06 - No Wonder We’re All So Confused

Now more than ever, free online porn is a primary way people learn how to get down and dirty. This can lead to unrealistic expectations about how sex “should” look. What to do about this? In this episode, we entertain possible solutions – from porn that is intentionally educational to content that portrays more realistic depictions of sex. You’ll hear from sex workers-educators who create explicit sex ed for adults, plus high schoolers who took a class on porn literacy. You’ll also learn how to contextualize what you see with help from one of our favorite Doms...Dom Toretto of the Fast and Furious franchise.

Featured Guests & Links:

Lina Bembe - porn performer, director and sex educator based in Berlin. Follow: @linabembe 

Avril Louise Clarke - co-creator of the Porn Conversation and currently at the Center for Reproductive Justice. Follow: @ThePConversation

Jennifer Lyon Bell - award-winning filmmaker and founder of Blue Artichoke Films (Amsterdam). 

Laura Bentley- sex worker advocate, sensuality coach, adult film performer and professional companion.

Nina Hartley 

Eduporn by afterglow, Austin-based ethical porn platform: Guide to Squirting, Sex with a Disability, and Peg Your Partner. Use SQUIRM for a free 7-day trial.

Dr. Emily Rothman runs the Porn Literacy Curriculum at the Rothman Violence Prevention Lab at Boston University.
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Porn Nerds is a co-production of Squirm and BOOM Integrated, the podcast division of GRAMMY-winning audiobook leader John Marshall Media. Huge thank yous to Adrien Glover, Uri Mansion, and the team at BOOM Integrated.

Squirm is an educational platform that helps people have productive and compassionate conversations on difficult topics related to sex and relationships. We do this through approachable, inclusive offerings, including games, events, workshops, and audio originals. A lot of sex advice ends with “talk about it.” That’s where ours begins.

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Transcript

Porn Nerds Episode 06 - No Wonder We’re All So Confused

(0:00 - 0:47)

In case it wasn't obvious from the title, this show will feature adult themes and explicit language. Now that that's out of the way... We have this world of porn out there that is so misleading. I mean, no wonder people are so confused.

And all the time I'm getting like, well, I don't understand why my girlfriend's not screaming and moaning like in these videos. And I'm pounding harder and harder like they're doing and she's not squirting and it is ridiculous. What are we doing? 

I'm Tess. I have a master's in sexuality and have worked with indie porn producers. And I'm Kels. I'm a director, producer, and daughter of a sex worker.

(0:50 - 1:15)

And this is Porn Nerds, a podcast about porn and your sex life. Today is all about what we learned from porn, porn's role in sex education, and why we could all stand to get a little bit more comfortable feeling awkward. How did you learn about sex? Not what it was, but how to have it? I'm not asking you, Kels.

(1:16 - 7:20)

I'm asking the listener. How did you learn what to do in sex? We have a conversation deck called Get Squirmy, and this is one of our favorite prompts. And when we ask people this question, the majority of the time, the answer includes porn.

And we're not alone in these findings. A nationwide study from 2021 showed that 18 to 24 year olds said porn was where they found the most helpful information about how to have sex. We've spent a lot of time trying to drive home this idea that the world of porn is incredibly diverse, that it's not a monolith.

We've regaled you with niche categories and porn parodies. We've spat stats about how much content is out there. And it's true that with that vast array, there is a scratch for every itch.

But for some itches, you really have to dig, versus what's served to you on the homepage of free mainstream tube sites. Despite all the diversity that's out there, when you visit sites like Pornhub or X videos, the featured videos paint a pretty homogenous picture. This picture is what Tess refers to officially as squint style porn, or unofficially magic eye porn.

I didn't want to call it magic eye porn because I didn't want to get a cease and desist letter from the magic eye books. So I'm officially not calling it magic eye porn. Okay.

So tell us what squint style definitely not magic eye, but squint style. So squint style porn is when you zoom out and look at free mainstream porn as a whole and squint your eyes so you lose the detail, you lose the nuance and see what dominant image appears. If it was called a magic eye style, which it's not, it would be where you kind of let your eyes unfocus a little bit and see what image really jumps off the screen at you.

In either case, often what jumps out is this style of sex where men are doing something to women rather than with them, or women performing for male satisfaction, or sex that reinforces racist stereotypes or like wildly unrealistic body types. This squint style of porn isn't necessarily what you see when you visit other perhaps more indie porn sites that are committed to ethically produced porn or queer porn or content focused on female pleasure and that kind of thing. And these sites typically require a credit card, which is a big barrier for a ton of porn watchers.

Yeah, especially teenagers who don't want porn to show up on mom's Capital One statement, right? They are much more likely to turn to a tube site homepage than seek out some of the more nuanced content that's available behind a paywall. And this squint style of porn often centers the viewer's experience, what will get the viewer off sooner, rather than the actual performer's pleasure. And for teenagers, a lot of them are watching this squint style porn before they're having their own sexual experiences.

