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Why are men in porn so unattractive?

Bonjour Sasha,

My wife and I like to watch porn while we have sex.

But my wife often finds the guys in the movies unattractive. She says, “They look like douchebags from Bar Le Fuzzy in Laval.”

I understand what she means. The studios promote the girls, not the guys. So it’s hard for me to know how the guys will look when I shop for Blu-Rays. A dick on a pic on the back of a jewel box doesn’t tell that much.

Could you recommend some studios that make movies…

1. where both men and women look attractive (in the best interests of a couple)

2. where the guy has sex that is pleasurable for the girl, instead of fucking her mouth or pussy as if he’s a jackhammer

3. where people enjoy having sex – laughing, smiling, etc

4. that focus on sex, not on “stories” (let’s get to the point)

5. that are available on Blu-Ray?

Are we looking for something too “niche”?

Télécino

Dear Télécino,

Only my Montreal readers will get how brilliant the Bar Le Fuzzy reference is, but please thank your wife for making me laugh out loud and tumble into a sentimental ditch of Drakkar Noir, shooters named after sex acts and alarmingly well-groomed eyebrows.

Your demands are not niche. About 10 years ago, pornography for heterosexual couples, also known as female-focused porn, was one of the fastest growing markets in the industry, and it continues to enjoy a featured place on the shelves.

Comstock Films makes great productions featuring actual couples. The sex is real, and the “stories” are told between scenes so you can fast-forward through them. There’s an emotional quality to some of these films that you may find surprising. (Five years after watching Xana And Dax, I still tear up a little when I think about the super-goofy grin on Dax’s face at the end of the film.)

I’ve always enjoyed the nasty yet progressive quality of Anna Span’s work. She takes a theme (say, cougars) and creates a series of hot scenes around it. Female pleasure is a focus, but not in an ingratiating “and now we must worship the Yoni” kind of way.

The problem you may run into is finding stuff on Blu-Ray. As you know, though, you can play ordinary DVDs on your Blu-Ray player.

If you get off on lesbian and trans films, I’d encourage you and your wife to explore the work of Shine Louise Houston (pinkwhite.biz). Seriously, my pants still get hot when I think about Champion, which is pretty much all I can do right now because people keep taking off with my copy of it.

Dear Sasha,

When I read the ingredients included in most lube, I tend to feel disgusted by the idea of using a product filled with so many strangely named chemicals for intimate play. I know there are some lubes (made with hemp, for example) that claim to be more natural, but I was thinking, what about olive oil? Could anything get any more natural (and cheap)? Do you know if there are any health issues related to using olive oil as a personal lube?

Olive R

Dear Olive,

No oil-based lubricant is condom-compatible, so that’s certainly one health risk. If you’re using it vaginally, it may contribute to minor vaginal infections since it washes out with less ease than water-based lubricants. Still, many folks have discovered the joys of olive oil and even coconut oil as personal lubricants, but there is a catch. From a story by Tom Mueller in the New Yorker in 2007 about olive oil fraud:

“Most olive oil frauds are easy to detect using chemical tests. In February 2005, the N.A.S. Carabinieri broke up a criminal ring operating in several regions of Italy and confiscated a 100,000 litres of fake olive oil, with a street value of 6 million euros (about $8 million).

“The ring, which allegedly sold its products in northern Italy and in Germany, is accused of colouring low-grade soy oil and canola oil with industrial chlorophyll, flavouring it with beta-carotene and packaging it as extra-virgin olive oil in tins and bottles emblazoned with pictures of Italian flags or Mt. Vesuvius, and with folksy names of imaginary producers: the Farmhouse, the Ancient Millstones.”

Mueller goes on to reveal that in 2006, federal marshals seized about 60,000 litres of what was supposedly extra-virgin olive oil and 26 litres of lower grade olive oil that turned out to be primarily soybean oil.

So if ingredients are a concern of yours, make sure that you research the olive oil you’re using as personal lubricant and otherwise. You may find the stuff that’s genuinely pure a little more costly than you had anticipated, as well.

Mueller ended up writing a book on olive oil fraud. You can hear more about it on NPR.

I recently had the opportunity to test a few organic lubricants from Red Tent Sisters. Kim and Amy Sedgwick, who own this great little Danforth sex and fertility shop, are really invested in sourcing and selling ecologically kind intimate products. (Also, you should see these girls yourself. They are made of corn stalks and sunshine.)

Aloe Cadabra is 95 per cent pure aloe gel with a few other innocuous ingredients to keep it slick and to preserve it. I liked this one a lot. There was a tart quality to it that made it seem like it was engaging respectfully with my body’s pH, and it stayed moist on warm skin. I like that it came out in a blob, then liquefied when it was warm. This made applying it to toys really easy.

I also tested one from a company called Blossom Organics, and I think it’s the best new “natural” lubricant I’ve tried. (I put natural in quotations because you can never be sure that all the ingredients a company uses are completely harmless to everyone.) It’s also aloe-based and contains no parabens, petroleum, silicones, alcohol, hormones, artificial dyes, flavourings or fragrances.

It’s latex-friendly, glycerin-free and water-based. I got a lot of value out of this one and even used it for fisting. This is a big step in these types of products. The initial offerings on the market became tacky very quickly, making deep penetration problematic. Getting something in was no problem, getting it out – youch!

So I guess the question is: if these products are aloe-based, why not use aloe as a lubricant? As you know, it tends to get pretty tacky without additional ingredients to keep it slick. Perhaps you can start experimenting on your own with a combination of aloe and good olive oil. Just keep some tea tree oil on hand for possible minor vaginal infections.

Dear Sasha,

A comment on your latest column:

“Genital herpes does not lead to HIV/AIDS. If you have open sores of any type (including herpes sores), the HIV virus (in blood, semen, vaginal fluids and breast milk) can pass through them into the bloodstream. But having the herpes virus does not in itself lead to HIV/AIDS.”

There is a step missing. Someone with genital herpes is at much higher risk of contracting HIV from an infected partner, not so much because of an open sore, but because of the white blood cells that are present when there is any infection. With chlamydia, for example, white blood cells rush to the site of the infection, say a man’s urethra, which a partner’s HIV can then attack. In this way, the infection facilitates the entry of HIV into the bloodstream.

Lyba Spring, Sexual Health Education and Consulting Services

Dear Lyba,

Thank you as always for your insights.

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