Erika Lust candidly discusses ethical, female-friendly porn, creative project XConfessions, and the impact mainstream porn is having on our children.

There’s a movement happening in the erotic film industry, and women are at the helm. Contrary to mainstream porn’s depiction of extreme violence, degradation, utilization of human trafficking, and a myriad of other transgressions, this variety of ethically-made, female-friendly porn is changing the way viewers experience on-screen sex. Erika Lust, founder of the Barcelona-based, award-winning indie film and production company Erika Lust Films, and creator of crowdsourced cinematic film site XConfessions, burst onto the adult scene in 2004 with indie short film “The Good Girl” and hasn’t looked back since.

After studying political science and gender studies at University of Lund in Sweden, Lust read “Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the ‘Frenzy of the Visible’” and had an epiphany, of sorts. Similar to others, Lust says “I was exposed to porn at a young age, like many people, and my first reaction was disappointment. When I was older, I decided to give it another try, but the same woman in heels was still giving a blowjob to a police officer to get rid of a fine.” Upon reading the book, however, her eyes were opened to a new way of thinking.

“It was the first book to look at pornography as a genre with a history, as a specific cinematic trend, and as a part of contemporary discourse on sexuality,” says Lust. “Beside being such a theoretical work…it made me realize porn was not only porn. I realized that mainstream porn is not something that really reflects any truths about sex — but it makes a statement, an idea; it expresses ideologies and values and also opinions about sex and gender.”

The more she learned about the discourse of pornography, the more she says that she wanted to try her hand at creating a film that represented her own ideas and values, while also being something that would appeal to women and men seeking sensual and ethical erotic content.

Today, she oversees XConfessions and Eroticfilms.com. The first is a crowdsourced site where Lust gathers anonymous confessions from her viewers and brings them to life in a high-quality cinematic film experience. Lust pointed out that the desires and kinks are vast and have exposed her to what she claims is “how amazingly creative and diverse female fantasies are,” noting that they’re “often far kinkier than men’s fantasies.” The latter is an adult site comprised of ethically-sourced porn by a variety of directors and features categories like Trans, BDSM/Fetish, Gay, Lesbian, Women Directors, and Sex Education. Depicting a variety of body types, races, and sexual orientations, the site coincides with her commitment to diversity.

When reflecting on mainstream porn, Lust says it “shows sex as a thing that men do to women, or that women do for men, which means misogynistic porn that objectifies women and places unrealistic expectations on both sexes. The representation of male pleasure is the ultimate goal, the scene typically unfolds through the male gaze, and the cumshot seems to be mandatory to end the scene. The female character is being used to satisfy others, but not themselves.”

In comparison, Lust says her films show women and men “as sexual collaborators, not as objects or machines,” and places a strong emphasis on representing female sexuality and desires, including taking into account the female perspective. “The most important message is that female pleasure matters. Not because male pleasure doesn’t matter, it does too,” but because, for decades, women’s pleasure has been ignored in mainstream porn, Lust says she wants to represent women “who assert sexual agency” and, in turn, offer women an empowering and positive experience after watching her films.

And that she does. Because of Lust’s openness to fans, keen artistic eye, and ability to diversify while still creating quality female-friendly porn, she says of the positive feedback she gets a lot of Facebook messages and e-mails thanking her for her work. “In fact…due to the release of ‘Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On,’ I have been overwhelmed by how many people have discovered me and sent me e-mails,” she says.

With a casting process that is “long and thorough” and an unconventional directing method that abides by her rule of not actually directing the sex at all, Lust ensures that the actors are excited and enthusiastic about participating and lets the performers “do what feels natural and pleasurable.”  

In addition to being a pioneer in the female-friendly porn industry, Lust is also a mother to two young girls with her partner and co-founder of Erika Lust films, Pablo Dobner, and the couple are conscious of the type of impact her work can have on them. “We’ve always asserted that educating our children and teens about pornography and sex is far more useful than attempting to try and stop them watching it. But it has come to our attention that children of far younger ages than we expected are being exposed to porn — children as young as 8 or 9.” That’s the age of her daughters, and Lust says add to that her unique voice in the dialogue around pornography and its influence on young people “Sparked something within me. So my husband and I have launched a non-profit project, ThePornConversation.org,” which is designed as a free tool for parents to help with instigating conversations about porn at home.