I feel like we were on the cusp of that generationally. Totally. Like internet porn hit when we were in high school, but it's only gotten increasingly more prolific.

And that can really profoundly shape the way that we interact with our partners. If I think about my personal version of squint style porn, it'd be like cis straight sex, you know, really aggressive dude. There's a woman she's moaning like her entire whole life depends on it.

She comes immediately from penetration. He's like never seen a clit so far from the clit. What's a clit? Why does it matter? And that was really my entire association with porn for a long time.

I think a lot of people. Yeah. And I think that that's one of the most common complaints that we hear from people when they're talking about what they're not digging about porn is that it kind of gives them this tilted version of what they think sex should be.

You mentioned this and what jumped out at you, but one aspect of this squint style of porn is that it skews pretty aggressive words like extreme, rough, fucked, hard, pounded, destroyed. These categories and tags show up in a lot of the featured videos. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to have rough or aggressive sex like choking, slapping that can all be really hot.

It just becomes damaging when it becomes this like default assumption, right? Like we both like this kind of sex. Yeah. So just don't assume it's what I want all the time.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's tricky to know because like I do like that kind of sex and maybe I've just been conditioned that way because I've hooked up mostly with dudes have grown up on Internet porn.

Like it's kind of like what we talked about with the pervert conversation in episode one. Like how much our desire is internal, how much of it is shaped by what media we consume. Right.

That porny chicken and the egg idea. Yeah. Like does art shape life or how we can talk about that for right.

If you were raised on an island with only dolphins and well, actually, dolphins are really sexual. That's a really bad example. Only only yeah.

What kind of sex would you like? Is there going to be like a thought or you like grow up without Internet porn? Is there going to be a thought in your mind of like, like, Oh, can we do that? I'm a little like, are those words going to organically come to you? Like probably not. I feel deep inside my soul like it comes like without any exterior contact. I think that's a bad example because I think that's something that one might feel organically, but the very primal thing.

So maybe like a good girl. I love that you you could primally feel like it comes up, but not a good girl. Today, we're going to look at how watching porn changes the way that we actually have sex and what people inside and outside the adult industry are doing to address this.

(7:21 - 8:19)

Laura Bentley, who you heard from last episode, has a lot to say about the messages that we absorb from porn. I've got to go ahead and say, like, I think the problem is it's, it's derived from a male's view of what fantasy sex is to them. So what I enjoy is helping to explain that like, look, you need to prime a woman, a woman that has an orgasm first, you're never going to have wetter, hornier, passionate sex in your life.

But if you try to just take this dry penis and shove it in there and jackhammer, it's not, this is not realistic. And the, oh, one of the things I least like about porn is, okay, Laura, so we need you to moan like this, talk about how huge his cock is, how bad you want it. And he's gonna bam, bam, bam, and you just scream harder and harder.

(8:21 - 9:39)

First entering the industry, it's like, okay, all right, this is what they want me to do. And I try to be very open-minded because who am I to say that that's not someone's fantasy? I'm sure it is out there somewhere, but we need to create more porn that is what sex really looks like. Laura isn't the only person from last episode who thinks that porn needs to have a more realistic depiction of sex.

Jennifer Lyon-Bell of Blue Artichoke Films has her own way of creating erotic films that feel more like real sex, specifically by playing with one key element. I mean, I think often the awkwardness is there and other filmmakers just cut it out. You know, someone's trying to take their clothes off and you can see they want to be with the other person, but they also need to, you know, I think I thought it was hot.

Or like, one person wants to switch position and needs to speak up about it. Or a person needs to say, ouch, like that happened once a performer was getting fingered and she said, ouch. And then she kind of showed him what she wanted.

And then she said something like, you know, oh yeah, like that. And I had a talk with my editor at the time. He really felt that I should take that out.

(9:39 - 11:53)

He thought that was a super buzzkill, but I said, well, that's how you know that she likes it later because she managed to speak up and say that something bothered her. And it was obviously like a really genuine moment. It just kind of sprung out of her like, ouch.

And I think it's important to show that, you know, it doesn't all have to be seamless, fantastic positivity start to finish to be a great sexual experience. Like if something pinches or somebody falls over or you're momentarily ashamed, like it can still be part of a really great sexual experience. It doesn't mean that you failed.

I think lots of people think that they're failing somehow. Really shocked. And even though I'd had sex before, I was still shocked at the way that people performed sex.

And I was really worried that I wasn't doing it right. I think that that idea of feeling like we're failing somehow sexually is super relatable. Yeah.

I mean, it's one of the foundations of squirm, right? Totally. Totally. Like most of us aren't usually watching people have sex and depending on our social circles, maybe we're not even talking about it a lot.

