There has always been one question that puzzles me. Not because I don't know the answer -- I do, just like I know most things and you should all know that by now -- but because I can't understand why anyone would have to ask it in the first place. It's always women who ask... and this is not just me being sexist here, this is a fact.
The question?
"Why do men like porn?"
Now, I'm hoping that the women who ask this question do so either out of a delightful naievity, or else because they know the answer and just want to make men squirm as they try to avoid answering it. If you are of the former type, I'm about to explain. If you're of the latter, I'm about to give you the answers your boyfriends/brothers/husbands never would. Ready? Here goes:
We read porn because (a) we like looking at naked women and (b) we like wanking. End of fucking story.
"Porn is wrong" goes the old argument "because it objectifies women and confirms their status as little more than sex toys." Ladies, you have nothing to worry about here. If all men were interested in were sex toys, every 18 year old man would have a blow-up doll and we would never go dating again. The women who appear in these magazines are fantasies and little more -- they are the carnal equivilant of opening up Max Power and daydreaming of having a go in a Ferrari. Yes, it's a nice idea, no, it's never going to happen. The girls doing the splits for us every month know that, you know that and most importantly, so do we.
No, it doesn't mean that we fancy them any more than you -- if you're sleeping with us, chances are we're so damn grateful it's untrue, and more often than not its the little things that you learn about each other over time that become our biggest turn-on. You know that sexy little sleepy smile you give him when you first wake up? Ever notice that his response is often a little morning wood? There ya go....
But seriously, what would you prefer lay at the heart of our little fantasies? The Californian, bronzed goddess who's pictures are airbrushed and tits are air-filled, the woman we're never going to meet because we don't go to the right clubs, wear the right clothes or earn the right salaries? Or the average, girl-next-door, could be behind the fag counter at Tescos girl we're likely to bump into down the pub when we go out on the lash with the mates? Face it, as long as you're around in real life and Cyndi is safely stapled into the top shelf mag, we don't even need to take a second look at Tracy from Aisle 10.
"But it's almost as if you were cheating on me," claimed an ex-girlfriend when she discovered my stash once. "You go home and you have 12 different girls to chose from." Actually (and I didn't want to tell her this) it was nearer 1200 but that's just splitting hairs.
Yeah, but there are times when we want to do... um... stuff and you can't / won't / aren't in the mood / can't be bothered / aren't around / whatever. We can either find someone else to help us do... um... stuff, or we can grab a copy of Playboy and do... um... stuff to ourselves. At least that way we're not likely to give you the kind of surprise gift that you'll hate that doesn't come with a reciept to take back to the stores ('cos gento-urinary clinics don't tend to give refunds on nut rash and cock rot).
The point is, it's easier to bust one out to a copy of Club than it is to crack one off over a copy of the Sunday Times suppliment. You know we're lacking in imagination -- just ask us to picture the bedroom wall painted lilac with blue borders, and look at the confused looks on our faces.
We need something to look at or to read so that we don't have to imagine anything (especially since most blokes tend to just replay past sexual conquests, do you really want him thinking about the time him and his ex-girlfriend did THAT?)
It's alright for you lot, you've got a whole variety of instruments and implements of self-pleasure you can use -- things with ears that whirl and vibrate. Hell, you can sit on top of your washing machine when it goes into it's spin cycle if you feel like it and the best thing us guys have in comparison is the embarressing erection that pops up about a minute before we're supposed to get off the bus. You don't hear us complaining about how you're cheating on us with household appliences, do you?
At the end of the day, porn is a ludicrous business and secretly most men realise this. We don't believe the letters, we don't really believe it when the girls tell us in their little made-up "interview" how they would like to meet a reader for a quickie in the local pub carpark, and we don't believe that the girls in the 0898 ads are really the ones at the other end of the line. However, like a good film, porn allows us to suspend our disbelief for just long enough for us to get the job done.
Still don't believe me? Then consider what we would have to believe if everything we learnt from porn was true:
1/ All deliverymen, door-to-door salesmen, handymen and gardeners get laid all day, every day by bored housewives who are fantastically good looking but who's husband -- for some unknown reason -- can't or won't satisfy their needs.
2/ All women can be brought to a crashing climax just by looking at their clitoris.
3/ All men actually know where the clitoris is to begin with.
4/ All women are secretly bi-sexual. Even lesbians are secretly bi-sexual. Plus, they want to introduce their sister or best mate into proceedings -- again, for unknown reasons.
5/ All a woman has to do to tempt a man into bed is take her clothes off (this one's true, I'm just doing the rest of the male population a favour by letting you ladies know).
6/ All a man has to do to tempt a woman into bed is stand behind her, rubbing his semi into her arse and groping her tits (this one doesn't work, which is why I ended up getting carted off of the train last week).
7/ All women love giving blow jobs.
8/ All women love taking it up the arse.
9/ Most blokes secretly love the idea of watching their wife get shagged by someone else (I may well be speaking for myself here, but this isn't true).
10/ Good sex is only possible when someone in the background is playing guitar with their wah-wah peddle going full tilt.
See? If we honestly believed that any of this stuff was true then most of us would have been so dissappointed by now that we'd have joined a monestary and taken a vow of celibacy. We'd also, in light of rule number one, make sure that you lot didn't order so much fucking stuff from the catalogues in future, and the weeding would never get done.
Oh, one thing I would like to point out though: porn is perfectly ok as a substitute for sex when there's none on offer, but if the lady in your life is after some attention and you're too busy being the referee of a wrestling match between Hand Solo and the pink Darth Vader then you have some serious issues and need help....
