by Eurydice (c) 1999

When a good woman is having a bad day, she buys sexy shoes. I buy rough porn. When the going gets tough, I can be found looking through shelves laden with titles like 'Shut Up And Blow Me No. 26', 'Blondes Who Take It Up The Ass No. 30', until I register my erotic craving and buy a compilation video (say, 'A Thousand Cum Shots in Two Hours' or 'Best of Taboo'). Like most people, I rarely watch an entire porn film and inevitably fast-forward to the main event and skip the storyline—I know that the acting is so embarrassing, the dialogue so ridiculous, and the plot so hackneyed that they'll turn me off rather than keep me on the edge of tremendous arousal, which is the job of porn. I like off-color Highlights videos: they cut to the chase, so I can let go of the remote; they contain 6-minute-long vignettes, excerpts from a dozen released videos, themed together by fetish and resold as the 'Best-Of' of series like 'Always Anal', 'Sex Slave', 'Forced Women', 'Shoc', 'Barely Legal'. That night I can't wait to get in bed and see what's in my bag of  goodies, my day long forgotten.
     I don't use porn to get off; I doubt many women do, mainly because it's so easy for us to find a man willing to do what it takes to get us off al fresco, which is why women don't pay for sex. Feminists, liberals, fundamentalists argue periodically that porn degrades, dehumanizes, and exploits women, and portrays men as brutes who only want casual sex all the time. Making the bogus claim that people who get exposed to a variety of porn lose self-control and indulge in repulsive or violent acts, some groups lobby to censor or ban pornography—in the tradition of the Nazis, Fascists, Communists, Arab sheiks. (In 1986 President Reagan's Meese Commission investigated porn, and, despite its best efforts, didn't find evidence linking its use to sexual aggression; in fact, there's evidence linking legalization of hard-core porn with a substantial reduction of child sexual abuse and other sexual crimes committed by men who have no sexual outlet.) Porn isn't about violence but violation of privacy and freedom from responsibility. It's mute lust, free of moral and mortal constraints; each round is a clean slate and carries a new hope of redemption that may detonate the monotony of daily life. The illusion is that we're watching unself-conscious, primitive merrymaking without the interference of cultural explanation and judgment; we're 'catching' people at their most vulnerable (which explains the success of unremarkable amateur videos), and we bear no responsibility for what happens to them.
     Women may feel ambivalent or hostile toward porn because it presses their unconscious buttons of desire or because it represents an ultimate objectification of the female body. They may feel defensive at first, both about their man's interest in porn and about their own reluctant curiosity, which may shock them, and may fear discovering things about themselves they did not expect to. But when they overcome their preconceptions or hangups and watch it thoughtlessly, women discover that porn is liberating. It helps normalize excessive behavior in their own minds so they don't feel marginalized by the yearnings they may secretly harbor without knowing them. Some women can simply take porn or leave it, depending on their mood; but a growing number, approximately 40% of all porn viewers, have integrated porn into their regular sex lives, and it's they who choose what to rent or buy, with the idea of reenacting the action off-screen.
     The commonest fantasy for women is still rape, 30 years since Nancy Friday wrote My Secret Garden; it's not sex on the beach, it's being out of control. Women like graphic romance novels, or 'bodice rippers', for the same reason they prefer Cosmo's sex advice over Playgirl's centerfolds. They prefer simulated rape over '50 Anal Angels' (so long as the porn stars don't resemble their fathers or stepsons), because they're so responsible in real life that it relaxes them to imagine being just a piece of meat. The contradiction about porn is that women initially prefer plot to plumbing (which puts their plumbing in a human context) and soft-focus to the harsh realities of graphic penetration, facial spasms, warts and cellulite. The cliché—based on statistics, but not biology—is that guys get aroused visually and women get aroused emotionally—meaning that women like situation-porn (fucking your boss or doctor scenes, being walked in on in the shower by the plumber) and exposition (so&so is married to so&so and cuckolding him with so&so who is cuckolding so&so with so&so)—anything that allows them to imagine they are capable of humiliating themselves sexually, dominating others, or being spontaneous and shameless about using their bodies, so they can shut their eyes and imagine they're not with the same trusted man who's familiar with every niche of their anatomies but a stray guy off the street.
     More women than ever are watching porn and getting turned on, and more women are writing, producing, and directing porn, often with a woman's point of view in mind, or showing the kinds of excesses that make straight men uncomfortable (menstrual, pregnant, lactating, men-in-diapers videos). As a result there is growing interest in fetishes where women wield more power than they do when they're backed up to the bumper or getting rug burns on their kneecaps. Leather and latex bondage, S/M and B/D, even enema and watersports are equal-opportunity exploiters, and men and women seem equally keen to watch women smothering men by sitting on their faces (squashing) or inflicting as much pain as is inflicted on them. So homespun stories are slowly being eclipsed in vogue by videos that urge women to exercise their aggression.
     It's your job to help your woman find out what she herself likes. I have a friend whose wife of six years had always refused to see a porn video on the basis that it was offensive. They were walking through Amsterdam when by chance a video cover caught her eye; she stopped, pointed, and told her husband she had to see 'that movie'. The cover photo depicted a man chained to a wall, his testicles swollen, bright blue, knotted by wet rawhide straps, with needles shoved into them. The wife suddenly discovered her deepest fantasies (to his consternation, she told him that's what she'd like to do to him, he said he wouldn't let her), and, until guilt overtook her again two years later, she enjoyed watching domination videos though not dominating in real life. Your girlfriend or wife may not harbor so much repressed rage or desire that she's right for S/M or torture; but, unless her politics or religion prevent her from watching porn, there's some whimsical scenario out there that will turn her on and spice up your sex life overnight.