So you just like don't have a lot of data points to compare our sex lives to. And if we're watching a lot of that squint style porn, like, yes, that has to do with gender stereotypes, but it also has to do with this sort of highlight reel of sex where you get the quick cuts from one hot thing to another hot thing. And it's like, moan, pound, orgasm.

And you don't get anything in between. That's the, you know, connective tissue that really ties the sexual experience together. Yeah.

A hundred percent. You're just kind of fading between these really fun, juicy, I hate using the word juicy, but these like fun, juicy parts of a sexual experience. And if you're watching a lot of that kind of porn, it can be easy to be worried, like, am I doing this right? Like if you're having sex with someone and there's any sort of lull.

(11:53 - 12:03)

Exactly. If a position doesn't work and a dip in energy, or you just kind of figure out what to do next, or like your foot cramps, so you need to pee or get water. Yeah.

(12:03 - 12:48)

It's like if there's a lull that's not included in that sizzle reel of porn, right? And so you could wonder like, oh, are they not into this? Because it's not 10 out of 10 the whole time. Jen thinks that leaving in these little lulls and fumbles, not only portrays more relatable sex, but can actually make the scene hotter. You know, other filmmakers really favor a very heavily edited situation, including like just popping from position to position.

Whereas I feel like the decision to switch position is really interesting. There's something really sexy about that like agency and collaboration to decide together to move positions. You know, that sounds very like corporate team builder of me.

(12:49 - 13:41)

But it's hot to know that like you're both actively deciding how to make the experience more pleasurable for the both of you. Yeah. I think seeing how hot it is to watch people dare to be vulnerable when they feel like maybe they don't want to speak up and you see them dare to speak up and seeing that that's really nice.

It's not weird and stuff is embarrassing. Like even now, now sometimes I feel like I'm just one big blush, you know, asking for. But that's hot too, you know, and I think it's good for you as a person to like kind of weather that and see what is waiting for you on the other side, if you can weather it.

(13:43 - 15:06)

I actually just gave a talk to 16 to 18 year olds and this was a big part of what I talked about is how being embarrassed and feeling awkward are actually kind of a gift. Because if you can weather that with somebody and they see that you're weathering it for them, it's really a great connection between you that is hard to get any other way. And it also means that you'll get what you want, which you will never get if you don't ask for it most of the time.

You know, so something that's sort of coded, I think, in our society is problematic, which is being awkward, being embarrassed, maybe even being ashamed is actually a really beautiful connection between people if you can, if you can let it be. I like to imagine a world where Jen is the sex ed instructor in my middle school and high school, where she comes in talking about how it's okay to be embarrassed and feel awkward and that, you know, it can be a gift if you weather that with somebody. Yeah, I think in a lot of places, the current day school sex ed curriculum is like don't have sex, or here's the STI rundown.

Here's an anatomy of a fallopian tube. This is where the inner labia is. Probably won't tell you about the clitoris.

(15:06 - 15:50)

Don't don't don't need it. You got some porn up there. The fine line because I think there is so much that needs to be revamped with the school sex education system, like consent, communication, skill building, all these pieces.

But at the same time, you don't want your gym teacher to tell you the best blowjob techniques, right? So there's this big gap of like, where do people turn to learn about this stuff? It's not surprising that that's the internet and porn. Right. But when we're talking about the squint style porn, which is so often what you see, if you're just like cruising free porn sites, it can be kind of harmful to try to replicate that, you know, it can be unsatisfying or even dangerous.

(15:51 - 16:15)

Like you may have someone just whisk you on the express train and leave you high and dry and jackhammer city. Super dry. And that's underwhelming.

It doesn't feel good. Or in a more extreme case, maybe someone goes straight to choking you or going for anal with no warning and it's traumatizing. These are examples of why we don't want to rely on squint style porn as our sex ed.

(16:16 - 16:35)

There is, however, this growing subgenre of porn that does intend to teach us things. Some brilliant people in the industry were like, we get that porn is meant to be entertainment. But since it's de facto sex ed now, let's just make content that can responsibly educate people about how to have sex.

(16:36 - 17:06)

This subgenre is often called edu porn. One of the pioneers in this space is Nina Hartley. Nina is an adult film actress and sex educator who from the mid 90s to the early 2000s produced a series of explicit instructional videos titled Nina Hartley's Guides.

(17:06 - 17:28)

During this time you're talking cute to her and you're talking sexy and how pretty she looks and how hot your cock is for her, how hot your pussy is for her. Before the mouth actually touches the pussy. A contemporary example of instructional porn comes from Afterglow based in Austin, Texas.

(17:28 - 17:39)

Afterglow is an ethical porn platform that's a mix of porn, sexual wellness, and education. Their how-to titles include sex with a disability. Hello, my name is Alex.

(17:39 - 18:08)

I am an adult entertainer and I'm also an advocate for the representation of disabled bodies in pornography. I have an aggressive form of bowel disease called ulcerative colitis, which led to the removal of my entire colon. Fun fact, now that I don't use my butt anymore, it is technically, I would say, probably the cleanest butt hole in the world that is always ready for ass eating, so.