Labeling “porn as the new sex-ed,” Lust is equally as passionate about protecting children from misinterpreting the unrealistic expectations set forth by the mainstream porn industry.

“We are giving our children zero framework for contextualizing porn — for discussing it or balancing its potent images against everyday adult relationships,” she says. “But online porn is there. It can be improved, ethical adult cinema is on the rise, but mainstream online porn is going nowhere…the sooner we talk to them and educate them the better.”

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The post Going Deeper with Female-Friendly Porn Director and Mother, Erika Lust appeared first on EcoSalon.

Kick the abusive and misogynistic mainstream porn to the curb, and choose sex-positive, female-friendly porn made especially with women in mind.

While there is still much debate over whether or not any porn is actually good for you, there seems to be a space carved out in erotic cinema that’s more conducive to not just the viewers, but also to the women in the films. Often deemed sex-positive, feminist-friendly, or female-friendly porn, when you compare these legitimate sites to mainstream porn, the difference is like night and day.

Female-friendly porn is different in that it varies the body type, represents more “conventional” women, makes female pleasure a priority, leans toward artistic and erotic direction, infuses more sensuality, focuses on quality production, and treats the performers with respect and dignity, including regard for their sexual health. The films may or may not be directed by women, but they defy the mainstream porn gaze, and focus on storylines that are usually more appealing to women. This doesn’t mean that your favorite kink can’t still be found, but you can feel reassured in that the performers are treated better, with many production companies utilizing real-life couples as the basis for their films.

Erika Lust, founder of the Barcelona-based, female-centric and sex-positive indie film and production company Erika Lust Films, was like many women when venturing out into the wide world of internet pornography. When asked what prompted her to begin writing and directing erotic films she replied, “I was exposed to porn at a young age like many people, and my first reaction was disappointment. When I was older, I decided to give it another try, but the same woman in heels was still giving a blowjob to a police officer to get rid of a fine.”

During her time studying political science and gender studies at the University of Lund in Sweden, Lust’s view of porn was drastically changed by Linda Williams’s book “Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the ‘Frenzy of the Visible.’” She says of her self-described lightbulb moment after reading the text, “I realised that mainstream porn is not something that really reflects any truths about sex — but it makes a statement, an idea, it expresses ideologies and values, and also opinions about sex and gender,” pointing out a line from Williams’s book that reads, “Pornography as a genre wants to be about sex. On close inspection, however, it always proves to be more about gender.”

Thanks to female-friendly porn pioneers like Lust, the development of sensual, erotic films has begun to change the way we look at sex. They are more accessible and are becoming more widely recognized by the day, and in addition to the award-winning films produced by the companies we are about to explore, many of these producers focus on representing the realistic side of sex. It’s funny, intimate, passionate, and very different that what’s often represented in mainstream porn.  

1. XConfessions

Created by European producer Erika Lust, XConfessions and EroticFilms.com have been her answer to the mainstream porn industry problem. When asked about what her company does differently when it comes to casting, she replied, “The most important thing to me are the performers. Our casting process is long and thorough. We always make sure our performers are sex-positive and one hundred percent happy and enthusiastic to be involved.”

When it comes to direction, Lust had this to say, “I have a rule that I don’t direct the sex at all. I let the performers do what feels natural and pleasurable. I don’t tell them put your leg here or your arm there! They talk before and decide what they want to do, this makes for the best results on screen and they have a better time!”

2. Crash Pad Series

Brought to you by Pink and White Productions, Shine Louise Houston “recognized an underserved demand for an alternative to mainstream pornography, and began to create well-crafted queer made porn.” The Crash Pad Series is based on the premise of a secret apartment where a key is passed on to the next person after having used it seven times. Lots of queer sex takes place in the apartment where the users’ wildest fantasies come true.

The stars in Houston’s films vary widely. Queer women, trans men, cis men, genderqueer, and gender-variant people are all included. The variation of body type, age, race, gender expression, and body modification are all taken into account, representing a wide range. On the topic of performer agency and consent, the website had this to say: “We collaborate with performers to shoot based on how they’d like to be presented. Performers come up with the episode plot (to ad-lib a script, or skip straight to the sex), and negotiate boundaries to decide on mutually consensual actions prior to filming, informing the crew of what they would like to do.”

