Dear Kings: Stop Letting Porn Teach You How to Have Sex
By: Stanley Fritz
Tags: Porn, Culture, Masculinity, Sex, Toxic Relationships

Pornhub should not be where you go to for lessons on a healthy and fulfilling sex life

Do you like sex? Yeah, me too. It’s really fun and if you can figure out the basic mechanics, it can feel really good. if you can do that and also have the ability to listen to and respond to your partner, it can feel and be amazing.

At the washed age of 33, I would like to believe, that I am slanging the type of dick that satisfies my partner as much as having sex with her satisfies me. I wasn’t always this self-aware or confident. Looking back, I didn’t know anything about sex, even after losing my virginity. Wondering how I went so long being that uninformed? Don’t instead ask yourself who the hell was supposed to teach me?

When it comes to learning about how to be good at it, boys aren’t given many tutors, instead, we learn by trying things out, receive tips from friends, or rely on ignorant assumptions.

Every guy in my life was always talking about how good in bed he was. No one ever talked about being bad at it or confused. If Rahkim just spent 20 minutes talking about all of the women he’s “taking down” why the hell would I come to him for advice? What if it makes him think that my pipe game is trash? The only sex advice my dad gave was to “use a condom,” so that I wouldn’t get the “fire dick” and at the time, there weren’t safe spaces you could go to in order to ask questions.

You would think this is something they would try to teach in school, but that wasn’t happening. My sex ed classes mostly consisted of our High School math teacher telling us to save ourselves for marriage, because that’s what “Jesus would want.”

These circumstances led me to the route that most men my age or younger went to, PORN. Listen, judge me if you want, but in my younger mustier years, there was no bigger fear than being so bad at sex that my partner would publicly shame me. I didn’t want that to happen and was willing to do anything to avoid that failure. But how do you know if your dick is big enough, or what women enjoy during sex if there is no way to learn? I tried to take context clues from TV shows, but it was confusing.

I didn’t actually watch porn until I was 21. If you’re wondering how that happened, it’s because I grew up with a lot of anxiety surrounding sex. First, I was usually the musty kid in junior high. I eventually discovered deodorant in high school but had not yet mastered proper hygiene. If that wasn’t bad enough, my stepmother traumatized the crap out of me as a kid. She and I had a tumultuous relationship (you can read more about it here.) Once my body entered puberty, she seemed to take joy out of making me feel bad about the things that were happening to me.

I, like most pubescent boys, started to get erections FOR NO REASON AT ALL. I had no idea what was going on and would try to hide said erections. My stepmother would go out of her way to spot them and comment. Usually saying a combination of, “your dick just hard for no reason?” or “that’s fucking disgusting.” To make matters worse, she went through a three-month phase when I was 12 years old where she was convinced that I was jerking off all over the apartment. I remember one time she burst into my room while I was reading, slapped the book out of my hand, and said, “you betta not be jacking your dick in my bathroom.” I was so freaked out, that I avoided porn, masturbation, or any sex-related activity for as long as I could. After a while, I just didn’t think about it, so when It was time to find some porn, I was brand new to the game.

Without access to a stable internet connection, I was forced to purchase from the blockbuster of Porno stores, The Barbershop. Through the suggestion of my barber, I purchased Booty Talk Parts 1–5, and to mix it up with some white women, I copped Rain Woman 2. I returned to my dorm room and began the “Educational Sessions.” I then took those lessons out into the field, it was a disaster. I was going into sexual encounters trying to do the things I saw in porno’s, and when women would respond negatively, I was confused. I couldn’t understand why the Shanoa’s and Denise’s in my life, weren’t reacting the way that Luna Star and Lacey Duvall would react in “Cake Splasha” and “Cuban Lust.” I remember the first time I had sex after some extensive lesson learning from pornos. My partner didn’t look or act like Pinky, she didn’t moan or wear 10-inch heels either. I had to force myself to think about something else in order to enjoy the experience. If we’re being honest, I probably relied on porn as sex education for two years. I’m not proud to admit that, but I didn’t know where else to go. In that time, I didn’t just pick up bad habits, my anxiety around sex increased tenfold.

The truth is, Booty talk not only didn’t have the answers, but it’s also aggressively unrealistic. I was watching videos where every man was 6’5, buff, and had a 4’10 sized dick. I stood at a crisp 5’11 had no stomach muscle’s and intimidated, those visuals were not the things I needed in my life. In these same porno’s, people would have sex for up to an hour with no orgasm or visible break. There wasn’t a Dr. Nerd Love around to explain to me that the average man can last between 5–7 minutes before the climax and that an average round session last 15 minutes so instead of hating myself for finishing “too fast,” I should probably realize that sex is more than just penetration. If I had known about “Everyday Feminism” I might have spent time reading articles that humanize women and encouraged healthy sexual encounters that were pleasing for both people.

Instead, I followed the teachings and techniques of Brian Pumper, Nat TurnHer, and Lexington Steele. Through their education and my love affair with Roxy Reynolds, I learned and then had to unlearn the following:

No one ever asked for consent, they just start whipping their junk out, or doing shit. In real life, you should always ask for consent. Everyone doesn’t want Jackhammer Sex. Some might, but you probably shouldn’t just dive in with that as your “go-to” move. You should not crack an egg over someone’s head during sex. I never did this, but this was Brian Pumpers Trademark Move. Unless you absolutely have to or are asked to, DO NOT WEAR YOUR TIMBS DURING SEX. Unless requested, DO NOT put your foot on someone’s back during sex. Unless this is a kink of your partners, you should not start rapping while having sex. (See Brian Pumper) There is almost no world where sex will be initiated by a woman randomly stepping into your room fully naked, covered in oil, and twerking for three minutes straight. That’s not how any of this works.

Ok, so some of those lessons were funny, but let’s get real for a second. Relying on a porno to understand sex with anyone is a bad idea. Porno is not real; women do not look like that in real life; sex almost never goes the way it’s depicted in porn; the average person does not have a ten-inch penis. All of this is wrong. But probably the most dangerous thing about porno is the way it depicts women.

In almost any porn you watch, the woman is only there for the man’s pleasure, she’s putting on performance throughout the entire act. Even when the person she’s having sex with is doing something that should be pleasing to her, she still has to find a way to make the viewer feel good and turned on. Not only isn’t that realistic, it’s not healthy. But too many men, myself included, took the theatrics and ridiculousness of porn and let it dictate how we related to women. As a result, a lot of people were having bad, unsafe, unfulfilling, and sometimes harmful sex. Sex is supposed to be something two people share, and enjoy. There is literally nothing from booty talk, Bang Bro’s, or Rain Woman 1–3 that could teach or help you understand that. So stop relying on it.