All I Really Need To Know I Learned From Porn — Or Not: The Blowfish Blog

Please note: This post, and the post it links to, talks about sex. Not about my personal sex life so much -- it's more in the "social and political commentary" vein -- but if you don't want to read about the sex stuff, then please hang up now.

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog, about kids and teenagers learning about sex by watching porn. It's called All I Really Need To Know I Learned From Porn — Or Not, and it begins very much like this:

Porn is not sex education.

I’ll say it again: Porn is not sex education.

I’m saying this to everyone who’s reading this. But I’m especially saying it to parents: Porn is not sex education. So you need to make sure your kids are getting actual sex education. Because if you don’t, then all they really need to know about sex they’ll learn from porn — and they’re going to get it completely wrong.

To find out more about why using porn as sex education is such a bad idea, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Comments

[Rebecca]

Another few items for the list: 1. Good cunnilingus doesn't look like porn cunnilingus. Porn cunnilingus is performed so that the viewer can see tongue-on-vagina. Most high-quality cunnilingus would show nothing but the back of the giver's head. 2. Lube does not get on genitalia magically. Fucking for long periods of time generally involves something out of a tube or bottle, and that's just fine. 3. Long fingernails and fingerfucking do not mix. Ow.

[Jason - GorillaSushi]

Reminds me of the short documentary that Good Magazine did on porn ( http://www.gorillasushi.com/?q=node/382 ). Sorry for the self-promo but it's the easiest place for me to find it...

[Steve Caldwell]

Greta,

Another option here for getting complete, accurate, and age-appropriate information to teens would be finding a nearby Unitarian Universalist or United Church of Christ congregation that is offering the Our Whole Lives program for grades 7-9 or grades 10-12.

The 7-9 program (when offered in religious settings) has a slide presentation that visually depicts lovemaking for male-male, female-female, and male-female couples that is realistic. The 10-12 program provides similar information but also includes cultural/historical context information as well through a video.

More information can be found online here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Whole_Lives

http://www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/ourwhole/

Thanks.

[Layne Winklebleck]

Hi Greta,

I quite agree that the main aesthetic of adult entertainment portrays unrealistic versions of actual sex, and especially would make very poor sex ed when it comes to the female sexual response and anything resembling the proper eating of pussy. There are exceptions, of course, in the rainbow of materials that make up modern porn, one notable one being the real sex and authentic girl-girl orgasms featured in the abbywinters.com website and DVDs. Full disclosure: I am a paid consultant for the Australian-produced abbyswinters.com. Full disclosure #2: I have been engaged for some months in an effort to enlist sex educators in support of the idea of abbywinters.com materials being appropriate tools for sex education. Alas, sex educators do not generally see the abbywinters.com materials as appropriate for sex ed because the models, while representing a much wider range of body type than in standard porn -- and without the glammed-up porn look -- are pretty exclusively young and pretty. Therapists and educators prefer a broader range of age and body type, such as those in Betty Dodson’s educational videos, for teaching realistic models of female sexual response. I understand and accept that. However, I still think it is valuable to spread the word when adult entertainment materials contain authentic sex scenes. The abbywinters.com website is also very popular, by the way, which is a hopeful sign for those of us who envision that adult entertainment might grow up a bit and still be fully hot.

Layne