(18:09 - 18:18)

Or how to squirt. I'm just trying to get your g-area as engorged as I can. Just, just trying to do my best here, guys.

(18:19 - 18:35)

And peg your partner. Stay right there and I can sort of move along with it, or if I'm feeling pretty good, I can let the person behind me take over and I'll just be here receiving. Another company that we love is called Sex School.

(18:36 - 18:55)

Sex School is an educational web series where sex workers, therapists, and coaches come together to talk about sex. From kissing to BDSM, fantasies, fetishes, and everything in between. That last voice was Lina Bembe, one of the founding members of Sex School.

(18:55 - 19:10)

We had the pleasure of speaking with Lina, and we asked her why she feels drawn to make educational porn. I think that we just miss a lot when we don't do things explicitly. The most vulnerable parts of sex and sexuality happen when we are naked.

(19:11 - 19:33)

And I think it's also ridiculous that, in so many cases, we refrain from doing so because of some prudish standards or something. Sex education should be more explicit than not. Of course, all types of sex education need to be age appropriate, but at the same time, it's not this thing that, oh, once you're done with high school, you know everything about sex.

(19:33 - 19:46)

We're always learning about sex. We're always learning about ourselves. And for that reason, we also need the materials to be able to understand ourselves better and to better relate to others.

(19:47 - 20:01)

Yeah. I mean, in some ways, I feel like the education really just starts once you're done with high school and you're out in the world and having sexual experiences with people and learning how to please someone and navigate boundaries. All of that stuff is so messy.

(20:02 - 20:19)

Yeah. And I think also that learning, it's not only messy, it's also a very lonely thing. In so many cases, you barely have anyone to talk to, or there's no way in which you can communicate without feeling judged, you know? Because in so many cases, you're probably judged, especially if you do not conform to the norms in one way or another.

(20:23 - 20:56)

It exposed me to things that I wouldn't have necessarily been interested about or maybe would have had some preconceived notions about. Not saying like, oh, it's porn, so it must be OK. But like, I think it made it so that I was more open to exploring sexuality and get ideas from and other inspirations, you know? This whole episode centers around messages that we receive from porn and how those messages can tilt our ideas of sex.

(20:57 - 21:21)

To Laura's earlier point, We need to create more porn that is what sex really looks like. We love seeing our presentation of more realistic sex in the porn sphere, whether that's gen-style or intentionally educational content like sex school and Afterglow. There's also another approach, one that reaches part of the population that arguably needs it the most.

(21:23 - 21:46)

On average, the age my friends started watching porn, probably around 11, 12 years old. If I had a question concerning what I saw in porn, I wouldn't ask my parents right away. It's kind of a sensitive topic for them because they're religious and it's kind of weird to go to my parents, I personally think.

(21:47 - 22:03)

There's like one out of every thousand girls like you can actually have a conversation about porn with. But like, I have a feeling they watch it too. I feel as if it's already depicted in porn that the female body is just like a one type of thing.

(22:03 - 22:31)

It's black and white, so it's like, see it, that's what they like, and then you have to do it. And then boys don't really get to hear or don't like being told that they're not doing something right because it's like, clearly I am, because in porn, they like it, so that means you have to like it too. You just heard from teenagers who took a class called The Truth About Pornography, which provides high school students with the tools needed to understand how porn influences their sex and dating behavior.

(22:32 - 22:50)

It was developed by Boston University Professor Emily Rothman in conjunction with the Boston Public Health Commission. There's no porn shown in this class. It's all discussion and exercises, a chance for high schoolers to better understand sexually explicit media and consent, and to get some questions answered about the messages they see in porn.

(22:51 - 23:19)

Dr. Rothman isn't the only one helping young people contextualize what they see. There are so many messages we receive from free online porn, and porn in general, but I really like focusing on free online porn just because it's the most commonly come across porn on the internet, right? That's Avril Louise Clarke. She's a sexologist and, among other things, the co-creator of a non-profit called The Porn Conversation with Erika Lust.

(23:20 - 23:44)

The Porn Conversation creates guides for families and educators to talk to young people about sex, beginning with the topic of porn literacy. So porn literacy is basically an educational framework that has been used for decades, and it's based on media literacy, which typically we might have done in our English or language arts classes, which is deconstructing a piece of media. And in this case, the media is porn.

(23:45 - 24:36)

What messages are in it, whether or not it changes the way I feel about myself or my body, or sex in general, maybe even how I feel about others based on their gender, their race, their sexual orientation. So it's providing tools, not create any sort of fear or shame, but the tools to decide for yourself, is this the type of media I wish to consume, or how will this affect me when I'm away from it? In their parent and teacher guides, The Porn Conversation offers specific language for talking with young people, which is so helpful because it can be intimidating to just launch into a convo about porn. One of my favorite points of conversation is all about consent and communication in general, that often happens behind the scenes in porn, but doesn't really make it into the final cut.

