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Fri 22/07/05 at 18:54
Regular
"Infantalised Forums"
Posts: 23,089
In light of Wal-Mart removing GTA San Andreas from shelves because of sexual content, I'm going to nail my colours to the mast here - I like porn.
I hold porno on a level with good literature (none of that Proust/F Scott Fitzgerald crap, I'm talking Eddie Bunker/Bukowski), good music and fine food.
Good porno is an artform. None of this softcore, boobs and bouncing hair nonsense that Channel 5 thinks is good. None of this "I'm a security guard employed to protect you Shannon Tweed, and we shall have saxophone scored, wind-blowing-curtains meetings" tosh.
No, I'm talking a man & woman/woman & woman/man & man/whatever getting naked and making uglyfaces with zero plot, zero Casio accompaniment, zero clunky script with anything more than "Wow, I want to sit on your face and bounce".
And with the advent of the internet, you’ve seen porn – I absolutely 100% promise you that, regardless of whether you’re a teen in the throes of puberty or a middle aged person, even an old person curious (Silver Surfers are no longer the domain of comics). Everybody has, at some point, looked at/downloaded porn from the net.
And I think it’s damaged porno, and planted a dangerous mindset in inexperienced teenagers.

I’ll explain:
Way back when I first noticed that girls weren’t actually “yucky” and they had buried treasure under those school uniforms that I yearned to plunder (never mind that I didn’t know how, or even what exactly I was supposed to be interested in), my fevered 13yr old imagination ran amok. Being at an all boys school, girls were a vague and mysterious topic of whispers and “my mate/older brother says” stuff of legend.
You knew somebody that had “gone all the way” with a girl and they were accorded the same level of respect as Neil Armstrong or the kid that told Mr Williams, our drunk and violent CDT teacher, to perform lewd acts upon himself and invited his wife to watch said abominations.
But it remained forever a topic of fevered tales of experience (or lies) and unprovable sexual conquests that would shame Caligula.
The only form of advice/assistance available then (we’re talking 1986-7, pre-internet) were porno mags. Usually “borrowed” from somebody’s dad, safe in the knowledge he wouldn’t dare accuse them of stealing his secret stash. Passed round before class with giggles and “Yeah, that’s what she looked like” boasts (lies again) from Jonathan Pearson – he reached puberty waaay before we did and earned the nickname Donkey Kong for obvious reasons.
Or, if you were really lucky, somebody would have a well-viewed VHS “dirty movie” that you begged to borrow and watched when everyone else had gone to bed, finger hovering near the volume button ready to mute at the slightest suggestion of somebody coming downstairs.
There was an illicitness to discovering what sex (or Hollywood’s version of it) was all about, albeit with a dog-eared and worryingly fragrant magazine.
It gave you a vague idea of what to expect, prepared you for the real deal – call it a trailer for the summer blockbuster (of course it also led you to believe you were going to “do it” in a room with flock wallpaper and with a woman who had, for some reason, a massive black bar across her eyes).
Of course the reality is vastly different from those naïve assurance you gave yourself that you’d be Mr Swordsman from the get-go. But that’s all part of the thrill, the discovery of what sex is, the dawning realisation “Christ, I’m actually doing it…!”.
It’s the same as reading a book on how to drive. You’ll know the technical stuff, but you’ll kangaroo down the road on your first attempt and probably stall, red-faced as people behind you toot their horns and shake their heads. Which is pretty much how your first sexual encounter goes (minus the disapproving crowds, unless you’re extraordinarily confident and shameless).
But you’ve been prepared at least by leafing through a magazine or squinting at a poor-quality videotape you borrowed. You have an idea.

And then came the internet.
The tool of wonder, the ability to have the world’s entire knowledge at your fingertips. The greatest minds known in human history at your beck and call to consult and learn from.
And what happened?
This information superhighway turned rapidly into your very own peepshow booth.
A vast swathe of porn available 24hrs a day to cater for any and every whim you can possibly think of.
And it’s done two things, neither of which I see as particularly good or helpful.

