Porn Is Bad Sex Ed (And That's Not a Problem)

Let’s put an end to the double standard

It’s a weird time to be a fan of porn.

In a way, there’s no better time to be really into it.

For one thing, it’s extremely accessible. There are tube sites a plenty, dirty subreddits galore, and endless spicy Twitter accounts you can follow.

There are also plenty of studios creating unique, entertaining, and extremely arousing videos and you can get subscriptions to each of them for about as much as you used to pay for a single X-rated DVD.

There’s also a very comforting sense that there’s more and more acceptance around porn use.

We talk about porn the way we were talking about masturbation 15 years ago - we’re all open about the fact that we do it, we just don’t give out the details of how we do it.

I’ve even seen semi-wholesome YouTubers drop references to bukkake, the Free Premium Week on Pornhub, and OnlyFans in their videos.

Porn feels like it’s becoming part of the culture in a way that it never quite was before.

At the same time, that acceptance feels reluctant.

Sometimes, porn is demonized outright. But more often, it’s talked about like it’s some kind of dangerous drug.

Like, you can have a good time as long as you only consume it with careful moderation. But if you make the mistake of really getting into it and enjoying it regularly, it’s going to destroy your relationships, kill your ability to get a boner, and might lead you down a slippery slope - you start off innocently blushing at a blowjob video and before you know it you’re watching four men piss into a woman’s mouth.

Setting aside the fact that there’s nothing wrong with consensual watersports, that’s a lot of misinformed fear-mongering that doesn’t do anyone any good.

The soft critique I see most often, though, is that porn is terrible because it doesn’t depict sex in a realistic way. It doesn’t show all the steps involved in securing consent, either. And it really doesn’t do much of anything to promote safe sex (especially if you fall down an “accidental creampie” rabbithole).

And every time I read those kinds of concerned comments about porn being bad sex ed, I can’t help but shrug and think “so what?”

It’s true that porn isn’t educational. But that’s perfectly fine because it was never meant to be.

Won’t Someone Please Think of the Manchildren?

You’re not really supposed to get any kind of education from your entertainment. That’s not what it’s for.

You might inadvertently learn a thing or two, but for the most part it’s just meant to be enjoyable, escapist, and make you feel something.

That’s why romantic comedies are so popular even though they don’t actually depict what a typical, healthy relationship looks like - or should look like.

I’m thankful for that because I don’t really want to see a movie about a typical, healthy relationship. I’m in one of those and it’s fine but it would be boring to watch.

I’d much rather rewatch the Notebook so I can imagine what it’d be like to get courted by Ryan Gosling and then cry at the end because nothing pulls at my heartstrings like some good, solid old people love.

And yeah, there’s some stuff in these movies that would be messed up in real life. There are guys who act like borderline stalkers and it’s depicted as true love instead of creepy (which it most definitely would be off-screen).

There are women who fall in love quickly and easily with almost no prompting. They give themselves over to seductive men like they’re powerless and don’t have much will of their own.

It’s not realistic at all, but it’s not meant to be. It’s meant to be dramatic.

They’re narratives that are designed to captivate us. They give us all sorts of vicarious feelings. They let us dream about getting swept off our feet by someone who’s more attractive than any human has the right to be.

They give us joy, warm feelings, and let us escape into a comforting fantasy world where love always triumphs and everything turns out for the best even when all the odds are stacked against you.

And we’re pretty much all okay with that.

Same with thrillers, horror movies, and everything else we watch just so we can be entertained and maybe get to feel some intense feelings from the safety and comfort of our own homes.

But for some reason, porn is treated differently even though it really isn’t.

It’s designed to make you feel some good feelings, too. Mainly, a big ol’ dose of horniness.

It can also be aesthetically pleasing and visually stimulating. I mean, great cinematography is cool and all, but have you seen a naked lady slowly bending over? Have you seen a woman eagerly lick another woman’s pussy? Or a wet, glistening cock sliding into a girl’s tightest hole? Nothing beats it.

And like popcorn movies, porn is escapist fantasy at its best.

It gives you a peek at what it would be like to have four hot girls fuck you at once.

You get to watch people get overcome with more lust and desire than most of us ever get to actually feel (I don’t have a stepbrother, but I’m pretty sure I would’ve never been horny enough to fuck him if I had).

You get to immerse yourself in a world where therapeutic massages turn pervy, where hard anal is as easy as gentle fingering, and where sex is always spontaneous and exciting.

That’s not realistic at all, but it doesn’t have to be.

In fact, it shouldn’t be. Porn is good precisely because it’s not always realistic.

Unless you’re watching a scene with actual behind the scenes footage attached to it, no, you’re not seeing all the consent being negotiated. But that’s fine because no one masturbates to negotiations.

I’d rather have a nice, tight story that gives me the setup I need, builds a bit of sexual tension, and then gets to the action.

