An ex-boyfriend introduced me to pornography. If he was hoping for a sexy end to the evening – as I’m sure he was – he was severely disappointed. The movie, if you could call it that, was a low-budget shag and safari couple-swapping scenario. The terrible acting, flat nasal accents, bad boob jobs and the fact that the cast looked like the kind of rightwing Afrikaners who hunted black people in their spare time meant I was not at all turned-on. After twenty minutes of me critiquing, complaining and laughing he’d had enough and told me to “shut up and watch the damn thing” and I, offended, told him to go to hell and take his Bushveld bonkathon with him.
That’s the thing about porn – so much of it is bad, really bad. After this disappointing first go, I pretty much ignored porn, at least of the moving pictures variety, for years. Which is odd, since I was a bit of a pornographer myself. I was very taken with Bob Carlos Clarke, an Irish-born photographer, who specialised in erotic subjects, and one of my hobbies was persuading my friends to get their kit off and pose for my camera.
I’ve always been attracted to the erotic, but watching an adult film with super-limber fantasy women who’ve been constructed under the surgeon’s knife rarely moves me; nor do scenarios where, as a woman, I can see the actress is doing just that – acting.
After years of trawling through the nether regions of the net, I’ve seen some great porn and a lot of dismal stuff as well. Here are my favourites:
Beautiful Agony
I love, love, love this site! Beautiful Agony is a collection of real people having orgasms, and one of the sexiest, smartest, most sex-positive adult sites ever. The contributions are all by amateurs and are pretty equally divided between men and women. With Beautiful Agony you don’t get to see very much as the videos are from the neck up, but it’s somehow that makes it even more erotic. It’s the combination of a real orgasm and your imagination that makes it work. In addition, some contributors have included erotic confessions, talking about their sexual history or their feelings about sex and masturbation. Beautiful Agony uploads at least five new videos a week. Subscription is $14.95 per month. See beautifulagony.com.
Delta of Venus
I’ve a thing for antiques in general, so I was very pleased when I stumbled across this site. Delta of Venus is an archive of vintage porn. The site includes vintage adult and burlesque movies, photographs and erotic novels. The porn star Gloria Leonard once said that the difference between pornography and erotica is lighting, and there’s definitely something in that. The grainy, black and white movies, in particular, have a thrilling eroticism you just don’t get with full colour, high definition films. Subscription is a mere $9.95 per month (€7.38). See www.deltaofvenus.com.
Tina Tyler’s HandyMen
Okay, officially it’s gay porn or at least that’s where you’ll find it in most adult shops, but Tina Tyler’s HandyMen series are equally appealing to straight women such as myself. The premise is simple – well-endowed blokes jerking off to camera. Available to stream, download or just look at stills from Gay Hot Movies. See www.gayhotmovies.com.
YouPorn
Free stuff! What’s not too love about YouPorn? Well, not all the videos are exactly high quality, and you can’t search for specific things, but it has two important qualities – it’s amateur and it’s free. See www.youporn.com.
XTube
Like YouPorn, XTube has loads of free clips, and they are of a similar standard to YouPorn – that is they vary wildly – but there are some that have that unique something. Here, however, it is all categorized so you can find what you like quickly and easily. See www.xtube.com.
For the Girls
Some porn sites aimed at women can be cheesy or romantic; others see themselves as something to improve your relationship – which is fine, but not really why most of us enjoy porn. For the Girls approaches porn in a sex-positive feminist way which is sexy and fun and offers video clips, movies, photos and written erotica, as well as articles, interviews and advice. The site has aims to be inclusive and offers soft-core, hard-core, bisexuality and fetish content. It’s a bit pricey unfortunately at $29.95 (€22.22) for a month.
Porn Movies for Women
Porn Movies for Women is not so much a porn site itself, but a great resource for finding adult movies and directors specifically aiming to please women. The stuff put out by Comstock Films and Candida Royalle are my personal faves. See www.pornmoviesforwomen.com.
VideoBox
It’s big and clever. There probably isn’t a better place on the web to access downloadable and streaming porn. VideoBox has around 6,500 DVDs, covering fifty genres so you are bound to find something you like and new stuff is added all the time. There are a range of membership options, from less than €7 a month recurring. Premier membership allows you to download DVD quality. An ex and I took advantage of the fact that there’s no download limit, signed up for thirty days and found a whole load of stuff that appealed to us both, or that we were curious about. See www.videobox.com.
Fuck for Forest
I love everything about FFF. It’s the polar opposite of the fake boobs, fake tans and fake orgasms you find in so much professional porn. FFF is a bunch of sexy eco-warriors who create adult images and movies but donate their profits towards saving the rainforest. In 2008, FFF donated over $120,000 to environmental projects. Leona and Tommy, FFF’s founders, believe that humanity’s distrust of sexuality, and our wish to tame and suppress it, is linked to our destruction of the planet. But the worthy cause isn’t just why I love them. I love their ethos – that sex should be free and open and is intrinsically beautiful, natural and worthwhile. More importantly, the sex is real and it shows – everyone looks like they are genuinely enjoying themselves. It also helps – at least from my perspective – that many of the “stars” are tattooed, longhaired types, which are the kind of people I like to fuck in real life too. Membership is $15 monthly (€11.13). See www.fuckforforest.com.
Janes’s Guide
I have one final recommendation – a wonderful site called Jane’s Guide (www.janesguide.com). Jane and her reviewers trawl through every conceivable type of porn, erotica and sex education websites and give honest and detailed appraisals of what’s on offer. Like movie trailers, sometimes all the good stuff is shown to entice you in – curiosity, a credit card and working from home is a lethal combination and Jane’s Guide has probably saved me hundreds of euros over the years
Those are my choices, but porn is personal – what I like you may not and if you have any suggestions that you think I’d like, log on to hotpress.com and let me know – I’d be more than happy to hear them.