3. Pure Cunnilingus

The largest and oldest site dedicated to male-female cunnilingus, this is the ultimate destination for muff diving. Often neglected in pornography, and overshadowed by female-male blow jobs, this site is the answer to representing more heterosexual cunnilingus in the adult world. The site stands by the claim of producing sex-positive, ethical porn.

4. Bright Desire

Described as “the embodiment of a sex-positive philosophy, aiming to offer a different kind of porn, one that is joyful and inclusive, with more intimacy, laughter, passion and connection,” Bright Desire takes pride in its female-friendly porn approach. The videos feature real-life couples and solo men and women, and claims that “the sex looks more like the sex people have at home – and that includes things like lube and vibrators.” The performers are active participants, and the films show real female orgasms.

5. For the Girls

One of the oldest and largest erotics-for-women sites, For the Girls provides adult entertainment from the hetero female gaze. Focusing on female fantasies and pleasure, this site contains lots of male nudity and appendages, “because we love cock!” In addition to the photos, there is also an archive of couples porn, featuring hard-core, romantic plot-based movies, real-life couples, and a women’s magazine featuring erotic stories that claim they transcend “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Not that that’s a difficult task, but I digress. What’s important is that For the Girls puts women first, and that’s a real turn-on.

Still looking for more? These female-friendly porn guides, found here and here, will lead you in the right direction.

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The post 5 Sex-Positive, Female-Friendly Porn Sites (NSFW) appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnIn last week’s column I introduced you to the thriving (and surprising) feminist porn movement. Since then, we’ve witnessed a violent, gratuitous rape scene on “Game of Thrones” and were exposed to a repugnant stream of frat boy text messages rife with relentless misogyny. Just another day in the cesspool of American culture.

We could all use some sex-positive, uplifting momentum right now, can’t we? If you’re yet to be initiated to the world of Feminist Porn, feel free to review last week’s column. Now, let’s meet some of the movers and shakers in this emerging field, and get acquainted with their work.

Annie Sprinkle: The Pioneer

Annie Sprinkle is the still-reigning queen of Feminist Porn – she’s the original provocateur, and the reason that the young auteurs you’ll meet below can do what they’re doing today. (Full disclosure: Annie is my friend, so forgive the gushing please – she truly is this awesome.) Annie is a porn star and self-described “sacred prostitute” with a PhD in Human Sexuality. Her breakthrough performance art piece from 1990 was called “A Public Cervix Announcement,” a piece in which she invited theatergoers onstage to examine her vagina with a speculum. That’s when her work became iconic for Women’s Studies students everywhere (and how I first heard her name). Annie’s latest (amazing) projects are in the field of Eco-Sex and Sexecology.

Tristan Taromino

You may know Tristan’s work even if you’ve never watched porn, because she wrote a sex column called “Pucker Up” for the Village Voice from 1999 – 2008. First and foremost, Tristan is an awesome educator – all of her work feels like a super empowering lesson in sex-positive exploration, while simultaneously being fun and hot. This is why she regularly lectures at colleges across the country. Her copious instructional videos are wildly popular, especially for women exploring anal sex for the first time. Although she’s not a porn performer, she definitely belongs in this list because her contributions to the feminist porn canon are iconic. You can listen to her radio show: “Sex Out Loud” every Friday at 8 pm on Voice America.

Madison Young

She’s an award-winning adult film star and director, sex educator, performance artist/founder of the Femina Potens gallery in San Fran, and so much more. Young’s new memoir “Daddy” was first supposed to be a work of erotic fiction, but turned into a story about her life. Her work in the BDSM arena is legendary — explore her oeuvre when you’re ready to graduate from “Fifty Shades of Grey” to something real — and really intellectual.

Courtney Trouble

Trouble’s website describes her as a “queer porn icon” but it’s true – she’s is an icon. She is a porn performer/director and the founder of TROUBLEfilms, IndiePornRevolution.com, and QueerPorn.tv. She has won numerous Feminist Porn Awards.

