I Like Porn

One of my favorite and most revealing "Get to know you" questions from my single days went something like this, "You're watching a porno and you get to that really disgusting scene that makes you hit fast forward and skip right through it. What scene is that for you?" If the answer is, "I never watch those things." The interview is pretty much over and don't expect a call-back. If the answer is, "I don't fast forward through any of the scenes. None of it grosses me out." Then you've got my interest, approval, and admiration. Now I skip to the next question, "Which scenes make you hit the pause or the rewind button?" The answer to that question has often determined the entire course of my relationships.

I watched my first full length porno movie when I was thirteen or fourteen. I believe it was Taboo 2. I played that movie until I popped the tape. When I was fifteen I was a regular customer at the local video store, making trips to the back of the store, behind the curtain, to the section where all the porn was hidden away from the eyes of minors. It never occurred to the store clerks that a minor could be 6'5" tall so I never had a problem renting anything I wanted. I watched movies with my girlfriend every weekend. To me there was nothing nasty or perverse about it. We were sexual beings so why shouldn't we watch movies about sex? Well, now I'm a dad. I have a daughter. This has changed my entire perspective on the porno industry.

I always knew that pornography was a sleazy and exploitative business. That it preyed on naive young women looking for a way to Hollywood stardom or who were starving for cash or drug addicted or the victims of abuse or who suffered from low-self esteem and were looking for something to make them feel sexy and desirable. But, to be honest, I never cared. I never thought a second about the women in those films. They were paid performers and I was paying to watch their performance. Why they were up there doing what they were doing was none of my business and not my concern. The older I get, however, the more I start wondering about those women.

Living in Las Vegas I have met many many strippers, several prostitutes, and a few porn stars. I talk to them at the gym when they are on the treadmill beside me trying not to knock themselves unconscious with their oversized after-market mammaries. I had no choice but to talk to them when they would come to the bars and nightclubs where I worked as a bouncer and poor out their tales of heartbreak and woe to me while drowning their sorrows in alcohol. Working in nightclubs it is expected that you will act as every heartbroken, depressed, down-on-their-luck drunk's psychiatrists and confessor. Back then I heard all of the normal "My boss is an asshole, my ex-wife is a bitch, my boyfriend/husband is lazy, unfaithful, can't keep a job, doesn't appreciate me, etc." stories. I had learned to nod my head non-committal appearing to be sympathetic while ignoring the men and listening to the music and sizing the women up for a one-night-stand. Then I moved to Vegas and the stories changed. They became "My pimp kicked my ass again. I ran into a bad trick today. I got busted by vice while doing a gang bang with five Arabs in a hot tub at Ceasars Palace. My producer wants me to do an anal gang bang scene and I have hemorrhoids what should I do?" I would sit and listen as they talked with unnerving casualness about their latest trick, movie, or photo shoot. I would respectfully decline when they asked me out on a date or for a one night stand, disgusted by the idea of swimming in what was a public pool. Stomach rolling in utter revulsion as I imagined all the cocks they must have sucked that week alone, never understanding why a woman who has sex for a living would want to have sex when she was off the clock. Then I'd go home and pop a porno in the VCR, getting off on watching these same women that revolted me in person. The fantasy was fine but I did not want to know anything about the reality.

I worked security at the AVN awards five years ago at Ceasars Palace here in Vegas. The woman who won best group scene propositioned me rather aggressively and I almost went for it. Not because I really wanted to go where so many had gone before,but because my friends who were working with me would have been jealous. Fucking a porn star was their dream. It wasn't mine. I declined. They looked at me like I was crazy. Then I went to a nightclub and picked up a "regular" girl there. Had casual anonymous sex all night long without a shred of regret. Sometimes the devil you don't know is better than the devil you do.

Now, I no longer work in nightclubs. Haven't for many years, Casual sex isn't really my thing anymore, though the occasional one night stand isn't completely out of the question. But I still love porn. Only now I think about the girls I used to talk to in the nightclubs and their stories about fleeing a molesting father or uncle and running right into the porn industry, being forced into it by their pimps or talked into it by their boyfriends or seduced into it by producers promising fame and fortune and I start to wonder about the girl smiling for the camera while her every orifice is being urgently plundered for the viewer's delight though probably not hers. I think about when I was in Hollywood and would go on casting calls for some martial arts film or action film or something only to have the producer offer me a role in a porno movie instead. This happened nine out of ten times. Seriously, nine out of ten! I'd meet a guy at a nightclub who said he was casting for the new Star Trek movie and then I'd go to his office and he'd ask me how big my cock was and if I was comfortable fucking on camera. And I'm a guy. A big guy. I imagine how much worse it must be for young actresses trying to break into the acting business in that sleazy town. I think about all of these things while I press rewind on Cum Sucking Sluts Volume 9 so that I can get another look at that incredible "snowballing" scene. Because there is also the reality that a great many of the women in these movies are there because they want to be there. They are there because they enjoy fucking on camera. They relish the fame, the attention, the lust and adoration they inspire, and the shitloads of cash they can make if they make it to the top. Some of them are fellow sex addicts like myself having a blast getting paid to do what they love. And God bless 'em everyone of 'em.

I like porn. I like all things sexual. I like strip clubs and sex boutiques and peep shows and swingers clubs and S&M clubs and sexually oriented lyrics in my music. Sex makes me happy, deliriously so. Yes, it is a symptom of my sex addiction, but one I am reluctant to part with. Yes, it is more than a tad hypocritical of me to admit that I have a problem with the exploitation of women by this industry yet continue to patronize it. To that I can only say, "Oh, well. I am human." No one thinks about the murdering and pillaging going on in Africa right now so that we can have diamonds and gold and platinum when they are going out to buy an engagement ring or anniversary present. No one thinks about the exploitation of immigrant laborers when they buy produce. No one thinks about the labor conditions and exploitation of children when they buy clothing and goods manufactured in Third World countries. I try not to think about the ills of the porno industry when I'm jacking-off. I sometimes do feel guilty when I'm done. Then
I pop in another film and get over it by the time I bust another nut.