Emotional and Psychological responses to Pornography

[Sasha Distan]

OK people, somewhat weird and sensitive question here. 

 

In writing the latest chapter of Unexpected Liaisons i had to revisit my first experiences of finding gay porn online. the character in the story begins to question his sexuality (at the age of 29) and is recommended to go looking for porn to see if he can cope with the idea of actually having gay sex, rather than just admitting that he is attracted to this particular other guy.

 

in order to write the chapter i did manage to get some other people's experiences, but mostly we had worries about getting caught and issues with internet in the 80's, which while helpful, wasn't quite what i was after. so Zupan had quite a similar experience to my own, only his was better, namely, finding information that was boring or irrelevant, then finding stuff that was too graphic before being able to get anything vaguely useful out of the experience. 

 

the whole thing for me was a bit traumatic, and so my question is: when you first went looking for gay porn online, how did you feel about what you saw?

[AnimalMorph]

How do I feel? This is easy.

I feel horny. That's for sure and it's the strongest feeling when I'm looking for porn, even on my first time.
There are, of course, other feeling that accompanies it. For example, a constant need to hide and a curiosity.

The need to hide is self-explanatory. I don't want people to find out. The curiosity however, is a wide subject.

First time I'm looking for porn, I am curious of how many type of sex exist in gay sex (bondage/incest/etc) and in what position does gay people have sex, etc...
I am also curious to know if I ever attracted to other kinds of porn. So I tried my hands on Lesbian and Straight porn.
A big turn off

Hope this answers your question.

Edited July 6, 2013 by AnimalMorph

[Former Member]

when I FIRST went looking?  I was damn excited.  My friend had showed it to me and we had been writing it for a long time and to finally see two twinky guys kissing and fondling was kind of excited.  Heheh...  But then again, I wasn't your normal teen.

[Thorn Wilde]

For a very long time, I didn't watch porn at all. I was much more comfortable with reading (and writing) erotica to get my rocks off. Comics can be good, too. It's only in the past year or so that I've at all bothered to go looking. Weirdly, I seem to watch porn with a sort of detached, scholarly interest rather than sexual arousal (not that it doesn't turn me on, a little me-time is generally necessary after watching). It's like, 'So THIS is what they think people want to see?' followed by, 'Oh, that is so unrealistic, he would never last that long!' and, 'Wow, those noises he's making are pretty over the top, sounds like he's faking it.' I have very specific tastes, and way prefer amateur porn to the pro kind.

 

I can like gay, straight or lesbian porn if it's well done, but for the most part I find straight porn to be the most boring and repetitive. Girls in straight porn are mostly dolls, blank and simpering and dull, so on the rare occasions where I feel like watching girls, lesbian porn is much more interesting because they're more proactive.

[Daithi]

Well when I was a teenager they were just starting to bring out computers, hardly any had home computers and the Internet if it even existed then was nothing like it is now.  So it was quite a while before I seen porn but mostly I thought it was hilarious. Yeah not your usual response eh?.  But it was just so obvious it was pretend, there wasn't anything real about it.  Maybe it had something to do with the generation I grew up in, the fact that I was married I don't know but visual porn just made me laugh, never really got into it.  But erotic stories and other written pornography was totally different.  And I don't mean the magazines like Playgirl/boy that's to me ks the same as videos and stuff.  I've always loved to read I'm basically a loner somewhat of a thinker. It's hard to explain but what I read I see as pictures so when I read the stories here and on other sites I can just picture what's happening but it's so much more natural, using the writers descriptions and what I see,or get from the story.  Not only that but after reading what Zu went thru trying to research that would just put a wet towel on anything.  I think I will stick with the written word and let my brain put the story into pictures,  corny as it sounds.  My problem is keeping the reviews clean lol, cause I have to admit you writers can make my brain steam up like crazy....so that is my take on porn

[Sasha Distan]

thanks to all for their interesting responses. oddly this is a subject that matters and interests me a lot. I agree with Daithi and Thorn in that 99% of the time, the written word is best. i also have a penchant for comics of the explicitly kinky variety (Fchan, thank you). Real life IRL video porn is usually a last resort.

 

i still want to keep collecting responses to this though, it makes for interesting reading and research

[JamesSavik]

 when you first went looking for gay porn online, how did you feel about what you saw?

 

 

Oh holy crap! This is like Christmas.

 

And WTF is he doing with that bat?

Edited July 7, 2013 by jamessavik

[Cia]

Oh, I'm more of a reader than watcher myself. I remember sex coming up in harlequins and such when I was 10, VC Andrews with her incest and When Heaven Fell by Barton really twigged me out on erotica when I was a kid. The first mm sex I read was, surprise surprise, a rape scene in Outlander by Gabaldon. I read that at 11. She balanced that out in later in the series with a positive gay figure in the stories, but it still colored my perceptions for years. Any not so straight women remember Annie on My Mind? I got a hold of a copy of that in the early 90s and that cemented my 'bi-ness' as a teen. For the most part, I wasn't too into reading sex, to be honest, so for a long time I didn't read much erotica at all.

 

I will admit to watching porn, though mostly it makes me laugh. I'm more likely to critique style and sarcastically comment on fake dialogue than I am to actually 'enjoy' it. I don't know, I guess what I can imagine in my head is always more interesting than what I see. No one has butt pimples or wears white socks in my mind!

[Daithi]

Omg "butt-pimples". Well inever was one for watching porn before,  that pretty much finished it for me there.  

[Former Member]

Grooooooss Cia! XP  I watch it for the entertainment factor.  Fun to laugh at.  Always have a bowl of popcorn at the ready.

