Porno? Por not!

I went to New York, and now I'm back. During my blogging hiatus, I'm afraid I lost my devoted readership of 1. Woe and betide. Let's move on.

I would like to take this opportunity to comment on an issue of mine that I have as yet not disclosed to many people. It's not embarassing at all, and the reason I'm bring it up now is because I realized that many people probably share the same issue. To put it simply, a lot of the time porn makes me feel bad about myself.

I am, of course, taking about gay porn because 1) I'm gay so that's what I see and 2) the men in straight porn generally do not make me feel bad about anything. Look at these guys. Homosexual men and women have to deal with a unique set of conflicting emotions when looking at attractive people. Gay men have the potential to think "Wow, his abs are hot. I am turned on, and also, I wish I could have abs like that." Every feature on a beautiful man is the cause of both arousal and self-deprecation. You'll be hard pressed to find a straight man looking green-eyed at a woman thinking "I wonder how she gets such toned thighs... and man, I wish my waist were that tight." If you do find him, this is perhaps a man who needs to give some serious thought to his situation.

I will never look like a porn star. I may be tall and have a pretty face, but I can benchpress til Judgement Day, and I'll never even have the body of even those skinny, twinky Bel Ami guys. I'm not built for it. I'm extremely slight. I've gained 15 pounds this year, and I still fit into my extra small Gap t-shirt, though I look considerably less cute in it than I did in the days of yore. (I must say, however, that I'm one of those blessed out-of-shape people who have what is known as "muscle-shaped flab." If I carry myself right and wear the right clothes, I can pass for toned... until I sit down, bend over, jump, move, or forget to suck in for a second.) The point is, I'll never have a "man's" body. I have the most narrow shoulders of anyone I've ever met over 5'8" and a long, oval face. Often mistaken for a woman, I look stupid with muscle since I don't have the jawline, cheekbones, or bone-structure to back it up.

The Bel Ami boys have the most boring sex ever, so it's gotta be their looks that sell. The Falcon men do the same damn thing in every video and generally shoot so little they might as well be impotent, but that's one of the biggest porn studios in the world because their men fit this ideal (and have really great skin).

The worst of it is that I have a great self-image. I look in the mirror every day and think "Yup... I'm still cute!" It's not until I'm making time mid morning that I start to question whether I'm deluding myself.

And I know, I know. I should learn to ignore the pressure to have the perfect Hollywood/Porn body because society and The Man and Mary Kate Olsen and blah blah biddy blah... well that's not the way it works sometimes. Image concerns are real, and they're universal. A thousand people have written about them because a billion people have felt them. The only thing I'm trying to point out here is that battle my mind goes through every time I need a little self-lovin'. "He's hot because he's got everything that I'm not." My body flushes pink as I reach orgasm, but it also turns the proverbial green with envy, and those colors mixed don't make a pretty picture. Just ask the 70's.

And don't suggest that I watch amateur porn because the guys in it are more realistic. Call me weird, but hotter men turn me on more. (That is... unless the sex is good in your suggested amateur porn. People who look like they're really enjoying themselves are the biggest turn-on for me, no matter what they look like. Unfortunately, that rarely happens in porn, so for that, I depend on real life.)

Sorry this isn't the most entertaining, funny, or even well-written blog entry ever. I'll do better tomorrow. This is just something I wanted to talk about.

n.b. The men showcased in the links above are four of my favorite stars. They're pretty mainstream; I don't have very interesting taste. They are, respectively, Mark Dalton (egocentric and hot for it), Matthew Rush (whoa baby, I love his lips), Ken Ryker (a big name in the field), and Lukas Ridgeston (he's, like, totally old and still looks the same). And in case you couldn't tell, yes, I like armpit shots.