(24:36 - 24:51)

So the point is, just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it didn't happen. My favorite, I think, is the one that says, a sexual encounter doesn't have to end in penetration, can be a lot broader than that. And I really wish I had learned that earlier.

(24:52 - 25:05)

In the guides, they also provide questions for teens, like, do I like this porn or am I just using it because I'm bored? Which, relatable, super relatable. And some of the questions are open-ended. The kid doesn't have to give you an answer in that exact moment.

(25:06 - 25:23)

It can be something to think about and maybe return to at a later time. But what I really love about these programs is they acknowledge the reality that kids will see porn. And there are some adults who balk at these curricula being taught because they could be seen as condoning watching porn.

(25:24 - 25:43)

But I would encourage them to ask, who ends up being harmed by not talking openly about this? Ignoring the topic of porn is not going to make kids less interested. It's just going to give them fewer tools to handle it when they inevitably see porn and start having sex themselves. You don't get to talk about porn every day.

(25:44 - 26:03)

Okay, some people do. They talk about it with their friends. But when you get to unpack porn and you get to see the ins and outs and how it really affects our relationships with one another, if we're in romantic relationships, our language and actions towards sex and stuff like that, that was really interesting.

(26:03 - 26:09)

What surprised me is that we didn't watch porn because I thought we were going to watch porn. Not everyone is the same. People are different.

(26:09 - 26:17)

People don't prefer to be touched. Some people don't prefer to have relationships. Some people just focus on themselves.

(26:17 - 26:29)

And I think that point is probably one of the stress relievers. So I don't think it's a horrible thing. I could have a conversation with a girl that I'm interested in about pornography.

(26:30 - 27:04)

What would come out in the conversation? That would be like the best conversation ever. Even though the Porn Conversation and Dr. Rothman's Porn Literacy Curricula are targeting young people, adults are also in need of porn literacy. It is so important to ask ourselves these kinds of questions or give ourselves these reminders about the way that porn differs from partnered sex and influences our own sexual behavior.

(27:05 - 27:20)

To really drive this point home, we're calling on one of our favorite Doms. Have you ever heard the saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? I don't have friends. I got family.

(27:23 - 27:35)

Dom Toretto. The fearless, smooth as a baby's bottom, huskiest street racer, auto mechanic ex-con from the renowned Fast and the Furious movie franchise. Played by Vin Diesel.

(27:36 - 28:10)

I don't know when it happened in squirm lore, but Fast and the Furious has been our default porn literacy analogy for as long as I can remember. The gist of this analogy is that when you watch Fast and the Furious, you don't then go and get in your car and blow through all the stop signs and jump the train tracks and do all the things that you just saw in the movies because you know that you just watched a movie. You know it was a fantasy and now you're back in reality and you're back in your car and you have to follow the rules.

(28:11 - 28:30)

Or influenced by that kind of media for sure. Maybe you have a different sort of swagger about you when you get in your car, but you're able to contextualize that it's entertainment to enjoy without it having these messy impacts on your life. And we give action movies so much grace for not being realistic.

(28:30 - 28:55)

We don't want them to be realistic. Can you imagine if Fast and the Furious was just like a regular commute? No, I do not want to see Dom with hands at 10 and 2 doing a zipper merge, checking his blind spot and, you know, flashing his lights to thank the person in front of, behind him for letting him in, right? Like you want to see something that's exhilarating. We all like to turn to media to kind of change how we feel.

(28:56 - 29:12)

And there's nothing wrong with that as long as we're able to really put it in a grander context for our relationships in our own lives. Yeah, even squint style porn that we love to shit on. We can still be inspired by what we see like hot settings or positions or dirty talk.

(29:13 - 29:43)

We just don't want to blindly copy paste what we watch the next time we're with a real person. That you can tell have based most of their sexual knowledge through porn. The engagement becomes a porn scene because they haven't done the work to connect with themselves and they disconnect from you.

(29:44 - 29:58)

You can see that they disappear off their eyes closed. You know that in their head they're envisaging something that's not actually happening. So it's a very technical sexual experience rather than a connected energy exchange.

(29:59 - 30:14)

I think one thing that I'm really grateful for is that I had a sense very early on that this was not real. Like somebody just made that really clear to me that was just like this is like a cartoon. I mean I'm sure that we're all harmed whether we like it or not by everything that we ingest, especially when we're young.

(30:15 - 30:36)

But grateful that I was given that perspective very early on. This is not an instruction manual for how everything works or how it's supposed to be. Okay, so we are coming towards the very, very end of Porn Nerds.

