Pandemic Love #4: Exploring Queerness Through Porn
By Jeanne Donegan
How are you doing? Submit your questions to Pandemic Love here!
I identify as a cis, mostly straight, woman. I sleep with cis men, and have only been in committed relationships with men. Although you wouldn’t necessarily assume that if you saw my porn search history, which is almost exclusively queer/women focused. I know I’m not the only straight presenting woman who prefers the visual stimulation of other women in porn. I’ve had this discussion with many women friends who are in partnerships with men -- we all watch porn, and more often than not, men are absent from the screen. Why is that?
For a while, I questioned if I was suppressing part of my sexuality, so a few years ago I switched my Tinder profile to both men and women, and started to explore a little bit. It was fun and sometimes surprising to see who I was attracted to and why. Eventually I clicked with someone enough over text to ask her out. It was an interesting experience, but ultimately just a bad date -- not unlike the dozens and dozens of bad dates I’d been on with men during that time (i.e. boring conversation, awkward, a little rude). And while I don’t think I’m completely finished exploring that part of myself, I also felt strongly afterwards that I prefer romantic relationships with men, even while being sexually intrigued by women. The term “bisexual” has never quite fit because it feels so half/half when really I feel more like a 2 than a 3 on the Kinsey scale. I’ve also never felt right about claiming a queer identity when I benefit from all the privileges of being outwardly straight. I feel most aligned with the term “heteroflexible” but I am also open to that changing over time.
After some long and swirling thoughts on why I personally prefer queer/women centered porn, I have realized that I truly enjoy reveling in the pleasure of women. I didn’t find my first orgasm until 4 years after having sex for the first time, after I FINALLY purchased a vibrator and realized I wasn’t actually ‘broken’. At that time I just didn’t know my own body, and I had placed my sexual fulfillment in the hands of my inexperienced, long-term high school boyfriend. The realization of my own capacity for pleasure made women’s access to pleasure highly important to me. So much so, that it’s become embedded into the list of things that turn me on.
There’s really nothing I find sexy about men in porn -- in fact, sometimes I even find it a little repulsive when the stray man wanders into my porno fantasy. In part this repulsion might be related to the various unsolicited dick pics and unwelcome sexual advances from men throughout my life, something many others can relate to; and yet, I still love sex with men. I enjoy the experience of getting a partner off, of sharing physical/emotional intimacy, but I’m not interested in watching a guy I have no connection to smash into a woman while she dramatically fakes an orgasm (at least this is my perception of stereotypical hetero porn). I like the nuance of queer porn and I feel some kind of relational kinship to women on screen -- I know the sensations, I’m intimately familiar with the movements and sounds a woman makes when she actually cums. It’s a way to visualize my own pleasure.
***
I recently turned 30 and, as a very thoughtful birthday gesture, my best friend gifted me a subscription to Pinklabel.tv, a hosting platform for emerging and independent adult filmmakers, created by Shine Louise Houston (founder of Pink & White Productions and creator of The Crash Pad Series). My friend and I had been having many conversations about why it’s important to pay for ethically produced, intersectional, feminist porn, to not only support sex workers in this industry, but also to broaden our own perspectives and challenge our expectations of what sex should look like. After a little bit of research Pinklabel felt like a good start. It’s a very different experience than the gratuitous thumbnails and obnoxious virusy advertisements you’re hit with on sites like PornHub. It has a streaming style arrangement where you’re able to browse niche collections such as Vintage Adult Film from the Silver and Golden Age of Porn, The Feminist Porn Gaze, and my current favorite Ceci N'est Pas Une Porn: experimental and alternative adult film which feels more like sensual, sexy art-house films. Yesterday I watched a short film starring a trans woman named Manon Praline as she danced, undressed, and masturbated while covered in viscous honey and glitter, and honestly it was wildy erotic.
As I continue to delve into my own queer interests through porn, I’m interested in hearing from you. How do you engage with porn? When did it become part of your sexual experience? Do you hold conflicting feelings about it? Submit thoughts, queries, and stories here.
