The RN: Porn is Supposedly Ruining our Relationships ... Again ... Still?

Happy New Year!

So, this was supposed to be the last post of 2013, but I got lazy and now it's the first post of 2014.

It seems like every few months there's a round of posts on FaceBook about how porn is ruining our relationships. The latest round on my news feed started with this one. I get it and sometimes I even sort of agree with it. If you spend all day looking at porn stars and your  girlfriend doesn't even like blow jobs, you're bound to be disappointed. Also, go find a girl who likes to give blow jobs.

I get frustrated with these articles placing all the blame on porn. I do agree there are some guys people out there who really do have an issue with porn, but it's not every Tom, Dick, and Jane. I think the real issue is communication. Porn is porn; it's been around since forever. It's not going away, because people enjoy being turned on.

Sure porn can create unrealistic expectations. Not every girl can take it raw up the ass 10 seconds after she walks in the door. And even if she can, doesn't mean she wants to. And that's where the communication comes in. So you want her to take it raw up the ass 10 seconds after she walks in the door? Why? What about that turns you on? Maybe, she can will do the part that turns you on. Maybe. But you need to communicate to find the line. You need to know yourself and be okay with talking about what you want. Otherwise, you can't expect your partner to know what you want.

I've made this mistake. I'm sure many people have made this mistake. I know I made it with The Ex. Shocking, I know, but The Ex and I had communication issues. Lots of them. I feel like every time I tried to talk to him about my needs we ended up arguing. Sex related or not, this was us:

"I'm right; you're wrong!"

But, I digress. Okay so I can see how porn can create possibly unrealistic expectations for sex within a relationship. But that doesn't make porn bad. It just means you have to have realistic expectations. Of yourself and of your partner and of your relationship.

I think we need to look at the other side of the equation though. Porn, by far, is something we associate with guys. Guys watch porn and get unrealistic ideas, or so the story goes. But it's not just porn that's creating unrealistic expectations. So assuming we agree porn is influence guys; what is influencing girls to have unrealistic expectations? My answer: romance novels/trashy novels/brain candy.

To over simplify, the plot of every one of these books is: 

• Boy and girl meet
• Boy and girl hate each other and fight all the time, but only because they secretly are perfect for one another
• Boy and girl separately realize how much they love the other one, but refuse to admit to themselves and others because they are both convinced the other one hates them
• Somehow something happens and one admits feeling, the other follows after some delay from zero to decades, depending on the "plot"
• Boy and girl live happily ever after
• Some optional amount of plot and side stories to make the story fit into a subcategory

We have girls being told love is almost immediate, it over rules all adversity, and you should be treated "like a queen" and everything wrong is his fault. Talk about unrealistic expectations. This isn't the way real relationships work. No one is always wrong and no one is always right. These books are showing girls whatever they do is the right choice and in the end the guy will discover she was right even if he didn't think so to begin with.

Oh, I almost forget the whole "electric touch" thing in romance novels. The first time (and every other time) said boy and girl touch, even in the slightest non-sexual way, they both feel a buzz or heat or tingles or some other such crap, which they have never felt with anyone else - ever. So now on top of everything else your both supposed to be able to tell the first time you touch someone. Some books even start this before the touching, when you see your match across the room/street/party/whatever. COME ON! That shit is not real! I'll give you butterflies of excitement at a new relationship, even a new hookup, or a first date. But to feel unprecedented heat or electricity without actually knowing the person? I don't believe it.

Months ago TWS and I were talking about something completely unrelated to this when she said:

• "i turned around and poof! he was there and i knew it was forever" 
  GO FUCK YOURSELF. ... even if it appears that easy, it never is. stop lyin ho.

My thoughts exactly! Real life is hard and so are real relationships. Nothing is as easy as these books are making it seem. Now some are more realistic than others, but in the end they are still the same story. I understand this is supposed to a fantasized version of life to make girls the reader happy, but I feel like we are being set up for failure. It's like the movie He's Just Not That Into You, where the whole movie is talking about sometime he just doesn't like you back. *Spoiler Alert* But then at the end of the movie, he is that into her and she gets the guy. That's not what really happens. In reality you had what you thought was a great date, and then he never texts you back.

But I maintain: porn is not ruining our relationships. And neither are romance novels. We are ruining our relationships. We are ruining them by having unrealistic expectations, by not communicating with each other, and by not actually trying to make them work. 

Or by trying too hard to make them work ... but that's another topic.