     If you need to introduce your lover to porn, do it tastefully. Tell her you want to be more adventurous, to do new wild things to her body. Tell her your best friend rented a video that inspired his wife to a new kind of orgasm. Make the experience impromptu and lighthearted. On a slow night when you're gawking at new releases in your local video rental place (assuming you don't patronize an authoritarian chain like Blockbuster), pull her to the back, peruse the X-rated titles on a lark, and leave with a copy of The Nanny/The X-Files and a copy of The Fanny/The XX Files. Take a Sunday walk through a funky street or mall that has a clean sex shop. Go in on whim; point out odd sex toys, trying to guess what they are designed for, ooh and aah over the oversized dildos, gossip about the other customers, and let her see what a huge business porn is, which is to say how many people must enjoy it, which helps normalize porn for her. Let her choose what to take home, even if you're sure it will bore you. If there's anything she's attracted to, buy it for her—the more, the better, the more expensive, the better—and call it a gift, so she'll feel obliged to watch it. If you can, preview the video. Avoid gritty stuff—golden showers or women being flayed with curling irons. You want her to enjoy porn, not be horrified by it. Start out with a film that includes the type of sex you both like or would like, preferably one that varies the sex (not 'Buttman'). Choose a porn actress who vaguely reminds you of your lover, either visually or in bed. Avoid inordinately big boobs, uncut dicks, anything she may find estranging. You don't want the video to become a conversation piece. Relax, get naked, pop in the tape, and change tune. This is no longer a fun shared adventure. Don't give her the chance to analyze it, criticize it, get distance from it. The less said, the better. If she's not ready to be touched, touch yourself to make clear this is about fucking. Millions masturbate while looking at porn. Begin to whack off and, chances are, your excitement will turn her on and she'll let you use her body. Don't be too delicate, or she'll wiggle out of admitting that anything so crude is making her wet.
     If she gets wet against her will by watching three guys have sex with one woman, she may fear it means that at heart she's a slut who wants to be gangbanged by idle strangers. She has to feel safe enough with you to talk about her desires; so if she tells you that doing three black/buff guys is to her amazement the greatest turn-on, don't suggest you call a couple of buddies over for an orgy, and don't get defensive yourself. And if your porn viewing doesn't lead to great sex the first time, don't believe it never will. Women are slow starters in this matter. They feel alienated at first, as if there's this perverse world you're comfortable in that they're intruding into or, worse, been drawn into. And if you do have great sex during and after the video viewing, don't hurry into reenacting the money shot on her face unless she invites you to or at least agrees. A couple I know who had never tried anal sex saw it in a porn film once, tried it, and became so addicted to it that the wife had surgery to repair a prolapsed anus a couple of years later. Be careful that you don't replace your otherwise OK sexual relationship with a porn-based relationship. Your lover may get temporarily addicted to the novelty of watching porn and you may assume she'll be like this the rest of her life. Or you may begin being dependent on fantasy sex, playing out complex roles with her in order to get off, raising the stakes all the time. Your video-kink may threaten and ruin your relationship. This is the most important issue in turning your lover on to porn: know why you're doing it. If it's to enrich your sex life, good. If you're in a relationship that's getting sexually stale, porn is a great sex aid.        But if there's something wrong in your sex life, if you seek porn because you're unhappy, better disassemble some truths.
     I use porn in two ways: a. To get in the mood for sex after a hectic, unpleasant, disembodied day. The term is pictophilia (arousal from viewing porn): any time I watch porn, I get interested in having sex; I'm physically reminded of it. If my body is exhausted but my spirit willing, porn can revive me. b. To try something unusual. Porn inspires me to expand my sexual skills. Say that I bought the 'Best-Of Joy of Fistfucking'. As I watch, I pick up tips on how to go about doing it (slowly sink your fist in until you get in wrist deep, turn it like working a screwdriver, twist to the right, and move it as if to pull something out), I check out the actors' positions, how they moan and move, and I'm ready to go. I watch porn as a crash course in deviance.
     The majority of people buy mild stuff only because they haven't been exposed to much else. The right attitude about watching porn is 'anything goes'; there's no better way to find out what you like. Buy a copy of The Adult Video News or The Annual Directory of Adult Films or any such magazine that reviews and rates porn movies, and familiarize yourself with what's available. Tame sex shops like Good Vibrations or Adam & Eve offer mail-order catalogues which describe the video fare in detail, make recommendations, and absolve you from the embarrassment of browsing in your neighborhood store. Most also have websites. Online you can read the descriptions of a few thousand videos at thousands of sites—I like Eurovid.com—sample them, and order as many as you want in total privacy. There's so much sexual material to explore online, much of it free, much of it real-time, and free of the constraints of the tastes of your neighborhood store's or mail-catalogue's buyers. Cyberia is uncensored and so sexy that just cruising online catalogues and personals may be enough of a turn-on for you and your partner.
     Finally, if your partner turns out to be a videoslut, you may decide you want to see yourselves having sex on the screen, and to videotape your own sex-escapades. It must be something both you and your partner want to do. Agree ahead of time about what you will tape, when you'll stop, who will keep the tape, and whether or not you'll destroy it after you watch it. Lock the door, check your lighting, use a wide shot and a tripod if you plan to leave the camera running and handhold for close-ups if it doesn't upset the sex. If you hook the camcorder to your TV, you can monitor what you're recording as you're shooting and make changes. You can both watch yourselves live, experiment with positions, angles, dirty talk, exhibitionism (the other side of voyeurism). Video has made confidentiality possible (you don't take the film to a lab to get developed). You can invite a third person to be your videographer—in a sort of indirect threesome. You can upload the result on a webpage. You can take requests for 'custom' videos and decide to enact them for a fee. You and your squeeze can become world-famous porn stars. Hallelujah.