... to ask if you have ever watched porn?

[AskTrivialQuestion]

NC for this trivial question that came up as part of a discussion with friends. I've NEVER watched porn, and I was the only person in the discussion (all female friends) that had never done so.

YABU: I've watched porn. I expect most women have at some point
YANBU: I've never watched porn either. You are not unusual

Unfortunately yes. I had a bit of a problem with it, nothing too heavy though. But I haven't in a long time now and the thought of it repulses me thankfully.

only a little in the past.

i became paranoid about seeing something illegal / very distasteful/ exploitative and supporting an industry with very dodgy ethics. I work in an area where safeguarding is very i portant and I have my work email on my phone - I doubt it could actually happen but I don’t want to trigger my organisations alerts somehow.

@RubberDuckyURtheone
I feel pretty strongly about it, i just don't think I feel it can be ethical because I've no real way of knowing the performers are not being exploited.

How is that different from any other industry? Fashion or food production, for example?

And if there were a way of knowing this - say for example if there were a robust system of government licensing of producers based on ethical standards, with requirements of full transparency about performers etc - would that solve the ethical question?

I wonder where people start to consider it 'porn'. Many movies these days have 'obscene' sex scenes (supposedly, 'Nymphomaniac' with Shia LaBeouf is one, although I have only heard anecdotally), or even Game of Thrones.

It's still an actor getting paid for on-screen sex acts. How many people here are dodging the 'label' of never having watched it, but watched things that are practically the same.

I've seen it, but it doesn't do much for me.

To be fair @init4thecats anyone would surely expect a film called Nymphomaniac to feature some sex…?

but it’s an interesting question. Scenes from films with simulated/implied sex have stayed in my mind much longer than porn I’ve seen.

In reference to some of the posts above, I do realize that some what is "pornographic" to a one person that is also changing and evolving over time. I could not imagine Bridgerton being on BBC 40 years ago.

Also, for me there is a distinction between reading fiction and video content with real humans. But again, what people's threshold for what is acceptable or not will differ.

16% of people (I assume it is mostly women) have never. Based on the discussion with friends that caused me to make this post, I'm not so strange after all :)

As a curious teen with friends who got hold of it 'for a laugh'. Urgh. Not since. Since I learned and understood about the objectification of women, trafficking, misogyny, etc., you wouldn't catch me near it.

Yes. Have looked at the main sites quite a few times over the years when in the mood.

Very little appeals to me though. I suppose as a straight woman I want to see beautiful men but very few are. The focus is on the woman and the women are so fake anyway. Why are they always so OVERCOME with what is being done to them? The constant noise from the women and silence from the men. And what a PP said. The closeups. So unerotic.

I prefer erotic fiction.

I have because I am outspokenly anti porn and I was told on here that a) I was ridiculous for saying that anything “too bad” would be accessible by kids and b)that it was easy to find and identify ethical porn. Turns out that (a) it is. And (b) it isn’t.

There is loads of great erotica available. Fun to read-and to write.

A couple of times when I was much younger and not sure why. I think I’m probably in the minority but I’m very anti it and think it’s exploitative and it would honestly be appalled if I found out DH was watching it (he knows this).

Nope having workef with a woman trafficked as a sex worker as a minor- no just no.

@AbstractsNo. Why?

I've seen porn before. I don't like it very much. I suppose it's not really made to appeal to me.

Yes :0

I think, just as teens of today, we all have seen it.
Watching something doesn't mean you automatically approve or like it though. Or that you'd do it by choice another time. It's people who are addicted to it, the ones who have no imagination left because they rely on porn to create situations, who's moral edges get increasingly blurred every time a woman is held down...that's the danger zone of watching porn.

Yep. I have no problem with it at all.
We make our own often too.

I said on another recent post about porn but I'll say it again; can you imagine women doing to men what the films show? Women forcing dildos down mens throats until they gag? Up their bums? Imagine that was all over the front pages of these sites and men would be going ape.

I've seen gifs in google searches, but beyond my initial "Am i asexual or not" questioning in my late teens/early 20's i've not looked up actual sites. Most of what i saw was not my taste, way too performative and about the visuals, its bad acting.

M/M or female gaze does it for me, and I'm glad to see I'm not alone. I'm surprised most posters' experience of porn is the male gaze stuff aimed at hetero men. I've only ever seen it in passing and moved on quickly as it's not for me.

I've never watched it. It really doesn't appeal to me at all.

I'm 40s, and wouldn't have known where to go looking for it as a teen even if I'd wanted to - it didn't even occur to me to look at porn I don't think. Back then my family had a desktop PC in the living room, which would have been the only way I could have accessed it anyway!

The closest I got to porn was More magazine's position of the week, which often lead to more questions than answers tbh! 😂

Oh you sweet summer child. This definitely exists. Not only can I imagine it, I have seen it (it didn't do it for me).

@Abstracts No. I looked at porn because I like to know what I am talking about. Unlike many politicians.