Dear Kings: Stop Letting Porn Teach You How to Have Sex
Pornhub should not be where you go to for lessons on a healthy and fulfilling sex life
I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that most of the men reading this essay enjoy sex. And you know what? I totally get it, sex is great. It’s kind of like ice cream in that even if it sucks, and leaves a bad taste in your mouth, the experience is almost always better than having never had ice cream at all. And if you’re good at it, then baaaay beee, you are gonna have a lot of fun. At the tender age of 36 years and 4 months old, I hope that I slung the type of [Redacted] that would satisfy my partners as much as they have satisfied me. More than likely, there are a few women with negative reviews. However, In my defense, I didn't know a damn thing about sex, even after I lost my virginity.
When it comes to learning about consent and why it’s important, what sex is and how to have it, boys don’t have many tutors. Instead, we learn by trying to take advice from friends who are just as ignorant, but twice as judgy, finding out the hard way, or porn. The fear of failure scared me out of wanting to find out the hard way. As for “asking my friends?” No one ever talked about being bad at sex or confused, I thought there was something wrong with me. If Rahkim just spent 20 minutes talking about all of the women “he’s smashed” why the hell would I come to him for advice? I don’t want Rahkim to think my pipe game is trash! The only sex advice my dad gave was to not get anyone pregnant, and at the time, there weren’t safe spaces you could go to in order to ask questions.
You would think this is something they would try to teach in school, but that wasn’t happening. My sex ed classes were a mish-mash of random teachers telling us to save ourselves for marriage because that’s what “Jesus would want.”
These circumstances led me to the route that most men my age or younger went to, PORN. Listen, judge me if you want, but at the time I had two great fears. The first was that during a steamy session with the woman of my dreams (Click here for Dream Girl) I would whip my junk out and she would immediately break out into uncontrollable laughter because my dick was too small. OR someone was about to give me a crumb of coochie, but then I start prepping like Special K in that Bathroom scene from Can't-Wait. I didn’t want either of those things to happen. But how do you know if your dick is big enough, or whatever it was that Special K was doing in that bathroom? I tried to take context clues from TV shows, but it was confusing. The only other option was porn, and there was a lot of it.
Like most young men, I entered puberty and my body started to change. My stepmother would go out of her way to spot those changes, and then comment. Usually saying a combination of, “your dick just hard for no reason?” or “that’s fucking disgusting.” To make matters worse, she went through a three-month phase when I was 12 years old where she was convinced that I was always jerking off. I get it, I was 12, but come on I had other interests! One time she burst into my room while I was reading, slapped the book out of my hand, and said, “you betta not be jacking your dick in my bathroom.” I was so freaked out, that I avoided porn, masturbation, or any sex-related activity for as long as I could. After a while, I just didn’t think about it, so when It was time to find some porn, I was brand new to the game.
Without access to a stable internet connection, I was forced to purchase from the blockbuster of Porno, The Barbershop. Through the suggestion of my barber, I purchased Booty Talk Parts 1-5. I returned to my dorm room and began the “Educational Sessions” it was a disaster. I literally went into sexual encounters trying to do the things I saw in those movies, and when women would respond negatively, I was confused. I couldn’t understand why the Cherelle and Samantha’s of the world weren’t reacting the way Luna Star and Lacey Duvall did in “Cake Splash” and “Cuban Lust.” I remember the first time I had sex after some extensive lesson-learning from pornos. My partner didn’t look or act like Pinky, she didn’t moan or wear 10-inch heels either. I had to force myself to think about something else in order to enjoy the experience. If we’re being honest, I probably relied on porn as sex education for two years. I didn’t know where else to go, so that’s where I stayed. I didn’t just pick up bad habits, my anxiety around sex increased tenfold.
Truth is, Booty Talk not only didn’t have the answers, but it's also aggressively unrealistic. I was watching videos where every man was 6’5, buff, and had a 4’10-sized dick. I stand an aspiring 6’1 inches tall, those visuals were not the things I needed in my life. In those same movies, people would have sex for up to an hour with no orgasm or visible break. There wasn’t a Dr. Nerd Love around to explain to me that the average man lasts between 5-7 minutes before the climax and that on average sex last around 15 minutes per round. If I had known about “Everyday Feminism” I might have spent time reading articles that humanize women and encouraged healthy sexual encounters that were pleasing for both people.
Instead, I followed the teachings and techniques of Brian Pumper, Nat TurnHer, and Lexington Steele. Through their education and my love affair with Roxy Reynolds, I never asked myself critical questions about what was actually happening in those pornos, there were a lot of things I had to question and unlearn. For example:
No one ever asked for consent, they just start whipping their junk out, or twerking. In real life, you should always ask for consent.
Every Scene was like 40 minutes of backshot mania. Granted, everyone loves a little bit of that, but not all of the time. You probably shouldn’t just dive in with that as your “go-to” move.
You should not crack an egg over someone's head during sex. I never did this, but this was Brian Pumpers Trademark Move.
Unless you absolutely have to or are asked to, DO NOT WEAR YOUR TIMBS DURING SEX.
Unless requested, DO NOT put your foot on someone's back during sex.
Unless this is a kink of your partners, you should not start rapping while having sex. (See Brian Pumper)
There is almost no world where sex will be initiated by a woman randomly stepping into your room fully naked, covered in oil, and twerking for three minutes straight. That’s not how any of this works.
Let’s summarize, relying on a porno to understand sex with anyone is a bad idea. Porno is not real; women do not look like that in real life; sex almost never goes the way it’s depicted in porn; the average person does not have a ten-inch penis. All of this is wrong. But probably the most dangerous thing about porno is the way it depicts women. In almost any porn you watch, the woman is only there for the man's pleasure, she’s putting on performance throughout the entire act. Even when the person she’s having sex with is doing something that should be pleasing to her, she still has to find a way to make the viewer feel good and turned on. Not only isn’t that realistic, but it’s also not healthy. But too many men, myself included, took the theatrics and ridiculousness of porn and let it dictate how we related to women. As a result, a lot of people were having bad, unsafe, unfulfilling, and sometimes harmful sex. Sex is supposed to be something two people share, and enjoy.
There is literally nothing from booty talk, Bang Bros, or Rain Woman 1-3 that could teach or help you understand that. Let it go.
Painful as this is and was for many folks, imagine growing up queer and having literally NOTHING to guide you. So yeah, we can do better.
When my brother was 10yo, he was caught watching porn. I told my mother it was time to talk to him about REAL sex, not what he had been seeing. Instead of doing that, she embarrassed him about watching porn. Me, his then 19yo sister who has just had a baby, had to sit him down and tell him the difference. It was excruciating for him but the job got done. Porn is "FANTASY", not reality.