The way porn performers have sex isn’t always realistic, either. The positions are too acrobatic, the pussy eating sometimes happens at an odd angle, and some of the sex acts don’t even look like they’d be all that pleasurable. But that’s because the performers are fucking for the camera, not for themselves. And I’m glad they are because I want very clear shots of tongues lapping pussies, cocks thrusting into ladies, and big butts bouncing on hard dicks.

It might not look the way sex typically does, but it looks really fucking good and that’s what actually matters when you’re consuming some entertainment.

It’s arousing. It’s escapist. It’s pure fantasy. It’s not meant to be anything else, but because it’s sex and it’s meant to encourage you to masturbate, a lot of people still treat porn like it’s toxic.

I constantly see people saying that porn is technically fine to consume, but then throw a bunch of caveats.

They warn you that it doesn’t depict sex realistically. That you should be careful about watching too much of it and that you shouldn’t date men (it’s always men — apparently us porn-loving ladies are immune to becoming raging perverts) who watch it regularly, or at all. Or that any scene that wasn’t produced by Erika Lust is somehow damaging our psyches and eroding our relationships.

Porn is just entertainment and that’s all it needs to be. Expecting it to be more than that is holding it up to an unfair standard.

Entertainment and Fantasy Are Great

None of the fear-mongering around porn is going to keep me from enjoying it. And it’s not going to stop me from sharing the porn I love with my audience, reviewing the best and most interesting scenes I find, and doing what I can to normalize our enjoyment of it.

And in general, the worries about porn being bad sex ed might not seem like a big deal. It’s only a soft criticism. The people who voice that concern aren’t always advocating for porn to be banned outright or holding more explicit SWERFy attitudes.

But it still bothers me, and I think it should bother all of us more.

For one thing, it’s an unfair double standard and I think that shit should always get called out. Porn is entertainment for adults who love watching explicit sex and kinky stuff, plain and simple. It shouldn’t get extra levels of scrutiny just because there’s penetration involved.

Those critiques also have a sex negative vibe to them. It treats the fact that some of us like watching gangbangs, taboo porn, rough sex, hardcore bondage, or hitchhikers in cut-offs offering roadhead out of gratitude with way more suspicion than is warranted.

It calls us to justify ourselves. It’s like we’re supposed to reassure the people making the criticism that we would never do such a thing in real life — that even if three stepsisters wanted to show us a good time, we wouldn’t bend them over and line them up to have our way with them because we understand that’s not what good sex actually looks like (though to be fair that sounds extremely fun). Or that we only consume porn moderately or with our partner.

Like, sure, I’m a porn-consuming pervert. But don’t worry, I’m one of the good ones.

Treating a love of porn with any kind of suspicion implies that there’s something sketchy about being entertained by sex, which is a weird attitude for grownups to have.

This idea that porn is somehow vaguely unhealthy also has broader implications.

I can’t get any apps with nudity or depictions of sex on my iPhone because Apple has banned those form the App Store. There’s no Adult Time app I can use to watch porn conveniently. There’s no Pornhub app even though there most definitely would be a Pornhub app if it wasn’t for Apple being so thoroughly sex negative.

But you can find iOS apps that will let you stream disturbing horror films. You can download gory video games to your heart’s content.

For those, an age filter is fine. But porn had to be eliminated entirely.

There’s also no X-rated stuff on YouTube, even after you create an account to verify that you’re a grown-ass adult. This is on a platform that tolerates white supremacist content, no less.

Instagram recently decided to go prudish, too. Tumblr beat them to it by a few years.

Mastercard is fucking with the entire porn world (again), trying its darnedest to choke out its lifeblood.

Even Discord is jumping in on this shit now.

Sex negativity and anti-porn policies are practically everywhere and might even be getting worse.

And it’s partly motivated by this prevalent attitude that porn is unhealthy. That it’s not just entertainment and fantasy - it’s somehow toxic.

My biggest issue with it, though, is the shame and guilt it causes.

It sucks to love something that’s harmless and then feel like you can’t be fully honest about it because people look down on it.

I hate knowing there are tons of people out there who are going through personal struggles just because they want to watch some hot clips and jerk off to them, but doing it leaves them feeling ashamed of themselves, guilty for what they’ve done, and worried about what kind of person they are because of it.

Or the countless women who think they’re dirty or that there’s something wrong with them because they like scrolling through Pornhub and watching whatever catches their eye.

No one should feel bad about themselves because they’re adults who enjoy adult entertainment.

That’s why I hate seeing porn stigmatized, even if the stigmatization is relatively gentle and polite.

Sex is hot. Watching people having sex is fun. Fantasizing about wild, improbable sex scenarios is even better.

None of that is educational, but it really shouldn’t have to be, either.

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If you like this article, you’ll almost certainly love Pillow Talk With Emma Austin, the dirty and intimate sex podcast I host with my husband!