(30:37 - 31:03)

What are some of your takeaways? Not just from the show and what everyone's heard, but from the process of making it, from the experience of really being in it. Throughout making this show, the hunger to talk about porn has really been validated in so many ways. I have sensed such a hunger in people to have a space to air their strong feelings about porn, you know, in whatever direction that might be.

(31:03 - 31:18)

I've really felt like, oh yeah, this could be a really big topic of conversation if that permission were granted a little more often. Yeah. Occasionally there's times where I say we're making a podcast about porn and then the conversation just drops.

(31:18 - 31:28)

They just clam up. Oh, okay. So like if I've been on a date, some of the dates I've been on in the process of this, it's like the great limits.

(31:29 - 31:41)

So anyway. I always think too about some of the dates you've been on where you mentioned the podcast or even just squirm and suddenly they're like, oh, you want to get nasty. Actually, no, this is my job.

(31:41 - 32:09)

Squirm is the best filter for perspective suitors. Like, do they think by saying I'm making a podcast about porn that you're just like trying to dirty talk immediately? Has that been your biggest takeaway? Is that people are perv? It's a pick up tool for me. No, I think that there are occasions where people don't want to get into it for the most part.

(32:09 - 32:20)

It definitely invites conversation. One of the most notable experiences I had, it was a store transaction. I was buying something and we were all dressed up because we were doing the photo shoot.

(32:20 - 32:31)

He was like, where are you? You look so dressed up. Like, where are you coming from? And I said, oh, he's at a photo shoot for this podcast. And he's like, what's the podcast about? And I said, you know, we're looking at porn, the good and the bad and the whole spectrum.

(32:31 - 32:40)

And he's like, well, yeah, mostly bad. Right. And I was like, well, why do you say that? And then he goes into why he feels like porn is a negative influence.

(32:40 - 32:57)

And I was like, oh, so do you watch it? And he was like, well, yeah, well, yeah, obviously. It's such a perfect illustration. It was the perfect portrait of the conflict where it's just this real disconnect.

(32:58 - 33:26)

And I think coupled in with that, I mean, we set out kind of with the central conflict thesis in mind. But I also think that just being in the trenches of this and watching so much more porn than I've ever watched in my life, just a lot of content, it's just completely blown my mind to know how much, how many hours and hours. You've said this often.

(33:26 - 33:30)

If it exists, there's a porn for it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's what like blows my mind.

(33:30 - 33:46)

Yes, definitely the sheer volume of content, but just the variety of like if it exists in the world, someone has tried to fuck it on camera. Although I will tell you the one one thing I have not found yet. Crossword puzzle porn.

(33:48 - 33:55)

I want to know what this was. We don't do this now, but this is what it would be. I've already thought about it.

(33:56 - 34:13)

I picture like a girl's like, like me on top riding some dude. Sure. And trying to complete a crossword puzzle before orgasm.

(34:13 - 34:25)

So that sounds like such a merging of my interests. I like that. Is it like a Sunday New York time crossword or is it, you know, the airport little booklet? You got to challenge yourself.

(34:27 - 34:37)

Let's say it's like a Monday New York. Or it could even be like not the mini, you know, which takes a minute, but like the midi. Maybe it takes four or five minutes.

(34:37 - 34:40)

All right. So we got to get a producer on this. Thank you for listening.

(34:41 - 35:24)

I think another takeaway for me is recognizing that through this process or before we really started the show that I was spending a lot of time in a very specific corner of the porn world with a lot of people who felt really great about what they were doing and mostly interacting with porn from like a creator standpoint, not so much the consumer standpoint. And I know that the show has really made me feel a lot more compassion for people who don't feel great about their porn habits. I've been really resistant to this label of porn addiction and I still don't like the label, but I feel much more empathy for people who feel like they are addicted.

(35:24 - 35:41)

Like I understand that experience a lot better and I don't want to invalidate those feelings just because I think porn can be so cool. And I appreciate that so many people have been really vulnerable with us and sharing what a hard time they've had or what guilt they feel. And I really value that.

(35:41 - 35:55)

Yeah, I totally agree. I don't think either of us feel very connected to that central conflict where we feel bad about our specific porn consumption or behaviors. And there is so much stigma around sexuality at large.

(35:55 - 36:09)

And so it can feel really easy to want to just be in defense of porn. The process of all of this just shows how nuanced of a topic it is. Porn can be really validating and exciting and hot and teach you things about yourself.

(36:09 - 36:32)

And it also can be true that it can set unrealistic body image standards or give you tilted versions of sex. All of those things can exist and do exist simultaneously. And it would be a lot neater and tidier if it was just kind of one or the other, or if that conflict could just be simply eradicated by like, nope, it's a sex negative culture and that's that.

(36:33 - 36:44)

But it's not. It's really both all at once. And I think it's so important to be able to custom design the role that porn plays in each of our individual lives.

(36:45 - 36:54)

Yeah, absolutely. Looking at it and saying like, OK, these are the parts of this habit that I don't like that I want to change. And then these are the parts that really feed me.

