Have you ever found yourself on the bow of a boat with your significant other? If so, you probably attempted the arms-out-wide pose that Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio made famous in Titanic. The same mechanism that makes us strike that pose is at work in the bedroom too, as the lights go down, the clothes come off and sex seems inevitable. But what will it be like?
In rushes a flood of images we’ve seen on television and movies. Honestly, they don’t even have to be pornographic. Any love scene can serve as tonight’s script. But if we have porn in our mental database, it’s likely to be pushing its way to the top as the most salient memory, and that means tonight can’t be ordinary. But what if I don’t want to be a porn star tonight? Too bad. With that script in my head, I feel like I have to perform in a number of ways.
Dramatically. All of the sudden I’ve got lines to say. And lots of them aren’t intelligible words, just moaning and groaning sounds that aren’t naturally emanating from me, but instead are being read off my script, complete with blocking. Now turn head to the right, now to the left, arch back.
Longer. With a few exceptions (anniversary, New Year’s Eve…) married sex seems to get shorter as the years go by – especially after kids come along. And that’s OK, especially if we can tack on some spooning and pillow talk afterwards. It’s about intimacy, after all. Unless we’re working off the porn script. Then it’s about how long it lasts. Glancing over to the clock and seeing that only 15 minutes passed leaves me feeling like an underachiever, or like I married one.
In Various and Sundry Other Ways. Porn is always upping the ante on the sexual experience. There’s always a new perversion – er, I mean – position to try. And if we ever work through the Kama Sutra cover to cover, it’s time to add toys, or a third person, or a change of venue – even a public place!
Just like standing on the bow of a rowboat pales in comparison to the Paramount portrayal of that fictitious moment on the Titanic, every day sex seems amateur compared to porn. One is real life, the other is a production. Some couples think porn serves as foreplay, but I think it serves as a forerunner for dissatisfaction.
Sex is a creative project between two people that can’t be replicated, even if we try. A couple can’t even have their own sex the exact same way twice, let alone duplicate the sex some other couple had! But that’s OK, because there’s more dignity in making a hokey original than to default to copying someone else’s idea. Keeping your mind free of porn and erotica better enables you to improv your own drama (or comedy!).