The first thing it’s done is to destroy the mystique of sex.
The old magazines, aside from the Wives section, were amusingly coquettish looking back at them. Hardcore was illegal in this country (yes kids, illegal. This was before the internet, mobile phones, PCs, playstations, emails and everything else). So you could almost see something vaguely naughty if you peered really strongly and could decipher what it looked like when she was standing behind a water-filled goldfish bowl.
It gave tidbits, tantalising peeks at forbidden fruit. You knew enough to not reel back in terror like The Nostromo’s Crew as Hurt explodes when your first proper grown-up girlfriend was undressed in front of you for the first time – although that image still stuck the first time I ever went down on a girl, I cursed my movie-geek brain then, I can tell you.
These magazines served a purpose. They said “Ok boys, these are boobs and these are good things, treat them with the reverence they deserve”. But more importantly, it featured the whole woman. Usually smiling at you, yes you horny teen, and sometimes inexplicably dressed in a tennis skirt. Sure your hormones compelled you to gaze with wide-eyed and slightly confused awakening joy at the obvious parts, but they were connected to a person.
An awful lot of the internet porn I’ve seen has been less than welcoming – we’re heading back to The Nostromo here I fear.
Instead of an entire happy sexually liberated woman bearing herself with pride and the knowledge that legions of men are imagining what lies beneath (giving her the upper hand ironically for somebody in such a supposedly exposed state), you are presented with…well…there’s no polite way to put it…you’re presented with guts.
Yes that’s harsh, but that’s what 95% of internet porn is about. Graphically close-up disembodied organs shown in a detail that you wouldn’t imagine possible without electron microscopes.
It’s removed the idea that there’s a real living person there and has broken it down into what amount to a PowerPoint presentation for medical students.
I can’t think of anything less erotic. Sure it may be biologically more helpful than Ms October standing waist-deep in a pool of water chewing her bottom lip, but unless you’re Jack The Ripper I really don’t see the eroticism in such brutally frank images.
Don’t think I’m a finger-wagging prude, I’ve done things with women that would turn you into pillars of salt. But it’s all been part and parcel of having sex with somebody. I’ve grown up a lot since I first lost my virginity (and I’ll be forever grateful that you were goodly enough to sleep with me Becky) and have since learned what I like and what will, in general, work for her.
But, to me, something is just not arousing to see disembodied flesh in what appears to be a scene torn from Geiger’s fevered mind. I want to see two (or three, sometimes even four) people involved in enjoying themselves. And that’s the key here, “enjoying themselves”. Because let’s be honest here – sex may be vital to the continuation of our species and the reason we’re here, BUT, it’s an awful lot of fun too. That’s why we want porn, because feeling turned on is fun.
That’s missing with webporn, it’s just a cold and harsh “Here it is, do your business and then feel vaguely seedy as soon as you’re done”

The other thing that I’m not too pleased about with internet porn, apart from the insistence on gynaecological extreme close-up is the treatment of the women.
My teen forays into pornography were using the old fashioned methods of magazines and movies as I’ve said.
But since the advent of the internet, we’ve seen the death of porno mags (as a postman I can tell you we simply don’t get any to deliver now) as people use the internet. Fair enough, saves on money and you don’t have to go red-faced buying a grotmag from Smiths anymore, saves a lot of bother for those with somewhat more chaste moral battlegrounds.
But my unease comes from the notion that inexperienced teens are going to get their formative ideas about sex from websites. I’m not just talking about the “insert a into b” mechanics of it, but the whole emotional connection about what sex is.
From my positively Kinsey like research (we’ll call it research for the basis of this article), I’ve seen an awful lot of sites and have downloaded Smithsonian levels of movies – purely so you don’t have to, aren’t I considerate? – and I’ve noticed a disturbing trend here.

Anybody that’s ventured onto the information superhighway will no doubt have been almost forced off the road by something called The Bangbus.
I’ll use this example because it’s achieved internet fame for being the “gonzo” porn equivalent of Citizen Kane.
The premise is simple and cheap – reality tv style porno (using “real” women I’ve seen on other sites, but the veracity of the real-sex thing isn’t the issue).
It doesn’t require sets and plot, vast casts of thousands and high production values. Just 3 apes, a van and a digital camera.
Fair enough, porno is always pushing the boundaries of technology etc.
But what struck me apart from the low-fi nature of it was the way the women were treated by the guys.
They’re subjected to insults, slaps and generally treated like simple receptacles for seed. Humiliation, abuse and degradation seem to be the order of the day here.
And this site isn’t alone following the trend of being just plain nasty to the women involved.
Porno, when you remove the social implications, is simply filming people having sex with each other in whatever shape or form you wish to see.
It’s a natural (mostly) and perfectly zesty enterprise and entertaining enough to watch without having to go off into tangents of behaviour that wouldn’t be amiss in Videodrome.
Which, however distasteful I find it, would be fair enough if it weren’t for the fact that apart from adults who might enjoy seeing women treated like scum, there are also teens of both sexes looking at this stuff who have no emotional experience of sex.
That’s the side that frightens me, if I’m honest.
Somebody that’s never had sex before has probably never been in a relationship with a person of the opposite sex. Now that’s not a criticism at all or sniggering at virgins.
It’s a simple fact, if you’re a virgin then chances are you’re not in a relationship with somebody (religious people not withstanding).
So whilst you’re looking at net porn to get off and to see exactly what all the fuss of sex is about, you’re also going to be assimilating the emotional side and how to act/treat the other person.

