Porno damage

Plus, I've got a curiosity for pneumatic bimbos who look like porno stars because I've never been involved with one. These chicks can't be all that dim, if they're smart enough to avoid ME. That's the challenge!

I'm a girl and I find that I'm doing pretty much the same thing: finding it difficult to become interested in men (or women for that matter) as people. I haven't seen all that many pornos though, but I do know that part of me wants to be with someone for a long time who looks great, is an outstanding shag, isn't clingy, and who doesn't talk a lot, if at all. It's too much to ask for. It has to be a phase. It just has to be.

my first reaction would be "asshole", dave. maybe you ought to consider what *you* have to offer before expecting women to live up to male-generated porno fantasies. i'm hoping you'll get over it for both your sake more than anyone else's.

oops sorry, rogue "both" there, i've only just got up. and i head straight to the computer. sad.

I like sluts!

ah..simple little men. simple little women...mash genitals together, its your only real source of logic!

That's pretty pathetic. No seriously, I actually feel almost bad for you.

This supposed influence of porn sounds like just as much of a cop out as women who blame their low esteem exclusively on all the perfect looking models in magazines like Cosmo. And by that I mean, it can only have that power if you're allowing it to. Your sphere of influence ought to be a lot larger and should include more of the things that would mean something to you in a realistic sense. If you're letting escapism rule your life, you've got serious problems.

Aww geez dave, now look at what you've made me do. My meanest post ever.

I often feel the same Dave but did you ever think it's cos you're not interested in people in general? I mean I'm in a big class in College, 45 people and I only like about 10 of them. Of course I talk to the others and keep up appearances but I find out of the 5 or so that are girls I fancy them all. One in particular as we all know but I won't get into it. So basically my general cranky teen attitude eliminates almost everyone and leaves girls I fancy and guys I get on with. It's awfully handy.

I have a thing for huge eyes. My friends call that girl in my class Kermie. Even though I know they want her.

Could someone pass the salt, please?

We all want Kermie

ronan, i think that if you're a reasonably intelligent and sensitive person (as, despite myself, i have to admit you are :)) with a healthy dose of cynicism then you're going to dislike, or at least not find much in common with, most people anyway. i know this sounds snobbish but hear me out. i've known so few people all my life that i *really* get along with and generally like, but i don't think this means i have a problem with people in general. i'm always willing to give people a chance - if for whatever reason i don't feel like i get along with them, then fine. if they also don't like me (and oh, there are plenty) then again - whatever.

what dave seems to be saying is that if women don't look and act like porn stars then he's unable to get interested and subsequently blames women for this failing of his, which is shallow and sad and totally different to feeling no connection with someone. ronan, you fancy some girls sure, but i'm guessing that they ain't all vapid, silicon enchanced bleach babes.

Kermit is hot.

*sigh* yes, kermie is ace.

That wasn't too clear really I didn't think. At least not from the first part. It's not *just* a porno thing is it? It's based in a lack of respect for women in general. Maybe it's different with you Katie. I'm not saying I go around being a complete asshole to people I don't like (anymore) but I can't stand being nice to them much either. Urgh I'm coming across all pretentious and self labelling. Yeah the people I fancy are not silicone babe types. It's a big pair of er eyes I like as I said.

I don't think I actually said anything in that posting. Just babbled.

If there is a future for me and Kermie I know some day one of my friends will get the DJ to dedicate a song to Kermie and Ronan or something. Hilarious!!!!!!!!!!

I sorta figure the whole question this way -- I'm not a tanned and built Adonis with a jutting jawline and waxed chest. If I'm not a stereotype, I damn shouldn't be holding anyone else to a stereotypical image! And I don't. :-)

Perfection = a big big dud! I would say that to seek the perfect partner is a fools errand. Maybe, you should just try and be happier with yourself Dave? As Spinoza and a lot of others basically state, you can't love anyone else if you don't love yourself. Except people for what they are, and remember the porn stars are probably thinking "it's freezing in here" or "what shall I have for lunch?"...and it's probably air-brushed!

I hate that crappy cliche. "You can't love anyone till you love yourself". It's such shit, who made it up.

