A friend of mine (who wishes to remain anonymous) recently responded to a blurb I posted about Gail Dine’s book, “Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality”. Being a scientist, and a man well schooled in porn, he quickly decided that the best way to see just how HORRIBLE porn is would be to look at what videos were getting the most views.
“The most popular acts depicted in internet porn include vaginal, oral and anal penetration by three or more men at the same time,” (Gail Dines)
Really? That sets my skeptical alarm bells off…
Lucky for me (although not for the research I SHOULD be doing), the Internet also provides a site for a simple and sorta scientific test of this claim: YouPorn.com (the most popular pornography website on the internet, and the 49th most popular of any kind, according to Wikipedia.) Youporn, like YouTube, hosts user uploaded material, and is user rated (with total views tabulated) and categorized. It provides a fascinating portal into the real world interests of actual internet porn consumers.
The results?
There are a total of 783 videos in the ‘double penetration’ category and 3,285 in the ‘facial’ category. The most watched video in each category was watched ~8 and 14 million times, respectively (although the facial category is a little misleading, since, judging by video titles, the act in question seems to be incidental in at least the top few–a video may be slotted into multiple categories).
How does this compare to videos in “traditional” categories? Well, ‘couples’ has 2,097 videos, with the highest viewed gaining a whopping
38 million views. (It should be noted, that it is possible that ‘couples’ videos ALSO contain facial scenes, but the number of participants excludes DP.) So, judging from the data, it seems straight up sex is many times more prevalent and popular than Dines’ dreaded multiple penetrative sex.
And facials? Well, they are a genuinely popular contemporary sexual meme. (Although, I note that there are 8,509 videos in the ‘blowjob’ category, so facials make up a minority–38%–of the blowjob content on the site). Perhaps, like peeing, the newness of the act in popular pornography makes it attractive, and it will cycle through, like all trends. I don’t know. I do know that precisely because the act is inherently mildly degrading, it can be incorporated into empowering, consensual hetero or homosexual sex that involves an element of powerplay (as many relationships do). (See Dan Savage for a more thorough unpacking of this topic.)
Now some editorializing:
I think there is real reason (and sociological data) to be cautious at the effect that pervasive, unrealistic sexual and body-shape imagery is having on our culture, and on the expectations of those in the “porn generation” in particular. But at least the YouPorn data suggest that much of the explosion of pornography is simply channeling age- old, vanilla fantasy, e.g., ‘masturbation’ has 4,747 videos. There is also evidence for a continuing mainstreaming of women’s sexual pleasure: ‘cunnilingus’ has 2,086 videos, with, surprisingly and happily, a straight-up instructional video in this category logging more views (8.13 million) as the most popular double penetration video.
Science. It works, bitches.
“The most popular acts depicted in internet porn include vaginal, oral and anal penetration by three or more men at the same time,” (Gail Dines)
Those are academic weasel words. This sentence is not actually saying that these are the most popular, but that she has constructed a list of “n” acts (out of “N” possible acts) that she defines as “most popular”. That list of “n” acts happens to contain the acts she finds problematic. If we do not know how large “n” or “N” is, or do not know the rankings of the acts, we cannot evaluate this list as anything other than a pre-selected subset to illustrate a pre-determined position.
Also, and this is not the point, but it reminds me of when the woman at the anti-porn lecture I attended said that gonzo was the same as ATM. She then explained, to a wide eyed group of women, that ATM was ASS TO MOUTH!
I of course corrected her and told her that gonzo was a style that referred to all sex, little plot, and that ATM was an act, not a genre.
I also asked her what was wrong with ATM. She did not respond.
So, again, I ask, what is wrong with vaginal, anal, and oral penetration at once?
werd, great article. gail dines and her anti-pr0n zealot mob are not understanding that you can’t just go around smack without the facts to back it up. glad to see there are so many other pro-porn science-using nerds holding it down with the facts! love it
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