Ladies, Stop Taking His Porno Personally

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It was during the first few weeks of my relationship with my boyfriend that I stumbled on to his porn. I was hanging out in his apartment for a few hours while he ran some errands. Bored, I decided to fire up his videogame system and kill some zombies. When I turned on the console, I discovered that he had been using the gaming system as a web browser and his previous searches were super specific and super peculiar. He was looking up stuff like "lesbian labia stretchers" and "Asian ass-to-mouth." I felt betrayed. With all the wanking he was doing with his virtual mistresses, I wondered how he even had time for me.

I mean, I put out like a high school girl on Degrassi. Did he really need to rely on internet porn that often to get off? When I confronted him about his secret Lubetube sessions, he opened up to me, sharing all of his porn fetishes. Although, I usually love honesty, the whole conversation kind of weirded me out and left me feeling a little pissed off. Realizing I needed to come to terms with my boyfriend’s porn promiscuity, I reached out to expert Allison Vivas. Allison is the president of Pink Visual, an adult entertainment studio, and the author of Making Peace with Porn, a book released last month that helps women understand the normalcy of viewing porn. Here's what she had to say about your man binge-watching porno like it's Breaking Bad and he's trying to catch up for the series finale.

Allison Vivas.

VICE: What inspired you to write a book to help women understand porn?
Allison Vivas: A lot of the book is about my own personal experience. I definitely wasn’t pro-porn when I started working at the company. In fact, I had my own personal issues with it, but I learned there aren’t many guys out there who aren’t looking at it. After I saw the numbers and the data coming in, a lot of the misconceptions that I had about the porn industry and taking advantage of women, has subsided through my experience in the industry. More so, I got insight on why men are looking at porn. A lot of women like to think that they look at porn because they want their wife or girlfriend to have bleach blonde hair and big boobs and do all of these things in the videos. You have to realize too, that’s not why men look at porn. It is just entertainment.

So women should just think of it as watching a drama or something?
When it comes to all other forms of entertainment, people are able to distinguish between reality and fantasy. But all of a sudden, when it comes to porn, we have these fears that it’s really going to play into reality. I think there are a lot of women, especially in my generation, who didn’t grow up with the internet. All of these statistics about porn viewing give us the perception that our perfect man doesn’t look at porn, but that is not the reality.

Should I try watching porn with my boyfriend?
I have a chapter that I preface “feel free to skip if you don’t want to watch porn.” I think that the majority of porn is made for men. If couples are going to watch that type of porn, females aren’t going to enjoy it. Just like any other type of movie, you don’t want to sit through one that you aren’t going to enjoy. Save what they like to watch for their alone time.

What are other ways women can make peace with porn?
The first part is women being honest with themselves. One of the studies that I ran into was about women and their fantasies. It said something like 80 percent of women have sexual fantasies compared to 99 percent of men. What distinguished between the two was that, the majority of women are actually fantasizing about a man they already know. Whereas for men, they are fantasizing about a faceless woman, someone that doesn’t exist or they don’t have access to. I think if the roles were reversed and women found out that our man was fantasizing about the woman two doors down, we would be livid.

What do you think has caused women to feel so uncomfortable about porn?
The porn industry itself. It’s not necessarily an industry that treated women well in the beginning. There are a lot of instances where women were coerced into participating. It was a male dominated industry. Now it is a lot different. The performers have a lot more power. No matter how socially acceptable porn might become, sex itself is still an intimate and private experience. A lot of people aren’t willing to vocalize that they like porn.

What if my man is looking at a very specific type of porn, like fisting, and it’s not something I would do?
It’s always good to have an open conversation about what you like. It shouldn’t be a one way of what the guy likes. It should be more of a compromise. You might be willing to wear stocking and boots, but not pull out the whip. It’s also important not to judge people on their fantasies. There are a lot of things that go into why people have fetishes, as long as it’s harmless, there is no reason to judge. Sex in the bedroom is a team effort. I don’t think just saying I am going to do whatever they are watching has to be done.

So I shouldn’t be looking at my boyfriend’s internet history?
No. I think it would just be better to have a conversation. It would save so much time if you just say what you are into. The other part is that 99 percent of men are going to choose sex if they have the choice between having sex or watching porn.

How do you hope your book will affect the women who read it?
I am hoping it will make women more confident and less self-conscious, not even just with porn. If you look at these porn stars, they are not perfect. The models that we are looking at in our fashion magazines are more perfect and unachievable than these porn stars. They might get dolled up a little bit, but sometimes an average woman getting dolled up can look just as good. We as woman judge each other, so we judge porn stars. If we are confident with ourselves, we won’t have a problem with our guy watching porn.

How do you think conversations about porn will change in the future?
It will be interesting to see the younger generation and if they are having these sexual conversations prior to commitments like marriage or engagement. Like what are their sexual fetishes, getting all of that out a head of time. Seeing if they are compatible ahead of time. I don’t think we are there yet, but it would make for healthier marriages if that conversation does happen. It is just one part of the relationship.

More porn:

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