Erika Lust

The founder of Erika Lust Films, Erika studied political science and feminism at Lund University, and has made her career out of challenging the conventions of the adult film industry. Born in Sweden and living/working in Barcelona, she writes and directs award-winning films that blur the boundaries of gender, sexuality, pleasure and fetish. Lust says: “Porn is a huge part of the culture we’re living in. We cannot just ignore porn, we have to participate and discuss this very influential genre.” Amen.

Got a question for Stefanie? Email stefanie at ecosalon dot com, and she’ll answer it in the next Sexual Healing column.

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

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ColumnAre you a feminist? Do you like porn? Luckily your politics and your pleasure can hang out in the same room without humiliating each other: feminist porn is here to stay.

Feminism is complicated – it has come in waves and continues to exist in camps. It’s less and less a dirty word – even some celebs are embracing the once-shunned Big F — it’s become a trend (for better or worse).

But when it comes to pleasure, there’s long been a divide between anti-porn/anti-sex feminists and sex-positive feminists. Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon rose to prominence in the seventies and eighties by trying to ban porn, not to mention sex work in general. Their argument was that all forms of sex in the marketplace – porn, prostitution, etc. – required the ipso facto exploitation of women. There could be no nuance or exception — porn was all bad, and all porn performers were unequivocal victims.

If women were turned on by porn, it was because there was something wrong with them, according to the Dworkin/MacKinnon coterie. Brave pioneers like my friend performance artist/porn star/eco-sex activist Annie Sprinkle have always been out there fighting the good fight and telling the truth about women in and around porn. It’s been a long road, but the new wave of feminist porn is here — and it’s exploding into mainstream consciousness.

Advocates of feminist porn argue that anti-porn feminists ignore the agency of all women by assuming that porn performers are victims, or worse — self-delusional. It’s true that there are plenty of demeaning images in old-school porn, made by men for men. But throwing the baby out with the (porn-star) bathwater only deprives women of discovering their own relationship with the meaning of pleasure. One can identify images that are truly dehumanizing and use alternative images — those that are empowering, beautiful, and truly hot. What’s better than a video that gets you off and agrees with your politics? Orgasms that come with progressive street cred are wonderful orgasms indeed.

In the last ten years or so, pro-sex feminists have begun winning the porn wars, in large measure, by taking porn into their own hands: producing, writing, directing, and starring in it.

The ultra-fascinating “Feminist Porn Book” offers its own broad definition of feminist porn:

As both an established and emerging genre of pornography, feminist porn uses sexually explicit imagery to contest and complicate dominant representations of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, ability, age, body type, and other identity markers. It explores concepts of desire, agency, power, beauty and pleasure at their most confounding and difficult, including pleasure within and across inequality, in the face of injustice, and against the limits of gender hierarchy and both hetero-normativity and homo-normativity. It seeks to unsettle conventional definitions of sex, and expand the language of sex and an erotic activity, an expression of identity, a power exchange, a cultural commodity, and even a new politics.

Put more simply: feminist porn is inclusive, and it’s not made exclusively for men, like most mainstream porn. That doesn’t mean that it’s softcore Cinemax or light erotica a la the cheesy, bodice-ripping Harelquin. If you blushed reading “Fifty Shades of Grey,” you’ll probably turn even redder watching anything labeled feminist porn. But it’s worth the hot cheeks – you can really learn something about yourself by letting yourself go there.

In part two of this series, I’ll introduce you to a few breakout producers and stars in the genre.

Got a question for Stefanie? Email stefanie at ecosalon dot com, and she’ll answer it in the next Sexual Healing column.

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

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ColumnDear headline writers. This is not Spinal Tap.

Made you click! Quite a task, it seems, in today’s hyper-competitive online media marketplace. After all, this story is just one of dozens, maybe even hundreds, that will compete for your attention today. And the truth is that some of us will use any trick in the book to get at your precious eyeballs, including cry-wolf, volume-to-11 headlines.

We all get snagged this way from time to time. Evidently, some—let’s say quantifiable lots—more than others. In many ways, we seem to have come full circle back to the days of the penny press and its yellow journalism, with an omnipresent din of hawkers on every digital street corner: Extra! Extra! Every single word guaranteed to be over the top!

But really, is everything an extra? Is there nothing interesting that remains appropriately under the top? Apparently not much.

