One night, I was about to have sex with a guy and he started bugging me to have an*l with him. I said no. He went on and on and on to the point I had to tell him to leave if he didn’t stop asking me. The fact is we hadn’t been together very long and I didn’t feel comfortable trying that with him yet. To me, it was an extremely intimate act. I mean, it’s not the most dignified thing in the world, is it?
It wasn’t the guy’s fault. Watching movies online has taught him that all women love this. I am a woman, and therefore I must love it. Why on earth would I say no?
This is just my personal experience, but the fact is that most women will have had an encounter of this nature or had their sex lives affected by the internet, either in their bedroom or discomfort in their partner watching so much of it.
The average age at which children now view movies online is 11 years old. At that age, I was being given diagrams of the human body to label, which would lead on to the traditional condom-on-a-banana lessons of high school. If there had been more around then, I know what we would have paid more attention to when it came to sex education.
The problem is that there’s nothing to balance it out, it is more and more easily accessible to young people. There is no intimacy in p*rnography, no connection between the actors (because that’s what they are – actors), the genitals are bald and pound away at each other at the best angle for the camera.
When I first discovered a talk on YouTube by advertising and social media guru, Cindy Gallop, I was thrilled and immediately sent it to all of my friends. She had set up a website called makelovenotporn which addressed what people were feeling in the bedroom. Women: pressured into behaving more like adult stars. Men: The same thing, often without even realising.
“Two very important things about this site,” said Gallop. “The first is that this is in no way whatsoever about judgement. This is not about this is good or this is bad because sex is the area of human experience that embraces the widest range of possibilities.
“And secondly, importantly, makelovenotporn is not anti-p*rn. I’m a big fan – I watch it regularly myself. But as an industry it is predominantly driven by men, funded by men, managed by men, directed by men and targeted at men. So it tends to have a one-world view – “This is the way sex is” and I just want to go, “Not necessarily”.
One of the most noticeable things about the website is the comments posted on it. The unsurprising ones are there from women. “I thought I was the only one.” Tales of constantly shaving pubic hair off, playing the part of the adult star and even an unfortunate encounter with a guy who watched “squirt” movies.
What was shocking to me was what the men have posted on the site. They’ve reflected on their own experiences and realised what they’ve been doing in bed is just an emulation of the movies they’re watching. And they had no idea they were even doing it.
Changing culture has also contributed to bad sex. Let’s face it- we’re jumping into bed with each other more quickly than ever and many women feel embarrassed about speaking up about what they like and what they don’t. They shouldn’t. I’m sure the guys won’t mind me saying there’s nothing they like more than a bit of an ego rub and there’s no better way to do that than to let a guy please you exactly the way you want.
Gallop is continuing to develop makelovenotporn with a real-life movie section. Members of the public can submit videos of themselves and make money from it through rental charges on the site. It’s hoped these videos of real sex will encourage viewers to think about p*rn, and sex, differently.
However, Gallop’s ambitions stretch much further. “Makelovenotporn is about helping to achieve world peace because I believe that if more people were having more sex and more, better sex that was genuinely enjoyable and fulfilling, the world would be a better place and we’d be further along the path to achieving world peace.” she said.
“More bl*wjobs, less world wars. I am absolutely serious. You can change the world through sex and human sexuality.”
It’s hard to argue with that. And so I urge you to go forth and have as much fun, passionate sex as possible. Instruct each other, help each other and let’s talk as much as we can about what we like to do in bed. Let’s save us from ourselves.