My name is Michelle, and I am a 23-year-old porn virgin.
That’s right. I have never watched pornography. Those who have known me for years and those I’ve only just met express an equal amount of surprise upon learning this fact.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I don’t understand.”
And my personal favorite: “Wait, you’ve never seen porn?!”
Evidently, as a comedienne, an adult, and a survivor of several long-term relationships, I should have seen video footage of strangers copulating on at least one occasion. But, shocking as it may seem, the whole concept of this multibillion dollar industry really freaks me out.
In sum, I am the expression “get a room” incarnate. By all means, take full advantage of each other’s youthful, supple bodies—I just don’t want to see that go down.
Maybe I’ve been waiting for the right time or the perfect video to come along. In any case, I finally came to the inconvenient conclusion that I must abandon those ideals—I was tired of being ridiculed for them. I needed to pop my porn cherry, if only to know what I’d been missing.
Getting Ready
Beholden to my pre-existing anxiety over allowing anyone to borrow any of my Internet-connecting devices and those nefarious tracking cookies (every woman must, at some point in her life, Google the term “young shirtless Richard Gere,” and there is nothing weird about that), my first course of action is to reflexively open up an incognito window.
OK. I’ll start slow. I’m going to follow through on this, but I don’t need to take it from zero to 100 right off the bat. I’ll do a little research before I… do the deed. Just to see that I’m going about this the right way and, of course, to ensure I don’t catch anything while I’m at it.
Results are inconclusive. Maybe I’m overthinking this. I’m still so nervous! Deep breaths. Off to PornHub, the only porn site I’ve ever discovered in my ex-boyfriend’s search histories (again: clear this frequently).
The Selection
Web page loads.
Nope. No. This is the worst. This is a mistake. The thumbnails! Why didn’t anybody warn me about the thumbnails?! I’m in way over my head.
Get a grip. Look sharp, Michelle—you are doing this for journalism, and pageviews. You got this… Nope. I can’t.
Repeat cycle.
By now I’m starting to feel the way you do when you’ve been sitting in a dark room, someone flicks on the fluorescents, and your searing pupils have to contract to allow the proper amount of light in. This type of sensory adjustment eventually permits me to scroll through the site.
First of all, I am astonished by the sheer volume and diversity of sex content on this single platform. What a remarkable marketplace of ideas! It’s important to me that I watch the right video for my first time, so I’m going to set a few parameters: mainly avoiding any video with a title containing certain… advanced key words (among which “teen” would be the least explicit). My anxiety leads me to the handy PornHub search bar.
PornHub
Oh god, it thinks I mean “taste.” Let’s try something else. My next search is for “romantic.” Not a whole lot better, honestly. Pretty similar verbiage and imagery. Well, “POV” might be better for someone with my apprehensions—except all I get are POVs of men plowing women. Not my style.
You know what? If I’m going to do this, I at least want to be teed up with a little story first. To “parody!”
Great, only several hundred more options there. I’ll sort by rating, though I’m unsure what exactly warrants a good rating. Let’s get that duration filter all the way down, too.
Ultimately, to maximize my comfort level (if possible), it is selections from the film Star Wars XXX that capture my fancy.
Watching Porn!
All right, here we go. Let’s do this thing.
I’m alone in my apartment, but I’m not sure which feels dirtier: plugging in my headphones or letting the moans burst openly from my laptop speakers. I’m going with the former.
PornHub
0:00-0:13. A nice big space explosion. I get it, it’s like a sex metaphor or something. No? I’m reading too much into this?
0:13-0:23. Nothing has happened yet, but this is a shockingly professional-looking set.
0:24-0:25. Wait, are those ships flying towards earth? As in our earth? Did the makers of this tribute film lose consciousness during the explicit mention of “a galaxy far, far away”?
0:26-0:37. So, Luke, Leia, and Han are standing on a ship. Luke is pissed because he thought there was going to be a celebration, so Leia informs him that they are celebrating.
0:38-0:56. Apparently, Luke has never kissed a girl before except for Aunt Beru, so Leia kindly offers to show him how to kiss someone he’s not related to (ha!), and then they bond over being orphans.
0:57-1:00. They’re making out. Damn, Luke is a pretty good kisser for a first-timer. And we get a nice over-the-shirt boob graze. Not so bad so far.
PornHub
1:01: “Oh god, that’s good,” Luke announces, as Leia asks Han if he’s just going to stand there. He is a good boy and was just waiting for her highness’ invitation. He’s getting in on the gropefest now.
1:02-1:34: It’s still pretty much just that.
1:35-1:47: This is only a five-minute video. When are they going to get to it? The camera is zooming in, so that probably means something.
1:58: Leia takes off her own dress in a total power move.
2:08: Luke is really going at those #SmallTits.
2:09-2:10: This music is kind of romantic. I bet John Williams would approve.
2:11-2:20: Houston, we have OTPHJ!
2:21-2:29. At 2:19, Luke has his pants on, and suddenly, in the very next shot, his (crazy large) dick is out. Am I to assume this was done through use of the Force?
2:30-2:40: Things have really escalated, and my viewing experience is severely mired in discomfort over this man’s blowjob face.
2:41: Leia chokes on dick 🙁
2:42-2:55: Okay, that’s probably enough saliva. Right? Right?
2:56-3:00: Yeah. That is a pretty large penis.
3:03-3:05: Fine, I admit it. I am holding one hand in front of the screen. I would hate this angle even on myself.
3:06-3:07. This woman sounds like she’s in a great deal of pain.
3:08-3:09. Cool, some face time. I am OK with this.
3:10-3:30: Hey, the music stopped! I miss the music.
3:31-3:49. Yeah, no, that is probably, definitely the largest penis I will ever see.
3:50-3:58. Impressive camera work. Someone got their BFA in Film Studies.
3:59-4:11. Alright Leia, relax, Han is hardly doing anything back there.
4:12-4:24. Is this… is it supposed to look like that?
4:25-4:40. I do not enjoy the sounds I am hearing. I do not enjoy them whatsoever.
4:45-5:03: Leia’s got a nice manicure. Good work, costume department.
The Aftermath
Well, I’ve done it. I no longer have an ace in the hole for drunken games of “Never Have I Ever.”
How does it feel? It certainly wasn’t as terrible as I thought. And maybe I even enjoyed certain parts. But the enjoyment was less the tingle of sexual arousal and more the amusement of watching entertaining [crapfest] cinema. Let’s just say I’ll stick to the real thing, even if that leaves me a slave to opportunity.
But just in case: Don’t check my browsing history.
Illustration by Max Fleishman