So... Porn. (TMI)

[Kav]

I know from reading things around here that many asexuals still have active libidos and use adult films to satisfy their basic human drives. Aesthetic or sensual attraction can be plenty sufficient to get there, even without a desire to partake in the real thing with another human being. So my question here is, for those who regularly use incognito tabs, what aspects of pornography, well, do it for you?

 

This is a burning question I've had for a long time and never been drunk enough to ask another person face-to-face. I'm definitely attracted to women aesthetically. When I watch porn, I'm focused on the upper half of the lady. Not just boobs, but faces. To enjoy it, I have to at least be able to maintain an illusion that the female participant is having a genuinely good time. It's always frustrating when the camera cuts to close shots of just meat slamming together.

 

I don't know if that's just a weird quirk of a straight man or a sign of asexuality with a keen interest in female aesthetics. I don't know if it qualifies as sexual attraction; I'm never mentally putting myself in the scene, I'm just watching and enjoying. It seems like a sign of asexuality, but I could just be misunderstanding the differences between aesthetic attraction and sexual attraction. I should probably also compare notes with straight male friends; how do they engage with pornography? Do they enjoy the meat-slamming bits? How do "normal" people enjoy porn?

 

But I'm just starting to figure this stuff out, so I thought I'd bug you folks first.

 

(EDIT: Sorry, wasn't aware of the TMI tag. I edited it into the title.)

Edited October 22, 2019 by Kav

[Anime Pancake]

TMI warning sexual content

 

Personally I like how the female body looks except the part where the male part goes into it.

 

Im repulsed by between the legs.

 

I have sensual desires of touching a woman, though I dont want to have sex.

 

So... I think I know what you mean.

 

Some asexuals think kissing is sexual (making out) and probably think I am sexual. I am just sensual, not wanting to have penetrating sex

[nerdography]

TMI: sexual content

 

I watch for specific scenes. Kissing, touching above clothing, and her breast being played with. I stop watching after that point, because it’s to graphic.

[Memento1]

You may be tired of hearing from me.  But I think this topic is interesting!

 

I'm a woman so can't speak for The Typical Male Experience (LOL), but conventional porn does little to nothing for me.  Erotic fanfiction is way more up my alley, because it's more focused on the participants' feelings than the physical bumping and grinding.  I've had friends tell me they enjoy amateur porn way more than the produced, mass-marketed stuff, because it's actual couples and feels more real.  Also that woman-made porn generally has more foreplay while man-made porn is focused on intercourse.  I do like it better, though it all eventually gets to the intercourse that does nothing for me.

 

There is a widely held belief that men respond to visual sexual stimuli more strongly than women, but there's a lot of cognitive processing that goes into that.  There's a fascinating though pretty scientific article about that here.  The same article says men usually spend more time looking at the female's face in porn, so that's not unusual.

 

But really, I don't care so much what's "normal".  I've found that plenty of people are in my little corner of the bell-curve, and it's perfectly valid.

[Kav]

5 hours ago, Memento1 said:

I'm a woman so can't speak for The Typical Male Experience (LOL), but conventional porn does little to nothing for me.  Erotic fanfiction is way more up my alley, because it's more focused on the participants' feelings than the physical bumping and grinding.

Okay, so I've been turning stuff over in my head and examining it all day, and while driving around I remembered something.

 

Once, years ago, I tried my hand at writing a bit of erotic fan fiction. It was going pretty well, I thought, progressing from the sexual tension between the two characters to the nervous first kiss to the full-on heavy petting and such... and I lost interest in writing it as soon as, well, it was time for the characters to get down to business. At the time, I dismissed it as me just abandoning another project, or maybe not being comfortable writing about the mechanical parts because, well, virgin, but... wow. Yeah.

 

Oh, and the characters? Archie Comics' Betty Cooper... and Forsyth "Jughead" Jones.

 

Probably the oldest and most well-known asexual character in American pop culture.

 

And my favorite character since my dad brought home a box of old Archie digests he got at a garage sale.

 

How did I miss all these flags?!

[DryRain]

6 hours ago, Anime Pancake said:

TMI warning sexual content

Personally I like how the female body looks except the part where the male part goes into it.

Im repulsed by between the legs.

I have sensual desires of touching a woman, though I dont want to have sex.

that's pretty much it for me as well. Aesthetically attracted to women but quite repulsed by genitals.

 

6 hours ago, Kav said:

I'm definitely attracted to women aesthetically. When I watch porn, I'm focused on the upper half of the lady. Not just boobs, but faces. To enjoy it, I have to at least be able to maintain an illusion that the female participant is having a genuinely good time. It's always frustrating when the camera cuts to close shots of just meat slamming together.

and also this, that's pretty much it.

