Collegiate Times

All guys look at porn; period. Frequency may range from curiosity to full blown hobby, but I would be willing to eat my next paycheck if you can find a guy who hasn’t at least dabbled in this timeless voyeurism. Pornography has come a long way since your grandfather’s day, and the Internet has made access as easy as a click, ranging from specifically creepy to professionally erotic.

I know some of you girls wouldn’t agree, but the female body is sexy, beautiful and alluring in every shape, size and color. Put a girl who has just woken up in an orange rain poncho, and I guarantee the porn site would get a million hits a day. And because the female figure is so attractive, guys like looking at it. I would never compare Jenna Jamison to the Mona Lisa, or Larry Flint to Picasso, but you can’t go to the National Gallery of Art every day. Sometimes stilettos, fishnet stockings, handcuffs and a midget are just what you need to start the day.

And I understand that girls don’t look at porn, guys are, as a whole, not attractive. You just don’t hear them referred to as beautiful, or gorgeous. The entire reason they invented the word handsome is so you girls would have something flattering to say after we’ve showered. But porn does happen, and I would be disillusioning our female readers, as much as their boyfriends are, if I said anything different.

There is one phenomenon I would like to talk about before I tackle the age old confrontation between man and woman about porn. Why can’t girls find porn? I can count on multiple hands the numbers of friends — who are girls — who have asked me how to find porn. I do find it a little disconcerting that they turn to me as their authority on porn, their Microsoft paperclip of Internet nakedness, but it still befuddles me how an entire sex can be devoid of such obvious knowledge. Porn is to the Internet like polo shirts are to Lacoste. But since I feel like I should provide this service to the at-large female population, I will put it down in three simple steps.

One — open the Google. Two — put your junx in that search box, and by junx I mean any female body part or female term that comes to your mind. Three — open the box, and that is how you do it. That’s my porn on the net.

But now that we have that out of the way we can tackle the underlying issue at hand. Should guys look at porn when they are in a relationship? I say no. Porn is a curiosity and fleeting fancy that most men should grow out of as they mature and come to terms with what is important in life. Regardless of relationship status, porn should lose its attraction. Time is better spent searching for that ever ellusive happiness from within. This means career fulfillment, familial responsibility, the endless pursuit of knowledge, or the intimacy of another. As you get older there are just better things to do with your time and more outlets for sexual frustration.

Besides the obvious physical attraction that brings two people together, what really makes a relationship sizzle is the inner connection that each person feels when they are together. You can talk to Jerry Maguire about completing you, but for me it’s a certain comfort level, an unspoken recognition between two people that each person brings something totally different to the table. Something that will continually challenge each other to be the best, and the understanding that you don’t always have to be the best, they’ve got your back.

Porn will never be able to do that, no matter how much you watch or how many strip clubs you go to. While it is a certain rite of passage that each adolescent male must go through to fully realize what he truly needs in life, it is by no means a be all and an end all. I will say this though, ladies, cut your boy some slack if he likes to watch porn, it might teach him a few things. And when your curiosity is invariably peaked and you need to find some on the Internet, he’ll be right there to let you know it’s as easy as one, two, three.

The “Girls Next Door” are three beautiful, blonde and buxom women known as Hugh Hefner’s love bunnies. They gallivant around the Playboy mansion indulging in goodies provided by the ultimate sugar daddy. They drive pink Porsches, wear designer labels and are the lust objects of many men’s desires. These women certainly do not display the retention of any academia in their actions on their show; that is unless they’ve received their doctorates in plastic surgery.

No doubt these women are beautiful and receive anything they want. And how did they achieve such status? By disgracefully displaying themselves nude on the glossy pages of Playboy magazine.

Whether it’s the Internet, TV or the pages of a magazine, pornography exists in an array of media forms. Ranging from hard-core to soft-core and late night cable to downloadable Internet images, pornography is 100 percent degrading to women.

With that said, I know a decent amount of women who have watched porn, and while they many not mind the actions being performed in front of them, they are aware essentially that the women on the screen are being displayed as mere objects of men’s fantasies and desires. I think it’s safe to say that the majority of college-aged men have seen their fair share of porn as well. Whether one chooses to view this undignified display of sexual activity as a means to “learn” different sexual techniques, for mere pleasure or for entertainment, it is in no way, shape or form a realistic display of a sexual encounter. When’s the last time the maid rang your doorbell and one minute later was naked in your bed?

Pornography exists as a mere form of fantasy, leading males to believe that women actually act like these women on film. Reality check, these women are actors. If you want a girl to act like these women do in bed, then seek out the accompaniment of a porn star, not a real woman. Call them hot, sexy or whatever raunchy adjective you so desire: They’re not real.

I have plenty of guy friends who watch porn, and no, I don’t hold it against them. Most men tend to think of porn as a form of entertainment. It’s erotic and arousing but in the form of visual amusement. Porn provides this image that women are constantly capable of performing erotically and wildly in bed. I’m not saying that women don’t enjoy erotic or passionate sex; it’s just that men have extreme expectations of women that are completely unrealistic, so eloquently provided by the porn industry.

Whether it’s dirty talk, unrealistic positions or grazing orifices that just would never be explored if it weren’t for the pioneers of the erotic film industry, pornography essentially takes away one of the most fundamental and important aspects of sex: intimacy. 

In light of Girls Gone Wild coming to Blacksburg, it’s obvious that a woman who exposes herself in such a shameful manner elicits a fiery response. Call it entertainment, call it acting, or call it whatever you want, pornography is degrading to women and takes away the fundamental intimate aspects that sex so importantly adds to a relationship.