(36:54 - 37:05)

I don't need it to be all good or all bad for myself. Yes. My connection point to all that is, well, I don't feel like I struggle with watching porn in a way that feels out of control.

(37:05 - 37:21)

There's other self-soothing mechanisms that certainly I go to and I have to actively keep myself in check with why I'm doing it and how I'm doing it. For me, it's like TV or in the past, like substances. If it's for the sake of habitually numbing out, like sometimes you need to just veg.

(37:22 - 37:38)

But if it's just this default way to anesthetize your emotions, then I feel like that's where it can start to feel damaging. And I do think that if your self-soothing mechanism happens to be porn, it also comes with this extra baggage of all the sexuality stuff. It reminds me of the No Bones Nights.

(37:39 - 37:49)

Oh, yes. Tell us about No Bones Nights. So No Bones started because there was this internet sensation of a dog named Noodle who died.

(37:50 - 38:06)

Rest in peace, Noodle. Every morning on Instagram, Noodle's owner would ask Noodle, hey, Noodle, is it a Bones Day or a No Bones Day? And then the owner would try to pick Noodle up. And if Noodle stayed standing that morning, it was a Bones Day.

(38:06 - 38:20)

And if Noodle collapsed back onto the little bed, it was a No Bones Day. So we took that and used that as code for what sort of night we want to have. Basically like a blob out night.

(38:20 - 38:29)

It's a blob out night. It's like a full sloth mode night. Take out no productivity, no getting things ready for the next day.

(38:30 - 38:37)

And it's self-indulgent and it feels great. Right. It feels much better than if it was like, I'm going to exercise.

(38:37 - 38:42)

I'm going to meal prep. And then all of a sudden, you're like sitting on the couch. You haven't gone off the couch for like four hours.

(38:42 - 38:54)

Four hours have passed. You have been Wikipedia holes on every single reality TV star you just watched. That intentionality plays a huge role, at least for me and for us and like how we feel about that behavior.

(38:54 - 39:00)

Yeah. Going into it clear eyed versus whoopsie daisy into it over and over and over again. Right.

(39:00 - 39:07)

And having it be like the choice you made and also not every night. Like you have to have the balance. You need balance.

(39:07 - 39:14)

Of bones and no bones. It's a vertical world. I'm a horizontal person in a vertical world.

(39:15 - 39:43)

And like we wish it were as simple as just saying, Hey, listener, just be intentional with your porn use and it will solve all the world's problems. And it's not that straightforward. Like I hope that at this point, it's clear that like porn is a really messy topic and there's a lot of layers as to why it feels hard to engage with, whether it's just the drugification of the Internet or like the shame around sex and society in general.

(39:43 - 39:54)

It's not as easy as just, Hey, go into your porn watching sesh with bright eyes and a hard cock and ready to have a good time. The pug will tell you if it's okay. Exactly.

(39:54 - 40:12)

It's a boner day or a no boner day. Yeah, it's not a perfect crossover. The thing that I like about the no bones metaphor is that it can be really easy to put this pressure on yourself that you always have to be operating at the highest possible level at all times.

(40:12 - 40:24)

And so if you do find yourself kind of sliding into enjoying it, you can feel like you need to overcorrect and completely cut it out. For some people, that's a thousand percent the answer. Cut it out if it's not serving you for sure.

(40:25 - 41:28)

I guess I just encourage ourselves and everyone to be able to start to peel those layers back and check in. Like when is my guilt around this related to whatever kind of stigma is just surrounding the whole topic and the industry at large? And when is it actually about how it's affecting my life and affecting my relationships and my well-being and making decisions from that informed place rather than this just reflexive porn bad? I think something that's come up for both of us while concluding this show is just being left with a lot more questions than answers, which I'm okay with. The whole point of us getting on these mics and talking about the weird world of porn is to open up a conversation and encourage asking questions, not questions like what is the normal thing that people are doing, but more how do I feel about what I'm doing without all the noise from internet searches about porn addiction or the infiltration of purity culture, but just asking ourselves, what do I want from sex and from porn? What's working and what isn't? Totally agree.

(41:28 - 41:51)

And with that said, we hope that you, dear listener, continue to ask questions and search for answers. From the bottom of our squirmy little hearts, want to thank you all for being here and listening to this show. But before we go, we have to acknowledge that a lot of people bravely contributed their voices to help create a shared experience around this part of life that is often pushed into the shadows.

(41:52 - 42:11)

This show would not be even close to the same without that collection of vulnerable testimonies and personal perspectives. And for that reason, we're letting them have the last word. I understand by recording answers to these props, the audio may be used in podcasts and marketing tools for Squirm.

(42:12 - 42:36)

All right, now that we have gotten disclaimers out of the way and I've cleared my throat, let's get into the questions. So, my best friend and I walked in on my dad and he, I'm guessing, had just been looking at something, I mean, pretty tame. And he had tried to close it right before people came in, but a pop-up had popped up.