[scotty94]

I didn't personally go looking for it I was introduce to it so to speak, I have always been afraid about looking at porn and what people reactions would be if they found out I was always repulsed of the idea of gay porn but it was at the time battling with my sexuality. But I first looked for it after I had my first experience not going in to too much detail but I was searching for new ways to sort of pleasure yourself and your partner and came across a website and a link that directed me to a gay porn site.it was helpful in some way but in other ways I would never do some of the stuff they do.

[Sasha Distan]

So mostly we as the educated people on the web view porn as fun and silly rather than erotic.

 

sometimes educational?

[Daithi]

I'm sure there is good stuff out there but for the most part it scripted nonsense.  Put tab A in slot B moan. Rub C moan turn this way get my drift. At least with written stuff your imagination can smooth out the blanks and personalize it.....and no butt-pimples.  Sorry Cia that just struck my funny bone to much to leave out.

[Cia]

Well it was meant to be funny.

[Slytherin]

Grooooooss Cia! XP  I watch it for the entertainment factor.  Fun to laugh at.  Always have a bowl of popcorn at the ready.

" Popcorn and porn" I prefere to read erotic stories, but popcorn might make the movies funnier

[Daithi]

Personally I think a popsicle is more apt for reading porn. Popcorn has to many crunchy bits.  Popsicle or an ice cream corn can get you in the mood...rofl

[Slytherin]

LOL

[Daithi]

       rofl

[Sasha Distan]

i feel that we have lost the point of this thread guys...

 

Emotional responses to pornography, not what you eat while you watch it. *sigh*

[Daithi]

Actually to be serious what you eat or do during porn is a response to pornography.  Think about he's we were joking about the popcorn and Popsicles but it was still a response.   When your watching porn do you use sex toys, does it put you in the mood for them?  Me know but others maybe, same with the food.. Bit of a stretch but same idea. You never really clarified the response or if you did I missed it. Just a thought. 

Actually to be serious what you eat or do during porn is a response to pornography.  Think about he's we were joking about the popcorn and Popsicles but it was still a response.   When your watching porn do you use sex toys, does it put you in the mood for them?  Me know but others maybe, same with the food.. Bit of a stretch but same idea. You never really clarified the response or if you did I missed it. Just a thought. 

[Miles Long]

My first experience with porn was when I was very young, my father had left a video in our Betamax. When I turned it on thinking it was the movie I was watching the night before, I got a big eyeful of what I later coined as creepy dad porn. It was pretty traumatic and my mother melting down did nothing to diffuse the situation.

 

My most humorous experience was in my friends' Human Sexuality class. My two friends would drag me to their class after our acting class and before our other acting class and we would secretly eat our nutritionally lacking lunches and be entertained by the freak parade that was this class. One of my two favorite classes was the day the "Pornography Expert" came to discuss porn and it's positive impact on society as a whole. He brought with him hours of footage, which he adroitly cut down to accommodate the two hour class. It spanned all genres straight, gay, kink etc. It was surreal to sit in an auditorium with a couple hundred students as this guy droned on about the various explicit clips. The highlight of the videos was the porn bloopers, where we got to see:

A woman puke in a guys lap and then defend her gag reflex by explaining that the reason she vomited was because of morning sickness and that her partner smelled funny.

Two guys lose "the moment" because the director kept yelling they were not cheating their bums out enough for the cameras to get a good angle.

 

So long story longer, trauma, surrealism and humor were my most salient responses to my foray into pornography.

Edited July 8, 2013 by Miles Long

[AnimalMorph]

Sometimes people will find it ridiculous, or hilarious. Some people also can be indifferent about porn. "We can have the real thing, why would we even look at porn?".

...But a deep deep closeted gay like me will likely find porn highly educational, and liberating for the most part.

You need to know that in my country, there are NO such things as sex education. Sure the adults mention about HIV and AIDS but none of us as kids can really understand it. To make matters worse there are NO talks about bird and bees in my family too. That makes my understanding about my sexuality really REALLY hard.

So yeah, porn is educational for me. It's also a bit scary, but liberating if that even makes sense.

Although I can also understand why Cia and many others would find graphic porn hilarious.

In the end, if you're looking for an emotional/psychological response, then it depends on many things. Norm and culture, your own personality, age, and so many other factor. The key is to know these factor.

[KHCombe]

I watched two videos in my life so far; one showing a straight couple and one showing two men. I'm a bit ashamed to admit the underlying reason; I couldn't believe that people could actually 'fit into each other' like that. 
Well, after watching, I definitely knew it was possible... 

Graphic porn doesn't appeal to me at all. Written scenes, however, can be very pleasant to read, even though I lack the skill to create mental images with it. So mostly, for me, it's about education. 

[Zombie]

Beware the wolf ... he bites

Internet wasn't around when I first started - "borrowing" my older brother's straight porn mags
I've watched both straight and gay porn - just vanilla
Initially I suppose it was both educational and to get off
But after you've learned all the "moves" it's a voyeuristic activity so there's no point unless its erotic

And to be erotic - for me - requires
- the "actors" [heheh] are really hot
- they're genuinely interacting and getting off with each other, not spouting fake crappy dialogue from "pizza boy delivery / repair man story line B"
- if it's straight porn there are no nasty nails, pointy shoes, makeup and continuous squealing

Which means they need to be looking at each other and genuinely communicating
The only erotic porn I've seen is where the camera focused on their faces, expressions and communication.

Otherwise it's about as stimulating as watching hair transplant operations.

 

Edited July 10, 2013 by Zombie

[Sasha Distan]

the zombie bites too...

 

you've all been fantastically helpful. i think i'm a bit split between everyone's reactions really. sometimes i think it's erotic, sometimes i think it's hilarious. and it's only erotic when it's "real"