The noise starts early in the day, for some even before we get out of bed, our smartphones serving up morning copy that promises to be “truly unbelievable!” and photo stories that are nothing short of cap-S “stunning!” and cap B-“breathtaking!” Yes, the a.m. rush isn’t complete without being informed that today—every day, in fact—is the best of times and the worst of times, the end of something as we know it, and the magnificent start of something new. Do we dare miss out?

Here’s one from Upworthy, a good site with a lot of compelling material: “This Is Not A Joke. You May Laugh, But You Shouldn’t. It’s Quite Horrifying—It has to be seen to be believed. But you still won’t believe it.” Really? This is about a bizarre napkin designed to cover the mouths of Japanese women while they eat hamburgers. Insanely weird and sexist? Yes. Warranting a headline that would make a civil defense air-raid siren blush? Maybe not.

Moving on, how does (did?) this grab you: “Antibiotic resistance will mean the end of just about everything as we know it.” Right. That’s from Salon, a way-too-frequent flyer on click-me-now air, and purveyor of other gems such as “Psychopaths: Some are just like us!” (Are they?!) and “Embrace your small penis, men: Everyone else is lying anyway!” Mmhmm. Thanks.

Of course, nothing screams like good sex—or rather, porn. Lots of porn. “Food porn.” “Ruin porn.” “Nature porn.” And, for the more bookish, here is a related, sexualizing the unsexualizable trend that won’t seem to go away: I call it “A Million Shades of 50 Shades.” Politics: “Israel’s 50 shades of dismay over Iran nuke deal.” (GlobalPost). Science: “50 Shades of Grey (Matter): How Science is Defying BDSM Stereotypes.” (Huffington Post) Literature: “You Want Erotic? The Countless Shades of Anaïs Nin.” (Yeah, well, that last one was mine. At least I went for book on book.)

Of course, there are easy pickings on both our Left and Right. Obamacare: “Worse Than Slavery.” Debt ceiling: “How to prepare for the… apocalypse.” The cacophony in this category is truly beyond the pale. Even down-the-middle CNN (I know, if CNN represents the middle, we’re in real trouble) recently offered us this, just in case tornadic destruction wasn’t enough to grab our attention: “Grandma’s Last Words: ‘Get Me Out.’” Thank you, CNN.

Want more? Just Google something. Anything. You’ll find a headline to suit your most highly caffeinated, info-active mood about all things est—biggest, baddest, worst, best. The hunt for something incredible (in the strictest sense of the word) is like shooting fish in barrel. In fact, you don’t even have to search. It will come to you. (To avoid piling on, let’s pass for now on deliberately misleading headlines, a story unto itself: accuracy as collateral damage.)

Yet strangely, it doesn’t seem too long ago in Webville when superlatives more or less meant something, and an Onion headline was an Onion headline, and not mistaken (at second blush, at least) for real information.

Step Right Up

In a past lifetime, when I was a first-year Journalism grad student in Chicago, headline writing was part of a fearsome, nuts-and-bolts J-school boot camp. (One prof was a formidable ex-marine, in fact, boasting a handlebar mustache and a hair-trigger red pen.) The effort was like puzzle-solving—and not everyone was good at it. Limited space, limited words, a story to represent and (just as with the lead) a promise to be fulfilled if a reader should take the time to engage. And, yes, eyeballs to grab, too. All told, creating a headline is like wrestling with a mini Rubik’s cube.

The idea of selling your story often taps into a different side of the brain than actually covering it. Indeed, in most editorial worlds, headlines are not written by the writer of the piece itself, but by talented copy editors and, increasingly (online), by editors themselves. Writers who have been around will tell you of the countless times they opened their paper (or magazine, or laptop) and saw their copy under some weird words that made them think hmmm—or, more likely, “oh god, no.”

In any case, no matter who’s behind what’s on top of a story, there’s nothing wrong with selling copy with snappy headlines. They can be fun and creative and (hopefully) expository—an art form unto themselves. And no one, myself included, wants you to pass over his or her work for want of intrigue. (Kudos, by the way, to someone in these pages who recently walked the line and came out shining with “The Universe is So Weird! There’s Plastic on Saturn’s Moon?”)

Moreover, facts (and there so many of them) are facts: In the not-too-distant past, each day we were confronted with a limited number of “stories”—a newspaper or two, maybe a magazine or three, some TV to choose from. But today, we’re hit with thousands of them during our waking hours, most of which come to us online, as for-profit media outlets scratch away and beg so very hard for our mindpsace. Let’s be honest: no one should expect a publishing effort to be okay with simply fading into the background.

