N Things I Hate About Porn

Borrowing a phrase from my college math days, "For some values of N". After all, I might find new gripes in the future and want to update this list...

I recently picked up some on-the-cheap porn DVDs from a local bookstore. I had dumped a lot of my porn last year when I thought I was moving to the UK (mostly VHS, which wouldn't have been any use over there, and it was getting old anyway), and I haven't had a lot of luck finding useful porn on the 'net. I mean, let's be honest: SEO-gone-horribly-wrong has made searching specifically for porn online an exercise in abject frustration.

So I've bought a few DVDs here and there over the last few months. And thrown almost half of them away after viewing (some I didn't even bother to finish). I can't even claim that the ones I've kept are particularly great, but they didn't suck as badly and/or they had one or more scenes that made them worth keeping.

So here, in no particular order, are N things I hate about porn. I reserve the right to add to this list in the future, should porn continue to suck at its current rate.

1. Predictability. For crying out loud, not every scene has to follow the same pattern. And when I say "same", I mean I can write it out as a symbolic expression, much as we computer-types do to specify languages. First, one of the two performs oral on the other. Then they switch places. Then it's vaginal sex, maybe in two or more positions. This is followed by anal, occasionally in more than one position. Lastly, the guy spews onto the woman's face. Technically-speaking, there are three variables I see in this equation: Who goes down on whom first, who starts out on top for the vaginal, and whether the anal is doggy-style or missionary. Mix it up some, guys. To be fair, this is in some part exacerbated by my next point.
2. Professionalism. It seems like everyone with a video camera and enough seed-money to sign a DVD-duplication contract is creating their own amateur porn series. That isn't bad in and of itself, but let's be honest: the majority of the people in these scenes wouldn't be third- or even fourth-string talent at a place like Vivid Video. And that's just the women. The men? With the exception of perhaps Peter North or Randy West's series, the men doing these videos look a lot like they might not be getting much action were it not for the camera and the money that's being paid to the actresses on a per-scene basis. I'll be fair here: I don't know the details of how the business works, but I don't think people do these scenes for the "life experience". No one's ever expected to be nominated for an Oscar for their work in DP-gangbang scene, but compared to the amateurs cropping up left and right, Tera Patrick may as well be Meryl Streep. As far as bodies go, just to clarify: I don't just mean non-Barbie body-types. I'm actually all for that... overdone breast jobs are just as off-putting. I mean people with visible rashes. Sagging breasts and loose skin usually associated with heavy meth use. And since most of these scenes represent the only time the director/actor is going to fuck the woman, they're more likely to try and do everything within that one scene (the source of most of my frustration laid out in the previous point).
   
3. Safety. I sat through a compilation DVD (well, fast-forwarded through most of it) that I bought recently. According to the 2257 disclaimer at the start of the program, pretty much all of the scenes were shot in or later than 1999. Some as recently as 2006. And more than half of them featured uncovered vaginal (and in several cases, anal) penetration. You just don't do that in this day and age. I look forward to the day when I meet someone I end up being with and staying committed to, to being able to be fluid-bonded to that person, to only using condoms for birth-control purposes. But until that day, I'm far too aware of the dangers of HIV to risk it. And there have been too many porn HIV scandals, for people to be taking these risks. And not no-name amateurs like my last point referred to, I mean names like Belladonna. Of course, the "condom-only" approach was all voluntary, and varied largely on a studio-to-studio basis. Maybe I'm just too practical, that I can't just sit back and let fantasy take me away. But I can't watch uncovered anal sex and not thing about the dangers. What's next, though, just compounds it.
4. ATM. Who the fuck on this planet decided that it was sexy for the man to take his cock directly from the woman's ass and stick it in her mouth? I mean, most men won't even kiss their girl immediately after she goes down, but they think this sort of thing is hot? Not just scenes that could have been done with clever editing-- I mean scenes in which the dick goes back and forth many, many times within the full camera frame. Sure, you can cleanse the area, use enemas, etc. But it's still the one of the most bacteria-ridden parts of the body. Ask any sex educator and they'll stress the importance of not moving directly from anal back to vaginal without first cleaning oneself. Maybe they're on to something. And yes, I know this is personal preference (clearly, if it's being done as much as I'm seeing in my small sample, someone must be driving the market). But then, it's my bitch-list, too.
5. Gulp. Having a fondness for the blowjob myself, I have a... proclivity towards buying (or renting) titles that are heavy on the oral action. And the last 4-5 I've (for lack of a better phrase) come across, all seem to have one thing in common aside from facial finishes: at some point, usually several such points, the guy forcefully gags the woman with his dick. Usually pretty hard, usually in rapid succession. Sometimes it's milder, the woman just pushes herself as far down as she can go, and holds herself there until her eyes water and she coughs around/against the dick. Like the ATM, someone must think this is sexy, because it's all over the place any more. To me, it's distracting at the very least. Maybe I'm just missing the chromosome that makes the sound of trying not to vomit sexy. Given my (growing) list of complaints with porn, it could just be me I suppose.
6. Lesbi-ain'ts. I think that before any director is allowed to shoot a girl-on-girl scene, he (or she) should be compelled to watch actual lesbians having sex. Note the total lack of inch-long nails. Take care to observe that the body language generally involves facing each other while kissing, not both women facing the camera while their backs lay on the same geometric plane. I know mainstream porn thinks lesbians are just waiting for the dick to magically appear, but that's no reason to face the same direction. Shouldn't someone should be looking in each direction, so it doesn't sneak up on them?
   

I think that's enough for now. Needless to say, it ain't easy for me to find porn I like these days. And when I do find something boner-inspiring, I end up watching it until I'm tired of it. But at least the looking and test-viewing part is entertaining!

-D