Where did you learn how to have sex? Many people will say that, as an evolutionary necessity, the act of reproduction is biologically programmed into us and that it comes ‘naturally.’ Perhaps through trial and error, you and your partner experimented with your nether regions together. Or maybe, you scoured the internet (cough, wikiHow) for how to kiss or how to be good in bed (definitely not me…).
During my first sexual relationship with a man, I can guarantee you I was not recalling the lessons I learned from my middle school sex education class on how to put a condom on a banana or from my high school classes covering consent. I was thinking about porn.
In the U.S., approximately 80% of men and 42% of women watched porn in the last year. The global adult entertainment market was valued at $58.4 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach $96.2 billion by 2032. For comparison, the 2024 global movie market was $100.38 billion.
Whether you are in your room on PornHub or walking on the street in public, pornographic material is everywhere. From hypersexualized models promoting an objectively unsexual object to OnlyFans influencers rage-baiting online to generate buzz; sex literally sells.
Pornographic material has never been so widely dispersed and readily available as it is today. A quarter of young Americans report that they learned how to have sex through watching porn, and nearly half of young Americans do not have access to alternative sources of sexual education. There is widespread concern that as pornography consumers become increasingly exposed, accustomed, and desensitized to graphic content, producers must create novel and extreme material that capitalizes on shock value to stay relevant.
The research remains mixed on whether pornography really is becoming more graphic, but a consensus still remains that consuming porn impacts your attitudes and behaviors towards sex. This past November, the United Kingdom made possessing pornography depicting strangulation or suffocation a criminal offense after finding that it substantially normalizes choking during sex. Research has repeatedly shown that choking during sex can lead to brain damage or cranial disruptions linked to depression and anxiety.
Most people claim they can distinguish porn from ‘real sex,’ the digital world from real life. While this line is becoming increasingly blurred (which I will explore in a later article on sex robots), for some individuals (myself included), porn is influencing our understanding of sex and thus, our sex life.
In his book Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, self-proclaimed male feminist Robert Jensen argues that pornography is not inherently problematic, but when it glorifies male sexual violence against women, it can perpetuate misogynistic, “women-hating” behaviors. When women-hating rhetoric, the hypersexualization and objectification of female bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence are mainstreamed, it creates a rape culture. In this environment, sexual violence and rape are normalized and widespread.
When we rely on pornography, which is highly curated and manipulated, rather than our true sexual desires, we perform a script of what we think normative sex is and not necessarily what we enjoy for ourselves. Watching porn has taught me how to give a blow job, how to moan in a way that is sexy, yet realistic. It has not taught me how to center my own pleasure, how to say “stop.”
Porn, at large, has been written and directed by men, for men. We have all heard of the ‘male gaze,’ but Laura Mulvey, in her seminal essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” coins it not simply as a man looking at a woman, but as media purposefully constructed for a male viewer to feel represented by the onscreen male, his “screen surrogate.” Within this illusion of reality, the male viewer/actor is an active agent in the storyline; the woman is a passive erotic object who is styled for his satisfaction.
“But ethical porn! What about the female-centered, female-directed, female-gaze porn that can be empowering for both the female actor and the viewer?” is what you can usually find me saying in discussions about pornography. However, recently, when I was surfing my beloved ‘ethical’ porn site, Bellesa, which claims to “shift portrayals of women from objects of conquest to the subjects of their own pleasure,” I came across a distressing video that glorified rape. This triggering moment made me reflect on what messages and ideas I was actually getting from porn, and why I kept returning to adult entertainment websites. Can ‘ethical’ porn truly exist in a capitalist society that profits from gender-based violence?
Male-gaze media does not just facilitate the union between off-screen male viewers and the on-screen male active agent, but also between off-screen female viewers and the female passive agent. The actress in the aforementioned pornographic film, my screen surrogate, I could empathize with her position, as both a performer for the male gaze and as a woman having sex that decentered her comfort. When I saw myself as her and her as me, I internalized her role and studied her script. When we cater to the male gaze and repeat a rehearsed sexual script, we do not have sex; we perform porn.
Robin McClit is a senior at Cornell dedicated to exploring sexuality through a critical feminist lens and supporting women’s wrongs. File a complaint at rmcclit@cornellsun.com.