It may be a crappy cliche, but it's more or less true.

as with most cliches, i think it holds at least a germ of truth. i think it's fair to say that people who are unhappy and unhappy with themselves *will* have problems accepting other people.

Why? Can't you just not accept other people cos you don't? Don't mean to be confrontational, but why do you think it's true?

In my experience you can very well love and accept other people if you don't love yourself, but you will find it hard to believe that they are accepting you and thus will drive them away with your grasping for security. (Although it may only seem to you that you are driving them away because, as mentioned, you can't accept yourself as worthy of having friends.) And being around someone who's constantly deprecating himself is really annoying so it's not exactly fun for anyone. (I don't know if this is really related to the thread but oh well.)

Dave, do you mean that you can't get interested in women romantically or you can't see them as normal people, romance aside? I don't really understand your problem.

Shit, Maria tell my life story and all its recent events in one paragraph. I feel so naked. That's actually very accurate.

I hate to invoke another movie cliche, but it sounds just like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting. To which the wise, tough-love therapist Robin Williams replies something like "Well, Chief," (he says Chief a lot), "Let me be the first to break it to you. She isn't perfect, and neither are you. The question is: are you perfect for each other." Then he goes on with a charming anecdote about his deceased wife farting in her sleep. So according to Matt Damon and Ben "all my movies suck" Affleck, you've got a self-esteem problem. If not, and all you want to do his fuck around, then have at it. But don't blame porn. Since when are porno sluts anywhere near perfect? Most look really worn and fake and obviously bored as shit.

Another strike against sleeping around is the claim that sex is more enjoyable when you actually give a shit about the person. That its actually better to fuck one person a hundred times then fuck a hundred people once. Which, aside from the mushy Oprah stuff, makes some immediate sense. You get a lot of practice with one person, and you learn to function as a team. Also you're less likely to need alcohol to hook up which improves your stamina. And if you do fuck-up, she's less likely to run out and tell her friends, because she luhvs you. (Note: this expires once you break-up, when she will tell everyone within 5 degrees of your relationship that you suck in bed.)

i nominate Maria for that wise ILE-er thread!

And hey, why not blame Penticton instead? From everything I ever heard about the place, it sounded unusually shallow for a small town.

Well, I'm unusually shallow for Penticton!

Wow, that looks pretty harsh what I wrote. Don't know what came over me, sorry. Let's put the question in a slightly less-serious (or 'innocuously naughty') way! Do you ever think of all the people you've had sex with and even for a second think, "Wow, somebody like myself should really be pulling somebody of a higher calibre, even if its for trophy reasons?" Even though you KNOW you're not perfect and make a mental note to not be so shallow, don't you ever think that?

I'm sure we all dream, one way or another.

Nope. Seems as if the only men that are ever interested in me are of the unearthly beautiful sort. All of them, except the merely cute one that I'm so stuck on that is.

Or rather, what I'm saying is that dating a mere "trophy" isn't something I would aspire to or respect others for. I've known a few who have and something about it and they way they were both proud and paranoid at once just reeked of... well, you fill in the blank.

I had a dream two nights ago that was sort of like a premonition of this post. Dave Q asked me to go out with him and I was pleased, because I thought, wow, he's so smart. Then we met up and he looked different to what I expected: he was wearing knee length shorts and a T-shirt and a baseball cap and had light brown hair and a plain face, and sort of looked like one of the really average boys that went to my high school, the nasty ones who were into rap and called girls 'bitches' to each other and never really got with any girls. Sort of more how I would have imagined Ethan to look. But I thought, OK, don't judge a book by its cover. So we hung out a bit and he seemed nervous and insecure, I was getting a bit bored but trying to be patient. Then we were sitting on a bed and there were these girls lying face down on the bed, naked, and they were kind of hairy, but it wasn't ugly hair, it was silky and dark and thin. Dave Q was stroking one of the girls at the base of her spine and as he stroked her, the hair grew longer and began to turn into a tail. Then he walked over and sat by the fireplace and stared into it and started complaining about what kind of girls he liked, and how he couldn't get the right kind of girls he liked, and going into detail about what they would like, and moaning and muttering. I was getting more and more bored and trying to be patient but finally my irritation overwhelmed me and I snapped, 'Look! Please, let's just be friends! Can we just be friends, OK?' Then I woke up, it was all just a dream.

