Girl on the Net

I have very little truck with entertainment that simply makes me think – I want to read, watch and listen to stuff that makes me fucking feel. And few genres on this planet are more effective at making people feel stuff than porn. Direct, intense, powerful: compelling people to touch themselves, revelling in the sensation of their crotch thudding hot and warm with blood. I adore porn, and in fact I will happily recommend you some fabulous sites if you’d like to buy a sub to get your rocks off (click the ads! And if you can’t see any porn ads, hit refresh until you do!). I don’t actually watch porn while I’m wanking, though, and every now and then I have a conversation with someone in which they look at me like I’m weird when I tell them I can (and usually do) get off without porn. I’m a sex blogger who has access to a lifetime’s worth of free porn! Why aren’t I watching it all the time?! It’s like they feel sorry for me, having to make do with just the thoughts in my head instead of the magic on screen. All the while, I’m feeling sorry for them, because they don’t have access to the kind of content that plays in my own private cinema.

How many of you can get off without porn? I asked this question on Twitter because I was curious – more than a few men have given me weird looks or expressed pity when I tell them I do this all the time. Like I’m telling them I only ever eat ice cream without sprinkles. But some have even stronger views than that. A while ago Sherryl Blu (who you know from the incredible audio porn she contributes to the site here) shared a video of a guy saying that people who can get off without external stimulation are psychopaths. Lol what?! How bizarre to think that something which was essential for the vast majority of humanity until the last century or so  (getting off without erotic media) should mark you out as abnormal! Anyway. That guy’s wrong: over 70% of people said they could still get off without porn. You’re definitely not weird if you can. Nor are you weird if you can’t, by the way.

The following piece is not an attempt to judge/shame anyone for the way they get off: I love porn, as I say, and I do watch a lot of it. Likewise I read amazing sex blogs and listen to audio, enjoying the stunning stories and images that other people make and put out there. It’s just that 99% of the time, when this stuff makes me horny, I then disappear upstairs to go wank to my own stuff instead. Porn is the warm-up, my brain is the headliner. If you enjoy it differently? Good for you! In fact, my livelihood relies on you using my words and work as either warm-up or headliner (depending on your tastes) and my lovely sponsors (FrolicMe! Bright Desire! Bloom Stories for audio! Literotica for words and audio!) will be grateful for your subs/clicks if you’d like to support the incredible porn they make too.

I just find it strange that some people have bought into a sexual script about wanking that implies the only way to do it is through porn. Most of those with whom I’ve had these conversations in real life tend to rely on ‘free’ porn sites too – when you internalise the idea that it’s impossible for anyone to wank without porn, you’re also more likely to see porn as something that you have every right to get ‘for free’ because hey! You neeeeeeed it! Why should you pay? And that bothers me. So I thought I’d have a go at explaining some of the things I love about the porn in my imagination. I’m not saying you HAVE to wank like this, just that if you’d like another tool in your sexual toolbox, ‘imagination’ might be one you want to have a go at sharpening.

Why head porn is my favourite

First thing’s first: my brain is the best porn director who has ever lived, because it never has to please anyone other than me. My fantasies are richer and more perfectly tailored to my tastes than anything another human could ever create. Even boyfriends who have known me well enough to tell me a sexy story will never get as close to perfection as the horny output of my own real-life brain. The porn that exists in my head is bespoke, darlings. It’s fucking porn couture.

Secondly, the porn in my head is the safest porn you could ever imagine. I know, recently I’ve been sharing some stories that dip into more misogynist, sometimes violent and often non-consensual territory. But I stick by what I said: this porn is safe. While the porn industry (like every industry) carries the risk of exploitation, I can be confident that the people in my head aren’t being exploited at all. This is mostly true of the porn I watch, of course, because I generally only watch stuff that I know is made by ethical studios, but with that stuff I have to do – UGH – research and due diligence before I can feel truly comfortable saying ‘yeah, that’s OK.’ I do still sometimes watch porn with a guy as well, and I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from asking if he paid for it, and what he knows about the studio’s ethics.

Head porn is safe from these worries, though. The people in it can’t be exploited, because they don’t exist. No one is being underpaid or disrespected or treated badly or compelled to fuck when they’re tired or ill just because they need tomorrow’s paycheque. Nor will I find out later down the line that this particular character is played by a racist, transphobe or other flavour of cunt.

It’s also safe from the intrusion of things that could massively turn me off. How often do you find yourself skipping forward through a section of a porn scene when it dips into acts that you find boring or actively offputting? In my head, I am safe from surprise annoyances: fake shrieking, aggressively gynaecological fanny close-ups, or shots that cut off the guy’s face just when we’re getting to the good bit. I am also safe from things that would actively trigger distress if sprung on me by surprise: the word ‘daddy’, for instance, or ‘teen’ dropped into the titles or an on-screen logo. Your list of triggers or annoyances will be different to mine, of course, but most of us have at least a couple.

Directing porn on God-mode

Note: the next paragraph contains brief references to BDSM/beating and sexual violence.

Above all, my head porn is always going to be better for me because I get to view it in God-mode. I don’t just get to direct my fuckpuppets’ positions and words, I get to shape the very thoughts inside their heads. I don’t just see the grimace on a guy’s face as he realises he’s close to coming, so desperate for release that he’ll consider beating someone just to see her body twitch before he plunges it in, I also get to fully understand the depths of his abject shame as he comprehends how monstrous a thing that would be to do. I can see the moment when his cock thuds at the idea of dispensing a thrashing, even as I also see the shape and depth of his need to make himself come. I hold in my mind all the physical details, sure, but I get to see inside the brain of this man too. Immersing myself in that dark, depraved, delicious moment of pre-nut callous urgency, as he not only decides that he’s going to do it anyway but convinces himself that he has no other choice.