The question?
"Why do men like porn?"
Now, I'm hoping that the women who ask this question do so either out of a delightful naievity, or else because they know the answer and just want to make men squirm as they try to avoid answering it. If you are of the former type, I'm about to explain. If you're of the latter, I'm about to give you the answers your boyfriends/brothers/husbands never would. Ready? Here goes:
We read porn because (a) we like looking at naked women and (b) we like wanking. End of fucking story.
"Porn is wrong" goes the old argument "because it objectifies women and confirms their status as little more than sex toys." Ladies, you have nothing to worry about here. If all men were interested in were sex toys, every 18 year old man would have a blow-up doll and we would never go dating again. The women who appear in these magazines are fantasies and little more -- they are the carnal equivilant of opening up Max Power and daydreaming of having a go in a Ferrari. Yes, it's a nice idea, no, it's never going to happen. The girls doing the splits for us every month know that, you know that and most importantly, so do we.
No, it doesn't mean that we fancy them any more than you -- if you're sleeping with us, chances are we're so damn grateful it's untrue, and more often than not its the little things that you learn about each other over time that become our biggest turn-on. You know that sexy little sleepy smile you give him when you first wake up? Ever notice that his response is often a little morning wood? There ya go....
But seriously, what would you prefer lay at the heart of our little fantasies? The Californian, bronzed goddess who's pictures are airbrushed and tits are air-filled, the woman we're never going to meet because we don't go to the right clubs, wear the right clothes or earn the right salaries? Or the average, girl-next-door, could be behind the fag counter at Tescos girl we're likely to bump into down the pub when we go out on the lash with the mates? Face it, as long as you're around in real life and Cyndi is safely stapled into the top shelf mag, we don't even need to take a second look at Tracy from Aisle 10.
"But it's almost as if you were cheating on me," claimed an ex-girlfriend when she discovered my stash once. "You go home and you have 12 different girls to chose from." Actually (and I didn't want to tell her this) it was nearer 1200 but that's just splitting hairs.
Yeah, but there are times when we want to do... um... stuff and you can't / won't / aren't in the mood / can't be bothered / aren't around / whatever. We can either find someone else to help us do... um... stuff, or we can grab a copy of Playboy and do... um... stuff to ourselves. At least that way we're not likely to give you the kind of surprise gift that you'll hate that doesn't come with a reciept to take back to the stores ('cos gento-urinary clinics don't tend to give refunds on nut rash and cock rot).
The point is, it's easier to bust one out to a copy of Club than it is to crack one off over a copy of the Sunday Times suppliment. You know we're lacking in imagination -- just ask us to picture the bedroom wall painted lilac with blue borders, and look at the confused looks on our faces.
We need something to look at or to read so that we don't have to imagine anything (especially since most blokes tend to just replay past sexual conquests, do you really want him thinking about the time him and his ex-girlfriend did THAT?)
It's alright for you lot, you've got a whole variety of instruments and implements of self-pleasure you can use -- things with ears that whirl and vibrate. Hell, you can sit on top of your washing machine when it goes into it's spin cycle if you feel like it and the best thing us guys have in comparison is the embarressing erection that pops up about a minute before we're supposed to get off the bus. You don't hear us complaining about how you're cheating on us with household appliences, do you?
At the end of the day, porn is a ludicrous business and secretly most men realise this. We don't believe the letters, we don't really believe it when the girls tell us in their little made-up "interview" how they would like to meet a reader for a quickie in the local pub carpark, and we don't believe that the girls in the 0898 ads are really the ones at the other end of the line. However, like a good film, porn allows us to suspend our disbelief for just long enough for us to get the job done.
Still don't believe me? Then consider what we would have to believe if everything we learnt from porn was true:
1/ All deliverymen, door-to-door salesmen, handymen and gardeners get laid all day, every day by bored housewives who are fantastically good looking but who's husband -- for some unknown reason -- can't or won't satisfy their needs.
2/ All women can be brought to a crashing climax just by looking at their clitoris.
3/ All men actually know where the clitoris is to begin with.
4/ All women are secretly bi-sexual. Even lesbians are secretly bi-sexual. Plus, they want to introduce their sister or best mate into proceedings -- again, for unknown reasons.
5/ All a woman has to do to tempt a man into bed is take her clothes off (this one's true, I'm just doing the rest of the male population a favour by letting you ladies know).
6/ All a man has to do to tempt a woman into bed is stand behind her, rubbing his semi into her arse and groping her tits (this one doesn't work, which is why I ended up getting carted off of the train last week).
7/ All women love giving blow jobs.
8/ All women love taking it up the arse.
9/ Most blokes secretly love the idea of watching their wife get shagged by someone else (I may well be speaking for myself here, but this isn't true).
10/ Good sex is only possible when someone in the background is playing guitar with their wah-wah peddle going full tilt.
See? If we honestly believed that any of this stuff was true then most of us would have been so dissappointed by now that we'd have joined a monestary and taken a vow of celibacy. We'd also, in light of rule number one, make sure that you lot didn't order so much fucking stuff from the catalogues in future, and the weeding would never get done.
Oh, one thing I would like to point out though: porn is perfectly ok as a substitute for sex when there's none on offer, but if the lady in your life is after some attention and you're too busy being the referee of a wrestling match between Hand Solo and the pink Darth Vader then you have some serious issues and need help....
