Why Guys Like Porn

Okay, so this may seem obvious and some of it is.

The main reason guys like porn is that it's easy. We're lazy, and bedding a woman is a lot of work, especially if you're starting from scratch at the bar or wherever. If you're lucky, you might stumble on a woman looking for a revenge fuck for her cheating hubby and you just happen to be chosen. But for the most part, you're mostly just gonna get her number. Then you gotta call her, plan a date, go on the date, not make any mistakes (either coming on too strong and looking like a desperate creep or not strong enough and seeming like you've got no testosterone), and maybe get a kiss. A guy I know who went to strip clubs described them as "cheaper than a date, and with a lap dance." Two, three, four dates (months?) later and what're you at, second base?

And if you've already got a woman in bed, it's not that much easier. First there's your schedule, and her schedule, and her "schedule" to juggle. And then there's the whole "mood" issue, which is as bad as a date. Come on too strong and she's not ready yet, or not strong enough and all you get is a cuddle. Or you might've worked up a good wheedle that generally gets you what you want, but makes you feel low anyway.

Whereas porn you just have to hit "play."

And then there's the simple fact that the women in porn are not the women in your life. They're numerous and different, stimulating for the simple fact that they're another woman you get to see naked.

But the main reason guys like porn is something beyond this, something deep and emotional, a real need guys feel that porn generally answers better than most flesh-and-blood women. I discovered it as a result of a chance find that I like to talk about, so I'll repeat here, even though the two or three people who read this blog already know it.

One cold winter morning I was coming home from a long, grueling graveyard shift at the ghetto 7-11 where I worked, and though it was after 7am it was still dark. Garbage day. The dumpster full as I walked down the alley to the back entrance to my apartment building. But there, beside the dumpster, a huge stack, 3 feet tall, of magazines. It only took one glance to know they were porn, so I scooped up a huge armful and went inside, suddenly warmed.

It turned out to be Hustlers, some of the Barely Legal variety. Although I don't like Flint's politics or humor, the porn is not bad at all. And in one of the Barely Legals there was a photoplay of a man and woman having sex on a streetcar. One of the shots, which is burned into my memory, was a closeup of the woman about to give the man a blowjob (I think at the time they weren't allowed to show actual genital-genital or genital-lip contact). I don't remember much about the things you associate with a blowjob, the lips or the cheeks. What I remember is her eyes. They were wide, mediterranean blue eyes, and their expression could only be described as worshipful.

The cliche goes that men love women for who they are, while women love men for who they could be. And a consequence of that is that women often remind us of just how far off that ideal we are. Porn women don't do that.

Oh, sure, they may say "harder" or "faster," but it's by way of encouragement, not in a needling way, and when they get it harder or faster, they say "oh, yeah."

Part of the problem is that most of us guys aren't really worshippable material: we're not Adonises, or whatever. But most of the guys I know worship the women in their lives, and they're no Venuses. We're not asking for it all the time, maybe just (half?) an hour every couple of days. And if we got that, there'd be a lot less demand for porn.