Unngh.

Visual porn could never do this, not in a thousand lifetimes. The absolute best of the best of it – with words and expressions and incredible direction and tone and a talented cast – sometimes gets a little bit close. But it’s always limited. By boring things like time and budget, as well as existential things like the laws of physics. You can’t watch video porn on God mode. Erotica gets closer, because with text you can write somebody’s thoughts and motivation, but it’ll always be reliant on someone else’s imagination.

As I say, I’ve discussed this topic with a fair few men. Not that men are the only ones who wank to visual porn (au contraire), but I’m predominantly straight, and I tend to only quiz people in detail about their wanks if I hope that one day they might decide to masturbate to me. I am shameless like that, fucking sue me. But as I say, men often seem baffled, and tell me they can’t get off without video. And holy fuck, it’s so hard to explain how hard that is to get my head around. You mean you don’t… have your own bespoke porn cinema? You lack the capacity to come to the feelings inside your head? Fuck.

I say ‘feelings’ here because I don’t think I know exactly what is meant when people talk about a ‘mind’s eye.’ One of my friends once tried to get me into discussion about aphantasia (the lack of ability to see ‘pictures’ of things inside your head) and I couldn’t quite grok what he meant. I don’t ever ‘see’ pictures in my head like I would if my eyes were open, when I picture something I’m just conjuring the concept of it. Tell me to picture an apple and I will. I don’t see it inside my eyelids, I just… know that an apple is there. I could tell you if it was red or green but I wouldn’t see the colours, especially not if my eyes were open: if that were the case how would anybody daydream while they drove a car? Behind my eyes it’s just black with subtly flashing/swarming colours – I couldn’t see an apple, let alone a dick. In my mental cinema, I don’t see the porn: I know it. I feel it. I am not trying to ‘picture’ what a dick looks like when it’s taut and swollen just before I sit down on it. I just know it like I know it’s warm and I’m holding a dildo and my cunt is throbbing.

Pragmatism and porn

Anyway. Tangent. Some men have been baffled when I tell them I never watch porn while I’m wanking, and I am baffled in return when they tell me they do it all the time. I am a bit sad for them, truth be told: the practicalities must be an absolute fucking nightmare. I can’t compute what it must be like to have to hold a phone while I’m wanking. How would that even work? Not only do I need both hands to wank these days (Ambit or Morpheus in my left hand, Zumio or Doxy in my right), but I also think I’d end up with constant aches and pains. I get enough of a sore neck from being so obsessed with Twitter, for fuck’s sake: wanking’s one of the few screen breaks I ever embark on voluntarily.

And the cost of it! Holy shit! You’re paying for your porn, of course, aren’t you? I know you are, you’re cool like that – you support the creators who make the stuff you love because you know that without your support that stuff won’t exist. But if you like variety and novelty, that’s a significant monthly outlay.

I’m not into variety myself: when I was with my ex we’d often watch porn together – he was a very visual person and I loved to watch him (or better – sit next to him or behind him touching his body and feeling the tension in his muscles) as he beat one out. Unngh. But when we’d do this, it was so hard to find porn that worked with both our tastes and didn’t trip either of our boredom-triggers or icks, so instead of browsing a sub site for new stuff each time, we usually had a few porn scenes that I’d request on rotation. More honestly, there were basically two or three scenes that were staple favourites, all from the same studio.

OK, fine I confess: there was one.

One solid-gold, A-plus, in-with-a-bullet masterpiece, guaranteed to give us both an excellent time. Don’t ask me what it was, by the way: I promised him that his porn tastes would always be off-limits for blog posts, and I’m going to stick with that promise. Just trust me: it was fucking exceptional.

Anyway! Porn! My ex and I would watch porn together, and sometimes I’ve watched porn with other men. But fundamentally, when I’m doing that, the porn itself is rarely the point of the exercise (for me). I don’t watch porn with men so I can get off on the video, I watch porn with men because the video gives me a breadcrumb-trail into the thoughts in their head. I flick my eyes back-and-forth between the screen and their hands, noting which moments make them speed up or grip tighter as they rub themselves. I’m observing not just which bits of the scene they skip, but which parts they’re skipping through to reach. Porn is the journey, but their brains are the destination.

Which brings me neatly back to my mental cinema: the place where I watch porn on God mode. The stories I tell myself in my head are partly about non-con. Sometimes they’re about a free use secretary or the end of the fucking world. But mostly the plot is the packaging that I wrap around the meat of the issue: the thoughts inside the heads of men, and the dark things they think of when they come.

Can you get off without porn?

I’m not telling anyone else how they should or shouldn’t get off: some of you will struggle to get off without porn (be that video porn, erotica, audio porn or whatever) and others will just prefer it (just as I could technically have a wank without sex toys, but it wouldn’t feel as good as a tooled-up hand shandy so I rarely bother). But I do find it strange that some people have internalised a narrative that it’s somehow weird to rely on your own thoughts in order to come. That’s what most humans have done since the start of time! The internet’s a pretty new invention, and even old-school dirty wank mags only started getting thrown into bushes about fifty years ago or so.

If I could give everyone the gift of their own head porn director, I’d do it in a heartbeat. And delightfully, I don’t think it’d kill the porn industry or even harm it slightly. On the contrary, I think it’d make people more – not less – likely to seek out new porn. One of the things I adore about porn made by other people is that it gives me inspiration that I carry with me upstairs and hand over to my personal porn director anyway. A new position, maybe, a facial expression. A scenario or tone that I’ve not come across before. Maybe a particular cum shot that hit or splattered or dribbled juuuuust right…

Can you get off without porn? Not everyone can, but it’s definitely not weird if you do. Hopefully you can count yourself lucky that you also have a porn director in your head, just waiting for the right inspiration to call ‘action’ and get to work.