And here is where we’re venturing into dangerous, unhealthy territory in my opinion.
If you’ve not been in a relationship with somebody before and had the faltering, unsure experience of sex and you’ve been reared on net porn then you’re going to assume you have to all-but-beat the woman, call her names and laugh idiotically as she gets humiliated beyond belief.
That’s *not* what normal, non-fetish sex is about. I’ve had sex with enough women to say, with hand on heart, apart from one or two that encouraged and demanded being treated like a POW that sex is, for the most part, a mutually enjoyable, non-abusive pastime.
Sure, sometimes a woman (or man, but I’ve no experience with mansex) will want to be treated a bit rough but it’s always been in a playful manner (with many chuckles and an awareness it’s just roleplay) safe in the knowledge that, hey she may want it like that at that particular moment, but we’re both experienced and adult enough to realise that it’s just how she likes it sometimes.
But for somebody with zero experience of the emotional side of sex, to constantly see the male dominating and humiliating the woman is going to foster a somewhat warped view of sexual behaviour.
And what about a teen girl looking to see what is to come (pun intended)? She’ll be looking to see what will be expected of her – and it’s going to be bloody off-putting to say the least. Not only will she have the standard virgin’s fear of “That’s going to hurt and be messy and not fun” but she’ll be confronted with leering, aggressive males who seem to be thoroughly enjoying the debasement of the woman.
It’s hardly going to encourage her is it?

Pornography is a healthy thing, we’re all interested in sex or it wouldn’t be the billion-dollar industry that it is.
But I cant help thinking that a majority of internet pornography has removed…well…the fun from sex.
And that makes me sad.
Fri 09/09/05 at 19:50
Regular
"I am Bumf Ucked"
Posts: 3,669
Goatboy wrote:

> That's the aspect of it that blokes won't talk about.
> Because at the end of the day, lots of blokes humiliating and
> dominating a woman is all about power and control.
> Which means it's also about a fear of women and the desire to be the
> aggressor and victor.
> Hmmmm

I kind of think that it might be a reaction to sexual equality. Maybe men need to be in a position of power over women and that this kind of thing is a kind of subconsious response to men and women being equal. It is about the utter degradation of women to being purely orifices for mens enjoyment.
Mon 05/09/05 at 22:46
Regular
"A Paladin with a PH"
Posts: 684
A good, interesting and thought-provoking article. It's too late at night to write a comment, but if I were you I'd see about getting that published...somewhere.

It's made me really think about my attitude to these things...as a virgin.
Sat 03/09/05 at 03:00
Regular
Posts: 20,776
Err, I have to be at ... Lands End ... to ... err ... water my Aunties dog .... yeah. Sorry. :^)
Fri 02/09/05 at 23:45
Regular
"SOUP!"
Posts: 13,017
ßora† §agdiyeV wrote:
> That's as far as I usually get before the police arrive.

Hahah :-)

I'm in Preston on the 18th Happy Gilmore. I'll find you. You can give me inches.
Fri 02/09/05 at 23:42
Regular
"Puerile Shagging"
Posts: 15,009
Damn, where do you live? I didn't think they had response times that quick anywhere.
Fri 02/09/05 at 23:38
Regular
Posts: 20,776
That's as far as I usually get before the police arrive.
Fri 02/09/05 at 23:35
Regular
"Puerile Shagging"
Posts: 15,009
ßora† §agdiyeV wrote:
> You give them an inch

Been holding back have you?
Fri 02/09/05 at 23:20
Regular
Posts: 20,776
We're all dancing around the obvious here, women should know their place. You give them an inch and they take a mile. I see programmes on primetime terrestrial telly, where women train their male partners like dogs.

Now you tell me about power and control.
Fri 02/09/05 at 23:18
Regular
"Puerile Shagging"
Posts: 15,009
Nah, after the initial blushes I just laughed it off with the doctor and nurses.
Fri 02/09/05 at 18:27
Regular
"Infantalised Forums"
Posts: 23,089
Possibly, I'd just be afraid it'd get stuck up my funnel and an embarassing trip to casualty will follow.

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