Petting Party

Porn ain’t for kids. That’s a fact everyone can agree on. There is no one that will disagree with that simple fact. It’s the basic point that the Sex Education Show was trying to make. However, including the word “versus” in your title is making your stance clear from the beginning. Perky presenter Anna Richardson blundered her way through the program trying to convince everyone she met, be they randoms outside Tescos, or impressionable teenagers in school, that porn was to blame for the ills of the modern world.

What she failed to take into account is that at every turn teenagers are faced with imagery that deals severe blows to their self-confidence, so to suggest that porn is primarily at fault for teens thinking they don’t fit into a perfect image is a tad unfair, and frankly, sets out to demonize the sex industry. Magazines, advertising, television all portray idealized imagery and justly get a portion of the blame but it’s fair to say that teenagers are confronted with this far far more than they are with porn.

One of the points she raised is boy teens think they ought to have a massive schlong and girl teenlets think they should have massive boobs because that’s supposedly the norm in porn. Umm, how much porn have you actually watched Anna? Her stereotypes seem quite outdated considering that nowadays all tastes are catered for and you can easily watch people of all sizes and colour fuck on screen.

One point I’d like to make about porn is about vaginas. Girls have differently shaped lips and porn doesn’t disguise this. There are quite a few incredibly popular pornstars who have what is known as a wizard’s sleeve where the lips hang down in the shape of, er, well, a wizard’s sleeve. Guys don’t sit there and bang on about how gross her vagina is; they just think about how they want to bang her!

It is believed that most girls don’t really look at their own downstairs ladybits often and tend to think them ugly, misshapen, or worse still, weird in comparison to everyone else’s! If the average girl became more comfortable watching porn, they’d see plenty of ‘normal’ looking vaginas. Perhaps if Anna Richardson is convinced that we compare our bodies to those that we see in porn, she could highlight the positive aspect of that too? No? Well, that’s what you get on mainstream telly. No terrestrial channel is going to portray a positive light on pornography now, is it? They’d get crucified in the media, ratings would drop, and in times of recession that just ain’t gonna happen.

Even Damian Duke’s attempts to show the realistic side of the industry with his stories of granny-porn-poo-nuggets didn’t save this show. I have to say I thought he came across very well in both tonight’s and last nights show and it highlighted why he is a successful performer- he’s simply very natural in front of the camera.

Damian and his girlfriend Donna Derriere seem like they may have agreed to go on the program to show, amongst other reasons, that porn is not all about the stereotypes you see. And that it is all just fantasy at the end of the day, but that the reality is far removed from the fantasy. When free rags like thelondonpaper refer to Donna as “Waynetta Slob”, surely they are only further enforcing the porn stereotype of tall, blonde, big-tittied pornobabes? Isn’t that what you’re asking us to move away from, Anna?

Personally, I think where the program failed tremendously was in the fact it confused American porn with British porn. The vast majority of porn on the internet is American porn, and yet this was a British show, featuring the British public, presented by a British woman, showcased British pornstars… perhaps it would have been better to at least highlight the diversity of the British industry? No? Wouldn’t get the ratings you say? Right then, we’ll just have to see how tonight’s episode pans out then….

Check out the Sex Education show’s website and tell them your opinion on pornography!

***Image of Damian Duke courtesy of TVXMole***

Filed under: porn, TV