Don’t Make Me Watch/Hear YOUR Porn!
Once upon a time in the eighties I read a story in Cosmo about a woman who got stuck on a plane sitting next to a guy who whipped out a porn magazine in flight, putting her in a Very Uncomfortable Position.
There was a pretty good piece in The Washington Post about the same thing happening with porn on mobile devices (stupid WP makes you have a login to read, sorry). Normally most coverage of publicly-consumed porn is really biased and weird, but they did an okay job of it: TECHNOLOGY INCREASES CHANCES TO SEE PORN IN PUBLIC.
Listen. I will defend every adult’s right to buy porn, to make porn, and to think whatever taboo sexual thoughts they want, but when you shove it into someone else’s face, you’re sexually assaulting them. You are forcing them to engage in a sexual encounter with you and your fucking porn without their consent. Is it to the same degree as actually jacking off on them on a plane or frottaging(sp?) them on a train or taking your own dick out and shaking it at them? Of course not (and I totally understand FANTASIZING about doing all of those things or FANTASIZING about those things happening to you), but I personally would press charges against someone who did that next to me. It’s unacceptable.
Of course, I say these things having been resentful at times when I wanted to pull up a NSFW blog or my own site when we’ve been on the road and in internet cafes and had to limit myself or do a lot of alt+tabbing, but that’s a far cry from the guy in the story who started watching hardcore, audible porn with not only the woman right next to him, but HER KIDS, too. The thought of it honestly makes my blood boil and my imagination to immediately go to a place in my head where I’m kicking this man’s teeth in and beating him about the head with his fucking laptop.
The shocking part to me is how many people (let’s face it, mostly MEN) think they’re entitled to publicly entertain their dicks wherever and whenever they want. How can you POSSIBLY think that’s okay? AND WHY ARE THEY GETTING AWAY WITH IT? Frankly I think we’re all obligated to publicly humiliate (to an extent that goes beyond what some of them are probably after in the first place) and legally dog these idiots.
Is there a grey area where I’d be more forgiving? Yeah. I know sometimes when you’re rowdy with another person at dinner or something you might flash some pictures on your cell phone at your buddy and someone might see it from a distance, but when your bubble is touching a stranger’s bubble either physically or audibly, you just do NOT insert sex into said stranger’s bubble. If you’re many seats away from anybody and nobody can HEAR your porn, I think that’s less of a big deal. If you make a valiant effort to hide it when someone approaches, I think that’s okay. And personally I wouldn’t care if someone masturbated next to me on a plane as long as they didn’t expose themselves or touch me or make eye contact with me and they did their best to hide it.
I think that I’ve masturbated under a blanket on a plane just to relax so I don’t know . . . maybe I’m drawing my lines in very subjective ways. I know I’ve had conversations in restaurants that were really graphic, loud, and could easily have made people uncomfortable but I think I’ve never done that with kids around. I hope not, anyway. Plus, I *love* listening to other people have conversations like that. UNLESS it’s guys talking trash about women or anybody calling people names. I have been known to ream people out for that. But it’s still different to talk about a sexual encounter and have people overhear you than start HAVING a sexual encounter with your porn and force people near you to have it with you, whether you intend to or not. And when your loud conversation disparages and insults people it’s kind of the same thing; you’ve drawn total strangers into your bullshit in a hurtful way.
I’ve also been known to have very noisy sex in apartments and not been modest at all about closing curtains when I’m naked or fucking in my own home to the point where I’ve been chastised by property managers and I don’t think people should have to be quiet in the summer when they’re fucking with the windows open to let in cool air at night (god, I love that sound). But I still think that’s different — there are walls, even though they’re penetrable and rendered mostly symbolic, that symbolism is something every civilized person should be able to recognize that establishes distance and literally marks the boundaries of what’s inside and private and what’s out. It’s an entirely different thing, however, if you stand in your window or your yard making eye contact with schoolgirls as you’re masturbating. That is ENGAGING people and forcing them to participate in your scene. NOT OKAY. Same with listening to loud extreme porn where a neighbor or passerby could hear the sounds of people in pain or engaging in kinky roleplays (I wish I could find the link to a story about someone calling the police on his neighbor because it sounded like he was raping/killing a woman when in actuality he was “just” watching violent porn for hours at high volume). On the other hand, I think it’s perfectly allright for people to masturbate in their cars on their lunch breaks or whatever, with or without porn, as long as they’re not standing up through their sunroof and ejaculating on their windshield or making whatever they’re doing and/or watching visible to people close by.
