I wish there were more porn

Don’t get me wrong. There’s lots of it. And lots of variety.

And yet, notwithstanding Rule 34, there are big gaps in terms of what’s available, at least as regards my preferences and tastes.

I have a fantasy of a Venn diagram that will depict what I mean, and perhaps I’ll succeed in making one. But for now, I’ll attempt to explain in words.

In porn, there are a few tropes, a few categories, into which porn seems to be sorted. An example: MILF porn. MILF porn is not, as you might expect, simply porn featuring women who are (old enough to be) mothers of teenagers. If MILF porn looked like that, much of it would appeal to me. Alas, there are some other aspects of MILF porn that turn me off: enhanced breasts – MILF porn actors always have big breasts, generally enhanced. Woman as teacher. Younger male partners. Often, reluctant/curious young females, learning, being taught. And inevitably, sexually voracious women. MILFs don’t require seduction, they seduce. They don’t overcome obstacles to fulfillment, they offer fulfillment.

I know a lot of MILFs. None of them has enhanced breasts. And while some might, certainly, have something to teach me, and some certainly are sexually voracious, what makes them appealing to me is their beauty, their maturity, their self-knowledge. This is never depicted in MILF porn, or, if it is, it’s subordinate to silicone.

Another example: there’s a category of porn that’s generally called “glamo(u)r porn.” It’s the sort of porn you see, most particularly, on sites like X-Art and SexArt. I like this porn. SexArt, in particular. It depicts people in human, social situations, clothed, and then moving on to sex. What it doesn’t depict is, for me, the hottest part of sex: seduction. In all this porn, the action either a) inevitably is pointing toward the ultimate sex, or b) is irrelevant to the abruptly introduced sex. Add to that, the actors in this porn invariably top out at 25 or 27 years old. There are no imperfections in skin, no scars, no evidence that the people actually have been living prior to the shoot. Similarly, the backgrounds in which the sex happens are inevitably sterile, without character, achingly set-like.

Here’s what there’s not a lot of in the porn world, best I can tell: depictions of interesting, interesting-looking grown-ups (say, 30-50), getting to know one another, deciding to engage sexually with one another, and exploring their sexuality together.

There’s also not a lot of lingering on anticipation. The sorts of scenes that regular readers of this blog know that I prefer in life are precisely the sorts of scenes I’d like to see depicted. I’d like to see non-sadistic explorations of power play in interactions that are not yet explicitly sexual. I’d like to see cameras linger on beautiful people, clothed, as actors feel the initial rush of attraction – and the initial barrier of unfamiliarity. I’d like to see women in their 30s and 40s who still look good, but without the help of plastic surgery. I’d like to see flirty conversation of the sort Craig Ferguson is such a master of. Seduction, and not just fucking. (When, a few weeks ago, I watched nearly every Craig Ferguson interview available on YouTube, I felt a lot like I was watching the porn I really wanted to watch. If it had progressed just a little further, it would have been perfect….)

The “Barely Legal” series, by Hustler, actually has a lot of what I like. Attractive actors in situations in which the sex isn’t a foregone conclusion at the start of the scene, but rather, is something that arrives after at least a modicum of interaction, connection, interaction. But the series is fatally flawed, from my perspective, in at least a couple of ways. First, foremost, the overarching conceit: the women all have just turned 18. They’re virgins, or at least inexperienced. They often have teddy bears. (Ick.) If the sex is straight sex, it’s with men who are older, experienced, teaching them. And if the sex is lesbian, the women are “having fun,” “experimenting.” And throughout, there’s actually precious little passion or hunger. If the aesthetic of Barely Legal were somehow fused with that of SexArt – more connection, more context, more seduction – and the actors were fifteen or twenty years older – now that would be hot.

I know that I should be looking at “porn for women” for much of this, and perhaps, now that I’m writing about it, I’ll look more closely at the work of directors like Erika Lust. I’m always eager to learn about what I don’t know that’s out there – if you know of something that you think, based on what I’ve written, I should know about, for god’s sake, please tell me.