 

Unfortunately I have a high libido (which is quite a pain), so I do have to find this kind of stuff often, and finding something that fits those criteria can be quite hard, as a LOT of porn is male-focused and generally not concerned with the women's side of things.

[nutterwithasolderingiron]

TMI WARNING: masturbation habits

i still watch porn but i often have a real hard time getting into it. it's like the second i hear overly fake moaning, i turn off. i also get pretty turned off by the stereotypical actresses..... or in most cases if the porn even has acting in it. at that point i wanna pull out the popcorn like i'm watching the room or zombeak. 

 

hentai seems to be a bit easier for me to watch but sometimes, the plots are so dumb that i end up paying more attention to them than the sex scenes. 

 

nsfw fanart/comics or erotic stories seem to be the most consistent ways to get me to pay attention and actually finish (finishing aint always a thing that happens for me because i get bored and give up) because if i already know the character, then i've already made somewhat of a connection with them and feel i can continue. however sometimes if the fanart/fanfic breaks cannon, i also get turned off. 

[RedGloves]

TMI

 

I don't know if this can be helpful at all since I'm female and it's a completely different experience and pretty confusing.  Sorry If it makes anyone uncomfortable. 

 

     The strange thing is that when watching porn I'm drawn to female characteristics, so feminine looking people. But if there's 'female parts' involved in the porn, even breasts, I just can't enjoy it, I don't know why. Maybe my subconscious see it as if it's too similar to myself and just can't process it, just guessing, I don't know. If there's only male parts then I like it. So I never felt anything watching straight porn, it's just awkward to me. I'm not trying to be disrespectful but the only way I can describe it is that it feels like watching animals mating (?), even the softer videos, like it's removed from me. As a teenager I usually watched gay porn, but not the massproduced ones. And I usually chose it based on how the bottom looked, if he's having a good time, and usually chose bottoms with a 'pretty/feminine face', not too muscular etc, I couldn't care less for the top, he could be anyone, and I never imagined myself being the bottom, wanted the top to have sex with me or whatever.  At most I wondered briefly if I actually wanted to have sex with the bottom, me being the dominant one, but always ended up realizing that I don't actually want to have this in real life, thinking about it seemed uncomfortable, so I was always out of the picture. About the 'meat-to-meat' parts I'm ok with it, but I don't care if they aren't there, I'm kind of indifferent to them. It is kind of annoying if they spend forever on these shots though so sometimes I fast forward.  I just need to keep the illusion that people are enjoying it and that's enough, like you said.  if It's pretty clear that they're acting everything falls through.

       Then I started to watch videos with male to female crossdressers or trans women, but sometimes It doesn't work out because they either have too much male characteristics, such as a masculine facial features, or they have female parts such as breasts.   Look, I actually enjoy watching male parts in porn, I'm drawn to it, but only if the person isn't too masculine and much more drawn if it's attached to a person wearing a dress/skirt/lingerie with a face and body that could 100% pass as female and female mannerisms but weirdly only if it's without breasts. But the confusing thing is that I'm not attracted to pre operation trans girls in real life, I don't want to have sex with them just like I never wanted to have sex with anyone.  Sometimes I feel guilty as If I'm fetishizing them but I don't even look for people in my real life that look like this particular preference of mine, I don't purposefully interact with them just like I never wanted anything to do sexually with any person of any gender, be it cis or trans.   It's exclusively a thing "in my mind", I'm never in the picture, I just can't help it.  I just have a made up character in my mind that matches these characteristics and imagine them having a great time during sex. it's like I'm the director of a movie/TV show making up these scenarios with other characters.  Sometimes I prefer to watch animation porn even If I don't even care for anime, because It's much easier to find a drawing that matches more closely to my made up character than in real life porn. I actually much prefer imagining scenarios in my head than actually watching porn, and I make up these scenarios pretty frequently, several times a week (specially while listening to music) but I don't masturbate while doing it, I just enjoy the rush it gives me.  I just watch porn briefly when I want a quick rush sometimes to masturbate which it once a month probably or just because I feel like watching it and nothing else.  

       Before I thought I was a straight girl since, well, I like to watch penises after all, but just one with pretty weird porn habits, and maybe just a specific type of borderline female looking guys (??) I searched and found out a lot of straight girls like to watch gay porn, but still I felt like my experience with it was different, I couldn't care less for straight porn. And thinking that I was straight just made me more confused because I really tried to be attracted to men in real life but I just couldn't. Also my experience with watching crossdressing/trans porn didn't fit with it.  And  I never had any sexual/relationship experience, not interested in it. Then I thought briefly "Well, maybe I'm bi, I really like female looking people after all. And I like to look at pretty girls" (but never anything sexually, I didn't know what aesthetic attraction was back then). But it also made me confused because well, I don't like vaginas or breasts.  Then "Well, maybe I'm just attracted to trans girls, that's what it is. And I just don't know how to call it"  But It also confused me because I don't find them sexually attractive in real life just like I don't with any other person, it's a thing I enjoy to imagine and watch just by myself.  So It's like my head doesn't know what it wants, it's like it wants a bit of both genders but in the end it wants neither. And then I just lived my life after all, there was no point in trying to find a word for it, it is what it is and I just need to accept it. And just considered myself straight by default even if it didn't fit well at all and tried to not think about it and just enjoy what I enjoy.  

