Porngasms are not real

The mysterious female orgasm is more elusive than you’re brought up to think.

Here’s the thing. Earth-shattering as it may be, it doesn’t necessarily happen every time. When it does, chances are she will not be screeching loud enough to stop a charging rhino, whipping her hair back and forth or moaning like a goat in labour. If she’s really enjoying sex, she’ll be focused on what you’re doing instead of attempting to satisfy you with groans intended to cover up her façade.

If we are confused as to why women feel such a strong need to act, we needn’t look further: the culprit is none other than online pornography.

“Ugh! Oh my god yes! Oh yes! Oh I’m lying!”

As much as we like to debate it, humanity has never been exposed to so much sex, so quickly, so instantly. This hyper-sexualised epoch grants an orgasm as easily as it does a cup of instant coffee. Or so it seems. While it may be satisfying in the short run, there are certain repercussions to its mass consumption: living at the height of ‘free love’ does reduce the quality, and expectations, of our sex lives.

First of all, we become pressured to meet certain expectations: apart from the age-old conundrum as to whether or to wax, shave or Nair down there, the sexual clichés that porn dictates are often too unrealistic for us to truly enjoy sex at all.

Believe it or not, only about 30% of women orgasm from penetration alone and fewer can jump straight into the sack without foreplay (note: if you skip the foreplay, you are an awful, awful human being). Shockingly enough, an orgasm does not take two minutes to magically happen (although we’ve all heard that story about the ex-girlfriend with super speed).

Worse still, the artificial scenarios of porn make it increasingly difficult for women to come to terms with themselves: we live in a world of extremes, where you are either a prude or a whore; frigid or in heat. There is no middle ground.

This is what a male orgasm looks like

Female sexuality has always been difficult to navigate, but porn makes it a minefield: how are men supposed to interpret our mixed signals? How are they to meet our needs and expectations if we cannot find the confidence to define them ourselves? Every woman is different and if she is ashamed of voicing her desires, it’s very likely she’ll be pressured into faking. After all, she’s expected to finish every time: too much is at stake if she doesn’t. Society simply doesn’t understand that sometimes it just doesn’t happen, but sex is not any less enjoyable. The explicit consistency of female orgasms in porn results in nothing but insecurity, bewilderment and, too often, self-hatred.

Furthermore, porn reduces our sexual experiences to genitals, skipping foreplay: a world of intimacy is trivialised into mechanical bumping and grinding. To simply zoom in to the pinnacle and hasten – or even nullify – all other aspects of sex is to focus on a tiny fraction of a potentially mind-blowing process: she’ll fake it, he’ll think he made it. In truth you’re both cheating yourselves from an amazing experience.

SFW porn is a lot more realistic

Now, I’m not saying pornography is a bad thing – on the contrary, I believe that it can be beneficial for society as it allows us to explore parts of ourselves that history has always condemned. Pornography represents a sexual freedom that humanity has never seen before, essentially epitomizing the 21^st century. It should not be banned – that would be the reversal of the 1960s sexual revolution and a suppression of freedom. However, it is not educational and should not be used as a basis for intimacy in real life.

If you think that bumping and grinding is all that sex consists of, I hope you eat your words.

You could be eating something else too, but it’s a little late for that now.

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