Then of course I have to admit I’ve exposed myself in public places, mostly for pictures but sometimes just for the pure fun of it. Again, I’m worried that I have a double standard even though I’m 99% *convinced* that when I’ve done it it was DIFFERENT . . . safe and wholesome even when sexually suggestive. Somehow I just don’t believe a nude Trixie is threatening or dangerous or harmful, and I especially don’t think anything is “assault” if you are in a park or something but attempting to be discreet and someone stumbles upon you. If you’re lurking in some bushes, though, waiting for an unsuspecting victim to come along so you can expose yourself to them, then THAT is fucked up. I have masturbated in a library, but I didn’t *want* to be caught, so that makes it okay, right? I mean, I would have been mortified if I’d gotten caught! But for some reason I feel perfectly content telling everyone about it, even my friends only an hour after the fact.
So what about the way I have explicit nudity and sometimes sex acts on the front page of some of my sites (like this blog) without a warning page? Is that just as bad? Of course, I still think that’s different. Is it just because it’s ME and what I want to do? I don’t think so. People who don’t want to see porn can block my sites and I have also added metatags to make it easy for my pages to be identified as adult. Also, I’m not SITTING DOWN next to strangers in public places and making them watch and listen to movies of me masturbating and fucking. Anyone who sees me online still has the control to close their browser.
Then again, I’ve taken my top off on a hot day when driving in heavy traffic. I still had my bra on, but I *so* wanted to take it off and felt very irritated that I could get in trouble for that. I still do. I don’t know how anyone could have a problem with rush hour boobs. Or rush hour masturbating. Just don’t LEER at people, you know?
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The whole time I’ve been writing this, comparing these different scenarios, I’ve been torn. I want to be honest with myself and challenge myself to think critically about whether or not my boundaries and judgments are consistent, correct and safe BUT I wonder if by doing that publicly, I’m letting everyone off the hook and confusing issues that are actually very clear.
I could mull this over all night, about how it’s different to shove sex in someone’s unwilling face in a confined space versus being off-trail in a state park giving a pal a handjob when someone stumbles upon you and you quickly try to cover up and the other people are easily able to turn around and go the other way. I could sit here and list all of the reasons why it’s BEYOND inconsiderate to make other people watch/listen to porn (and why it’s especially wrong, I’m afraid to admit [and simultaneously uncomfortable with my hesitation to boldly say], when a MAN does this to a WOMAN and/or kids).
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Confession: some of the phone sex calls I’ve taken and gotten off to hardest were from guys with this “problem”, or who at least fantasized about acting on those urges. Guys jerking off in their apartments watching the girls walk home from school in short skirts. Guys jacking off in the parking lot and exposing themselves to their coworkers and other ladies just trying to drive away. Guys sitting in internet cafes with hardons. I mean, pretty much all of the stuff I get off to hardest is taboo stuff I’d never want to happen in real life.
So how do I feel (almost) completely comfortable saying that if I caught somebody doing these things in real life I’d kick in their teeth, BUT when someone confesses it to me on the phone I just coyly call them naughty, FEIGN shock and disgust, and furiously masturbate myself to orgasm?
I don’t think I’m (a big) part of the problem, but I know a lot of people would beg to differ.
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The Washington Post article kind of blows off this behavior as just “too much information” or “socially inappropriate” or shaped by our mobile device culture making people self-absorbed, inconsiderate shitholes (TRUE), but I still think it’s much more sinister and criminal than that in ways that the men MIGHT not get (or totally DO get and that’s part of the thrill). And fuck if I have the patience to explain it right now. Let me know if you want me to, though, and/or if you have some links to people who already have and/or if you want to take a stab at it yourself.
It boggles my mind how I can peck out this many words and still leave so many dangerous gaps.














It’s not just porn; I was on a plane a while back and a guy was watching some super-violent slasher film on his laptop.
Same thing applies, I think.
Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something kind of creepy about a guy watching porn in public.
Good point — I totally agree with you and hadn’t thought of that.