       A year ago a friend asked me something and I said  "I don't know, I'm straight but I don't want to have relationships, I don't want to marry, it just isn't me"  I always told my family that I don't want to date or marry etc and they're pretty ok with it, specially since I'm involved in university so I have a perfect 'too busy with my career' excuse. I didn't tell my friend about my sexual fantasies, I never told anyone, and then she said "Maybe you're asexual, I don't know. It's ok If you are ", then I said "Haha No I'm not". Because I thought it meant having no libido, and well I have a good amount of it.   But when I got home I searched about it, I had never heard about the term before. And I just got so happy to know about it since it really fit, but even so something was missing because it didn't explain everything. Sometimes I felt like a fake asexual, since I had pretty vivid sexual fantasies, just not involving myself.  Then I found the word 'aegosexuality/autochorisexuality', which seems to be something some asexual people experience and it was like a light bulb lit up in my head, it really described me.  It's been almost a year since I realized I'm asexual and aromantic and it really helped to understand myself.  I found out some people think it's unecessary to have many words, that's it's confusing etc, and this saddens me. Maybe because they didn't need one to understand themselves but for me, personally, it was really important. The existence of these words specially 'aegosexuality' actually calmed down my confusion a lot. I don't go around telling anyone that I'm asexual because I'm not comfortable with telling it yet and in my country it's pretty much a non existent/almost never discussed term.  So in the outside I say I'm straight but deep down I know what I am and that's enough to me at least till now. 

 

So, well, this is all over the place, but just wanted to get this out of my chest. Sorry If I wrote it more as therapeutic thing for myself than anything.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2019 by RedGloves

[cynjo]

I feel Autochorissexual sometimes. I don't always feel that way, but like once every 6 months I will think about things like erotic fan fic kind of stuff and masturbate and I like that for about two seconds, then get grossed out. Most of the time I don't even like that. But when I imagine people having sex, it's not me, it's a different couple. I don't like porn, though. At all. I guess because the people I imagine are out of books I have read and therefore have an idea of who they are as a person. I imagine them having sex with each other, but then after I imagine them in an ace relationship with me and I like that better. Which would be why this is a twice a year thing for me. Also, when I think of myself as being in a relationship and imagine an ace relationship there is not interest in thinking of sex in any way because in that relationship I will have what I need and not feel like I have to give up for the person because they want sex.

Edited October 25, 2019 by cynjo

[cynjo]

I feel Autochorissexual sometimes. I don't always feel that way, but like once every 6 months I will think about things like erotic fan fic kind of stuff and masturbate and I like that for about two seconds, then get grossed out. Most of the time I don't even like that. But when I imagine people having sex, it's not me, it's a different couple. I don't like porn, though. At all. I guess because the people I imagine are out of books I have read and therefore have an idea of who they are as a person. I imagine them having sex with each other, but then after I imagine them in an ace relationship with me and I like that better. Which would be why this is a twice a year thing for me.

[levelskid]

Not fond of genitals. I prefer soft core, specifically because hard core is too raunchy. The only real thing I really like is when the actors enjoyed. Makes it less awkward. Reading erotica is way better to me.

[Anime Pancake]

Dont worry I was giving a TMI warning about what I was saying not your topic, OP

[uhtred]

I think there is a wide variety of porn because people are interested in different things.  I'm a straight sexual male, and I find most standard porn completely boring. I do like some porn but it has to seem realistic and seem like the people are actually engaged. 

 

A gay male friend  of mine once mentioned that he also found pounding genitals to be boring, but liked when faces were shown.   

 

I assume some people do like close up genital shots, or the porn companies wouldn't make them. 

 

I think there is just a lot of variation in what people like, but what the OP describes doesn't sound very unusual to me. 

[Krarka]

I'm a bi ace person and my libido is pretty low in terms of activity but when I do watch porn it's usually something as impersonal and unrealistic as I can possibly find? Neither genitals or (even less) peoples' faces are interesting to me so usually "erotica" is a better way to go, cause it focuses more on the feeling of sex rather then ppl screaming over-theatrically, which is ye, super annoying :/ There's such a wide variety of asexuals and for everyone it means something a bit different I wouldn't be surprised if its more of a personal thing, rather than ace thing.