But as readers, many of us need to do a better job considering the cry-wolf factor as we scan our screens. (Face it, there’s not going to be an uprising anytime soon that says to HuffPo, Salon and all the others, “keep pulling that crap with the headlines and you’ll lose market share.” It sure would be nice though, huh?) Maybe it is just one breath of awareness before we offer up our prized click. That nanosecond when we can say: “Wait. Really? Am I really going to reach for that bright shiny thing?”

Finally, consider that subtlety isn’t dead—it’s just, well, subtle. Noise isn’t the key to good copy or truthful news. In fact, it might serve to tell you that what follows is not as advertised. Discernment is what it’s cracked up to be. The more game you bring, the better gems you are going to find.

I guess it’s like anything else in the days of the horrifying, unbelievable, incredible Information Age—it’s our job to consume wisely and be on lookout for what is real and true under the sea of hype. That said, headline writers, please stop screaming at me! On a scale of 1 to 10, even for the sensational, 10 is enough. This is not Spinal Tap.

(As I write, this just in: “Man who stripped naked and stuck a fire extinguisher hose up his bottom in a hotel corridor walks free.”—The Independent. Seriously?)

Scott Adelson is EcoSalon’s Senior Editor of HyperKulture, a monthly column that explores opening cultural doors to initiate personal change. He is also the author of InPRINT, which reviews and discusses books, new and old. You can reach him at scott at adelson dot org and follow him @scottadelson on Twitter.

Related Reading:

HyperKulture: Dear Oprah, Please Tell Us Who We Are — Atheists, Feminists And Other ‘Others’ Need To Know

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HyperKulture: In Swoon’s Way – Time traveling and Staring Down Florence Syndrome

InPRINT: You Want Erotic? The Countless Shades of Anaïs Nin

InPRINT: Albert Camus and the Biggest Question of All

Images: Cory Doctorow (top) and The Library of Congress

The post Read this F*&%ing Story! — Spinal Tap Headlines and You: HyperKulture appeared first on EcoSalon.

A weekly look at sex and culture, by the numbers.

1 minute: Length of the first Magic Mike trailer to feature full male nudity, released this week

112: Age of recently discovered notes from a failed Antarctic expedition describing the “depraved” behavior of Adelie penguins, including apparent acts of necrophilia

$413: Difference in amount earned per hour by one American stripper in a single month last year

1200: Wedding licenses pulled by Hawaiian wedding planner Maui’d Forever since a recent ruling requires all weddings taking place on Hawaii’s beaches to purchase state permits

13: Same-sex unions & weddings taking place in comic book stores nationwide next week to celebrate the release of Astonishing X-Men #51, in which Northstar marries boyfriend Kyle

100: Participants in a brawl that broke out at a Glendale wedding last weekend that ended in multiple arrests

1000: Signatures amassed overnight on a bill attempting to block the creation of domain names .porn, .adult and .sex

4%: Proportion of text messages sent by teenagers that contains sexual content (an average of 77 per month per teen), according to data gathered by TxtWatcher

Image: Ricymar Fine Art Photography

The post Sex by Numbers: A Very Blue Hawaii appeared first on EcoSalon.

A weekly look at sex and culture, by the numbers.

246-168: House vote on the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA), which would have banned sex-selective abortions in the U.S.

40: Minutes of footage for a porn shoot filmed on the field of the famed USC Coliseum in 2001

0: Number of federal judges who upheld the constitutionality of the Defense Of Marriage Act in a recent appeals ruling

6%: Alcohol content in a new wine label developed by sex therapist Dr. Ruth in the interest of promoting relaxed, not drunken intimacy between couples

$8-10: Retail value of one bottle of Dr. Ruth’s wine

$5000: Gift money stolen during the wedding of a couple in Florida this week

29: Age of Olympian Lori Jones when she announced she had never had sex on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel

6 million: Hits garnered by Isaac Lamb’s choreographed proposal to his girlfriend on YouTube

Image: Chris Breikss

The post Sex by Numbers: Pop Culture appeared first on EcoSalon.

Even your mother looks at porn.

