someone whose sex life has been 70%+ phone sex for the past few years, and who has spent her life writing about sex, I’m perhaps more attuned to the eroticism of words than the average porn consumer. Generally I’d rather listen to someone describing cunnilingus than watch them perform it, for example – in part because it’s a sex act where, if you’re doing it right, often nothing all that interesting will be visually apparent from the outside.

2. Sounds are hot. Moans, quickening breaths, the animalistic sound of someone desperately stroking their cock – these things are often the most exciting parts of porn to me, to the point that if a clip has been muted, or has poor sound quality, I tend to close that tab and move on to the next. In audio porn, obviously the auditory elements of eroticism are played up and focused upon, plus they tend to be rendered in higher quality because of the performers’ proximity to their (often) fancy, ASMR-quality mics.

3. It makes me less insecure and self-critical. While I reject the notion that female porn stars aren’t “real women,” because obviously they are, they tend to be a lot more conventionally gorgeous than me, which can bring up uncomfortable feelings while I’m just trying to turn myself on and get off. Some audio porn describes the characters therein, but much of it is created to be intentionally vague, so that the listener can slot themselves into any fantasy they want without having to compare themselves to the preexisting people in that fantasy.

4. It’s physically easier to consume. I didn’t always care about this, but now that I’m chronically ill, there are some days when the effort of holding up my iPad to watch porn – or orienting myself in bed so that I can comfortably see the screen – is just too much, especially if I want to have energy left over afterward for masturbation or sex. I like that with audio porn, I can put my headphones on, hit “play,” and stay perfectly still in whatever position feels comfy while I listen.

5. It’s often in the second person. I know some people hate this about audio erotica, and would be comfier if it only ever described third-person scenarios (“She took his cock into her mouth,” etc.) rather than being in the second person (“You’re going to take my cock into your mouth now, pretty girl”). But I like the second-person ones, and especially enjoyed them when I was in my early 20s and had only just admitted to myself that I might be kinky. (LOL. What an understatement.) Hearing kinky dirty talk that was from a stranger, but that still felt like it was aimed directly at me, helped me become comfortable taking on a submissive role before I ever actually acted out those fantasies with real-life partners.

6. It’s comforting. I don’t know if I’m quite an “ASMR person,” in that I don’t often experience the characteristic “brain tingles” reported by those folks upon hearing certain sounds or encountering situations that trigger them. But I do find it oddly calming to be talked through a sexy scenario by a kind-hearted stranger who requires absolutely nothing from me, in terms of participation or prettiness. It’s like the grown-up version of when you stay home sick from school and a loving parent reads aloud to you from a fantasy novel.

 

Have you listened to much audio porn? What are your thoughts on it?

 

This post was sponsored by the folks at Sofia Sins, the cool new audio-porn platform from Sofia Gray. Check ’em out if sexy audio turns you on! As always, all writing and opinions here are my own.