Pornography is called many things. Some call it liberating, others call it. There's one thing that everyone can or should agree on when we are talking about video pornography is that porn is recorded and to some extent staged. And like other kinds of recorded and staged film, porn bares about as much similarity to our real sex lives as a movie does to our daily life. Which is to say, not much. In other words, porn may be many things, but it's not real life. Still, many of us confuse what we see in adult films with what we expect to happen in our own sex lives, or what we imagine happening in the lives of others. This makes some sense. For starters, many people's earliest exposure to sexual material is through pornography. Of course, there's an important difference between sex education and good sex education and with very few exceptions porn rarely fits the criteria of good sex ed. Most Porn Is Made in a Vacuum Real life sexual experiences happen in a social context. Porn has none of this. The vast majority of mainstream pornography is made by a small, insulated, and a surprisingly sexually unsophisticated group of people in southern California. Sexual behavior can be an incredibly complicated form of human communication and interaction. Porn Bodies, Hollywood Bodies You should never compare your body to what you see in porn. For starters, porn actors are chosen in part for their physical attributes. The average penis size among male porn stars is not representative of anything in the general population. As well, because many female actors still make the majority of their money by stripping, plastic surgery remains ubiquitous in the adult entertainment industry. Lighting, camera angles, makeup, and even pubic hair design changes the appearance and apparent size of porn star body parts. Sex Positions for the Camera The sexual positions you see in porn are chosen for a few reasons including visual variety and what will allow the camera greatest access to all the hidden parts. In fact, some sexual positions you see in porn are clearly uncomfortable for one or both of the performers. Porn is Meant to Shock and Excite The kinds of sexual behaviors you see in porn are not based on any idea of what people actually do in their bedrooms, they are based on what will excite and often shock the porn viewer. Thus external is a required element of visual pornography, even though this is not necessarily a common part of the sexual repertoire. There are constant breaks and interruptions during the shooting of a single scene, and they may even shoot some elements out of order. The end result is that what you see, the order you see it in, and how long it all takes, is often determined by the editing and not the actual sex that took place.