Knee jerk reaction is the second option there. How many hours do you spend grooming yourself and eliminating those small flaws in yourself? I think the porn industry has a lot to answer for by portraying ugly hairy little men like Ron Jeremy getting all the hypersexed vixens. Then people think it works like that in real life, well if it is going to work like that you must have some redeeming feature like a bloody nice personality or lots of money. Perhaps if you are seen with one of these poor imperfect mortals you could tell all your friends it was charity work? Why do you care what other people say anyway? why is it necessary to impress them? Is going for the porn star lookalike a way of making yourself feel good? Why say they are avoiding you when I doubt you have ever had the opportunity to meet one? who out there in ILE land has dated a bonafide pornstar? I'm tempted to offer a prize for photographic evidence...

Someone I know here in Dunedin has a similar outlook to you - in expecting perfection but he thinks he is unable to get with someone like that. He is probably right, self defeating and all. He has a gift for alienating himself from everyone. As a result of all this he just doesn't bother and then I get self pitying confessional e-mails because I am not good lookig enough to be a threat and I am not going to jump his bones. So probably I was a bit harsh jumping to the second conclusion- there are usually numerous reasons for that kind of outlook on people. I don't think they arose from porn films; you don't seem to be that stupid. All I can suggest is sort yourself out first, figure out why you seem to find flaws on a superficial level?(it came across that way) - appearance, and then write people off. Why do all relationshiops with women have to involve sexual attraction or desire anyway? Or have I misinterpreted what you said?

Is there a name for 'attraction to people who don't grow tails'? Or 'attraction to people who DO grow tails?' Has this area ever been explored except in science fiction? New horizons of exotic eroticism await!

Damn, and here I thought this was going to be some sort of deconstructionist nightmare involving "Pomo Damage". I am quite disappointed. Appropriation ruined my life!!!

Dave - start buying Readers Wives instead of Playboy and then you will fancy EVERYONE!

latin for tail = penis as all know

i didn't know that.

i should also note that i'm posting this not as a condemnation of dave q, because i've certainly experienced the whole seeing flaws in everyone around me process, although it hasn't only been in a sexual way, but in a friendship way as well. (see 'cutting people off completely' thread.)

i think porn in a lot of ways misses the point of sex. sure, it gives pleasure to the person watching it. but in an ideal situation, isn't some sexual pleasure derived from watching/sensing the other person get off -- the moaning, the writhing back, etc?

in most pornos i've seen the women, who are ostensibly the reason for the film since they are the ones on the boxes, right?—anyway they look incredibly bored, vacant and ready to be anywhere else. maybe i'm watching films made by the wrong houses, but i think there's an emptiness inherent in this particular medium, at least in its mainstream ilk (although i think there's something sort of empty about people who are constantly championing sex as an 'alternative' lifestyle too, burning man etc, because of the people's general focus on that as their only way of being 'different' which is so visible in other subcultures as well—but that's another topic for another time).

yesterday i spent a bit of time reading the web diary of a wannabe pornographer in los angeles. he's trying to reconcile the chasm between fucking women three ways 'til thursday and not being able to communicate with them when they're out on a date. it was very sad—there was a definite blue cast to this guy's writing, because from the way he wrote it he wasn't finding any fulfillment from his constant orgasms beyond the afterglow period.

I think that Maura's right (porn is not like sex) but I think that's because, well, porn should not be like sex. Yes, a vast amount of the pleasure in sex comes from being a 'pleasurer' - rather than berate the consumption of porn for its lack of this shouldn't we just treat it differently, much as we'd treat listening to a song on headphones differently from hearing it live as part of a crowd. There can be no pleasurer-aspect in porn because there is nobody to pleasure - to single this out as a flaw in porn is to make unfair comparisons.

The boredness of porn participants is an aesthetic problem more than a sexual one, in other words. (It's also a political problem, depending where you stand on porn. My Reader's Wives joke above has a serious undercurrent - as I've said elsewhere I prefer amateur porn as it seems to offer the neatest solution to aesthetic and political issues).