***
Before the pandemic, I had started sharing some of an internal dialog I’ve been having with my husband...a desire to explore what queerness meant to me, and how it feels like a part of how I approach the world and my relationships. Explaining how feeling this way, and vocalizing it, wasn’t about not being attracted to him, or loving him any less, but was something that felt important to me...was really difficult. I could feel his anxiety — but he also listened, and took it in, and it was something we said we would revisit. In isolation, it feels like maintaining a healthy partnership is crucial, and I am afraid to rock the boat by having any more of these conversations as we both try and navigate our own anxiety and uncertainty about the future. How could I throw any more uncertainty his way right now? I don’t have a desire to be sleeping with other people, but I often feel my friendships have slippery intimate boundaries. I want to be honest about exploring that territory...but feel like I should put it on hold for now. But that feels wrong! How can I keep exploring these thresholds, while maintaining honesty, while in isolation? While in a marriage? I feel conflicted: I am so happy with him, I value what I have so much- but this feels like a part of me, too. Any Advice?
anonymous
It’s great that you are able to have a calm and understanding conversation with your partner about your desires. The fact that you are able to do that together is a really healthy sign that there is room to explore your relationship to queerness alongside this person. While I think you’re right that the overwhelming stress of the current moment, and the still very present safety concerns of the pandemic, are not great conditions to explore far beyond your household, now might also be an opportunity to deepen your understanding of one another’s sexuality.
You mentioned that you don’t have a desire to sleep with other people right now. Although it’s possible that could change over time, there are so many incremental steps you can take together before jumping headfirst into an open or poly relationship -- which may not even be the direction you’re heading. How might you begin to introduce your queer desires into your hetero relationship? Maybe the first step could be through porn -- through observing together from a safe distance. Where do the things that turn you both on overlap? And where can you push the boundaries a bit to explore something new? Porn can be a really great tool to prompt the phrase, “huh...I liked that, I might want to try that.” If you can share the things that turn you on in addition to your partner (not in place of) and invite him to participate in those other things, maybe together you can form a positive association with them that leads to a greater physical and emotional closeness between the two of you.
The next step could be integrating some of those things into your sexual interactions with your partner that edge into the kind of queerness you’re interested in. Whether that’s watching queer porn before/during, or choosing sex acts and positions that don’t prioritize PIV (penis-in-vagina) as the end all be all. There’s study after study about women’s orgasms, and honestly the conclusions seem to be ever evolving and often conflicting, but what they all seem to have in common is that women/people with vaginas and clitorises need/want more out of sex beyond the traditional penis centered experience we’ve been taught to yield to. For me, PIV is fun and all, but in terms of my own pleasure, it’s an afterthought to other acts that prioritize more rubbing, sucking, licking, touching and other verbs that are not penetration. That said, while this would require enthusiastic consent from your partner, pegging is another really liberating way to click into a whole new sexual side of yourself within a “straight” relationship. It really shifts the traditional power dynamics that exist within these relationships, and transgresses the roles we feel we’ve been slotted to play as women who sleep with men.
The next time you discuss this, I’d encourage you to find out what specifically he feels threatened by in your personal exploration of your queer side -- you said you could feel his anxiety. Is he worried that he isn’t able to satisfy all of your desires and thus you’ll eventually leave him for someone else? Is it the idea of physical intimacy with others that he frets over? Or is he more challenged by the sharing of emotional intimacy? Maybe if you knew precisely what his fears were, you can take those things off the table for now and set some boundaries together that make the relationship feel safe.
Regarding the slippery intimacy in your friendships -- has your partner expressed concern over this? Or are you internalizing the shame of what you feel might be butting up against cheating, on top of the inherent shame associated with suppressing queerness in an oppressively heteronormative society? What are you feeling in the moment when you think you may have crossed a boundary? Do you feel aroused/sexually attracted to these friends and/or are you feeling an emotional closeness that exceeds or differs from the one you feel with your partner? And is either one of those things intrinsically unhealthy? We are all entitled to our own private feelings, and even if we are in a monogamous relationship we don’t stop being drawn to or turned on by other people. Flirting is fun as hell in itself, with no end goal, just reveling in chemistry -- and I really believe we all do it, whether we admit to it or not. I think there are some things we don’t need to feel guilty about not sharing, some things can just be for us.
That said, if it’s important to you to be able to share those feelings with your partner, or if you feel you are doing something that would make him uncomfortable, then find out what his boundaries are right now, and remember that boundaries are not necessarily fixed for all time. Maybe if you express interest in hearing about his flirtations or momentary crushes, you can facilitate a safe and loving environment for sharing those kinds of feelings -- and you might even be able to harness the excitement of those stories and get off on them together. Try not to look at this situation as throwing more uncertainty on a pile of uncertainty, but rather an opportunity to share and grow together. <3
This week’s resources:
Bustle article: These 8 Ethical NSFW Sites Focus on Female Pleasure
Unbound Babes article: Our Favorite Feminist Porn
Pleasure Chest’s “Bend Over Buddy” Special Collection for pegging
Mashable Article: Paying for porn should be the post pandemic ‘new normal’