(42:36 - 42:50)

And he, as pop-ups tend to pop up. And I remember after that, my best friend and I were chanting, P-M, porno man, P-M, porno man. So we just heckled the shit out of my poor dad.

(42:51 - 43:16)

I think what was appealing to me was a woman with big boots, big ass, that seemed to be doing some crazy stuff, right? Being on top, kind of controlling the thing, while the guys seem to just be like, I'm offering you this massive cock and you do whatever you want with it. So, not necessarily the best thing to say. And I apologize for the listeners.

(43:17 - 43:37)

But I think the most important things about porn is that it's not necessarily a thing that needs to be looked into a silo. It becomes sad if it becomes your sexuality. Before I came to the realization that that's not what everybody looked like, it definitely shattered my own self-confidence because I'm not even close to as big as some of those guys.

(43:38 - 44:05)

And so it really made me think, oh, I must be inadequate. Well, if my needs are different and they don't look like porn, is that OK? What does sex look like for me then? Using it to enhance sexual experience, whether it's by yourself or with other people. But understanding that it's all fake.

(44:06 - 44:17)

It's all staged. Even the real stuff is like, there's a camera there. The first time I actually saw porn was with my best friend in high school.

(44:18 - 44:37)

We were both freshmen and his older brother is a senior. We would wait until his parents were gone and watch Taxi Cab Confessions, which would have one pair of boobs per episode. And the three of us would all be under the covers, Willy Wonka style, and we'd be jacking off.

(44:38 - 44:56)

And I think we were even too young to produce ejaculate. When I was in college, I was recruited to work with Playboy. That age, my dad was saying, both my parents were like, well, if you want to be serious about this, you need to just make a promise to us.

(44:57 - 45:05)

Just don't lose sight of yourself. And that kind of stuck with me because I've worked in the softcore side. I've worked in the hardcore side behind the scenes.

(45:05 - 45:36)

Everything I've learned throughout my childhood into my adulthood really does come down to my parents and the open atmosphere I was raised in when it surrounded sex. Honestly, I think the negatives outweigh the positives in most cases. And I think there are a lot of comparisons that can be drawn between porn and other shortcut dopamine fixes like food, drugs, where we're basically hijacking our brains.

(45:37 - 45:58)

And there's always a price to pay for that. There are a lot of people that are seeking mental health treatment because somebody has told them that they have a porn problem when oftentimes they do not have a porn problem. Oftentimes it is they just enjoy watching porn and they're made to feel guilty and made to feel shame.

(45:59 - 46:19)

And so I want people to know that if you watch porn, if you go out with a sex worker, if you do any of those things, it's not something that should be shamed. Sex is a very natural part of life. And to buy sex and to watch sex, you should look at it no more differently than you would if you were watching a David Attenborough document.

(46:22 - 46:49)

If you were to talk about my type, so to speak, it's very different of what I want to consume and watch versus what I want to actually engage with in the real world. Porn has massively impacted my life in a good way, I feel. As someone who's experienced sexual abuse, it's always a scary experience to have sexual activity with someone else.

(46:49 - 47:17)

So it's given me a lot of control over my own body, if that makes sense. Like I've been able to express in a safe place, which is with myself. So there's something in porn that is a little unrealistic and it sort of even made me question, has it changed some sexuality of myself? Because you're just sort of giving yourself these stimuli all the time.

(47:17 - 47:35)

So it's something I always need to sort of keep an eye on. But for the most part, I think porn's just been great for me to be able to explore different parts of myself that were really repressed and I never really get to look at head on beforehand. Oh my God, I want to change my mood right now.

(47:35 - 47:42)

I want to feel differently and I want to feel good. I mean, masturbating certainly does that. Man, I wish this was a question.

(47:42 - 48:16)

Like, what is the weirdest place that you've masturbated in? It's not a question, so I'm not going to say, but... Porn just feels like a fun, creative way for people to engage with their own desires. Regardless of feeling like I cannot have a healthy relationship with porn at this point, just because of my history with it, it does seem like there's plenty of people that can. But if I was to just design a healthy relationship with porn, I think it'd be that intentionality is key.

(48:20 - 48:32)

This has been season one of Porn Nerds, a mini-series about porn and your sex life. Thank you for taking this nerdy, dirty Squirmy ride with us. If you enjoyed the show, please rate it and share it.

(48:32 - 48:58)

For more from Squirm, follow us on Instagram at Squirm. And feel free to reach out at hello at GetSquirmy.com. We would love to hear from you. Porn Nerds is a co-production of BOOM Integrated, a division of John Marshall Media, and Squirm.

It is an educational podcast made for your entertainment and curiosity. Any opinions shared by the hosts and guests are solely their own and not intended as therapy or medical advice.