[norain666]

On 10/23/2019 at 9:08 AM, RedGloves said:

So It's like my head doesn't know what it wants, it's like it wants a bit of both genders but in the end it wants neither. And then I just lived my life after all, there was no point in trying to find a word for it, it is what it is and I just need to accept it. And just considered myself straight by default even if it didn't fit well at all and tried to not think about it and just enjoy what I enjoy.  

THIS. I'm 19 and have never been in a relationship, have never kissed anyone, etc. I like the idea of it, but never wanted it in real life. I actually took it upon myself to try it out. Last week. I got on tinder, wanted to know what it was like. Meet this wonderful guy, v nice and respectful. Not ugly either. But he tried to kiss me and I just had no feelings. Other than to back away. His face was way to close. I am attracted to come people, but I never act on it. I like to say I appreciate beautiful people. I like guys with long hair... But just to look at. I like to look at girls too. I'm not 'feminine' myself in the stereotypical sense. I get teased I dress like a lesbian. I honestly could care less. I decided to watch porn for the first time last year just from shear curiosity. I couldn't watch straight porn. It did nothing for me. So I moved on to girl on girl stuff. Not to horrible but it wasn't something i felt i needed to watch or really enjoyed all to much. Later on I ended up watching a weird movie on netflix, and found I like guy on guy. They were both rugid looking. I never go out of my way to watch porn, and definitely don't need it, but I found it interesting how much more I enjoyed it when it was two guys. Here is a weird fact, definitely TMI, but whatever, the first time I masturbated I was watching family guy. I have no idea why, but it was the first time I was alone in weeks (college roommate was gone for the night)  and it just happened. Im really just discovering the asexual community and feel like I finally found a place with people who are similar to me. I always thought there was something wrong with me in high school, middle school, heck even in elementary school when kids were talking about their crushes. I had no interest. High school parties I was never invited too, probably my fault, but I still dont think I was missing much. Kids making out in the hallways. I was never disgusted really, just intrigued. But I had no interest in doing it myself. I have no interest in marriage, and never have. I do like stupid comedies, like workaholics, brickleberry, its always sunny, and anything that has young men and sex jokes. I think its my way of trying to understand the brains of other people. Peoples whose lives revolve around sex. It was a weird sensation when i realized i was asexual. I was consumed with the thought that I am going to be alone forever. I do get lonely, and I'm not the best at making friends. But now I have found comfort that I have a word for what I am feeling, its so hard to describe to other people, or even yourself when you havent herd/learned the word for its corresponding definition. 

Thank you for sharing, it really helped me. Writing this was therapeutic for me ... I have never talked to anyone about this. I am just realizing I am asexual, and I am thankful for this community its helping me understand myself a lot more and a lot easier. I think I've learned more about myself in the past week than in the past two years. 

[souzadan]

On 10/22/2019 at 8:35 PM, DryRain said:

that's pretty much it for me as well. Aesthetically attracted to women but quite repulsed by genitals.

 

and also this, that's pretty much it.

 

Unfortunately I have a high libido (which is quite a pain), so I do have to find this kind of stuff often, and finding something that fits those criteria can be quite hard, as a LOT of porn is male-focused and generally not concerned with the women's side of things.

Hi. I'm a cis male ace finally getting into terms with his own identity and my case is similar. I don't feel sexual attraction, but I do have a sex drive and fantasies. Started to watch porn when I was 19-20 years old (later than most people), just out of curiosity and I kind of enjoy it.  I prefer to watch female masturbation porn or those so-called "female-friendly" b/g videos. They feel less exploitative.

[QueerAroAce]

I read erotic stories, or comics I dont like watching "real life porn" it grosses me out somehow. For their gentilia and well...the act~

[Zagadka]

This entire thread is a TMI warning, so... there it is.

 

Porn doesn't do much for me usually, but I have a low libido and have a hard time getting in the mood anyway, so I use all the help I can get. I never watched partnered porn, but I do enjoy female masturbation videos. I'm not talking the kind of screaming writhing things, just the soft ones. It isn't really a graphical or audio thing; just a head shot is nice. It is weird, that I don't attach any sexual context to it; I don't have any desire to be in the scene, it just triggers me on some level.

 

Sometimes I can get into a written sexual encounter, but not often, it is more sensual than sexual. It also isn't really a porn thing, it just makes me feel... dunno?

 

Most porn is just ridiculous. And I'm careful to only use "ethical" sites. So much of the porn on the internet is sleazy as hell, never pays well, if at all, and is generally dangerously produced. Maybe I'm a snob, but that's fine. I like the videos that are more of an erotic diary entry? At least they are more interesting, and the women are humans who are just very sex positive and probably approaching exhibitionism. They enjoy the experience, so it feels better.