Whether you realize it or not, porn is everywhere, touching every last corner of culture. And you, dear oblivious reader, may have unwittingly helped yourself to an eyeful on more than one occasion today. You probably know a handful of pornographers (if you’re not one yourself), and you probably enjoy a harmless peak more often than you realize. Yes, pornography is exploitative, gamy, and generally gross, but, man, does it get you Web traffic. So, if you’re feeling a bit “funny,” here are some ways to gratify yourself without sullying your eyes with a feast of flesh.

1. Sizzling Bacon Porn

This is my favorite kind of non-porn pornography. Bacon is to food porn what large breasts are to regular porn. Check out the fifth image in the bacon slide show: “Plain scallops quickly turn savory,” reads the caption, “when wrapped in, you guessed it, bacon.”

2. Vegan Porn

What better way to wash the bacon grease off one’s hands than with Vegan Porn? The salty, sensual delights of bubbling pig fat are quickly neutralized by the dry, rational prose of vegan advocacy. (There’s hardcore vegan porn too, but many find it distasteful.) This is like reading the fiction section of Playboy: It’s titillating and erotically illustrated, but you know you’ll have to get down and dirty in the Penthouse Forum if you really want to have a good time. (Note: We’re talking about vegan porn here, not vegan cuisine; just because veganism makes for less-than-ideal masturbatory material doesn’t mean it translates to less-than-ideal meals.)

3. Gratuitous Motor Porn

This is an invention of the good folks at Wired (“gratuitous motor porn” is their term, not mine), and I have to admit that as a non-gearhead, looking at it doesn’t arouse me in the least. Still, this kind of porn is noteworthy for the fact that it operates in two metaphysical planes: There’s real, hardcore porn for those who get off on its straight, grease-and-metal aspect; and there’s a more stylized version that celebrates things on wheels that look like vaginas and penises.

4. Real Estate Porn

Maybe it’s because I’m satisfied with my studio apartment, but I don’t find so-called “house porn” all that sexy. Even so, there are some peeping toms who can be satisfied voyeurs even when the room they’re peering into doesn’t have people having sex in it. This is perhaps the non-porn porn most similar to real porn, in that each is about lusting after a basic necessity (shelter, for real estate porn; companionship, for real porn) you can’t, (at least right now), have. One can survive without a $225,000 Ferrari, and one can hit Safeway without buying bacon, but everyone needs a home. And just as there’s always someone better looking than your partner (except for me; no one’s better looking than my partner), there’s always a bathroom that’s nicer than yours. For sowing dissatisfaction and jealousy, real estate porn is hard to beat.

6. Geek Porn

Geek Porn is a little too self-aware, too hipster-ish for my taste (Lameness should be enjoyed, not celebrated as “so-lame-it’s-actually-cool”). Even so, it’s a popular genre among Star Wars fans and connoisseurs of inside jokes. Of course, given Star Trek’s track record of legitimate (and groundbreaking) eroticism, geekiness and sexiness would seem a natural fit, but alas, this one’s been hijacked by people who are cooler than us.

6. Shoe Porn

Shoe porn feels safe, since it’s difficult to make any part of a shoe look inappropriate. You can stare at these $3 million bad boys on your screen all day, and nary a colleague will realize just how close to bliss you actually are. Unfortunately for shoe pornographers, the decidedly unsexy Economist has begun to horn in on the action, which is like watching Martha Stewart Living branch into erotic cakes.

7. Golf Porn

Seems like an oxymoron, this unholy combination of man’s most boring time-waster with his most gratifying, but that, my friends, is exactly the point. Strokes, balls, and holes are the name of the game here, and let’s not forget the the vast overlap of terminology shared by golf and sex.

8. Gun Porn

While it’s easy to note that men use guns and penises in remarkably similar ways, good gun porn really just comprises the proverbial bag of dicks. It’s all about quantity over quality. I mean, this is just hot, and this, while intriguing, is just wrong. Despite this fundamental difference, though, there’s still the Larry Flynt-ish advocacy of gun porn, which gives it a greater legitimacy that it may or may not deserve.

Image: Deviantart, thebittenword, Jakob Montrasio, Gordana AM, SarahC1978, A Strakey, Nicholas Putz, onigiri-kun, eek the cat

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