What does 'normal' sex look like?

Hi all,

I'm currently rebooting, no p no m. I'm about D30 no fap.

I'm single and so I didn't really decide to say no S.

I met a girl last night and there's a good chance we might have S.

I found myself fantasing about what it might be like. I wondered if my P fetishes etc might resurface. I'm not asking whether I should do it or not.

My question is how do we know what normal sex is? Is it normal to ejaculate on a woman's body? Or do I just think that's normal from watching P?

Who decides what's 'normal' and who made them the expert to decide on the subject anyway?

I would say that 'normal' is what you and your partner agree is acceptable for each other. If she doesn't want you ejaculating on her body, then don't do it.

There are some acts in porn, I'm sure you can imagine what they are, the purpose of which is to degrade and objectify women. I think some of these acts have become 'normalised'. By that I mean that young men and women whose 'sex education' has only been through porn think that because it happens in porn it must be what everybody does. Some years ago I had a one night stand with a woman who asked me if I was going to cum on her face, to which I replied 'no'. According to my 'normal' ejaculating on a woman's face is to demean her, and I won't do it. Perhaps she enjoyed this kind of thing, but she didn't insist so I have a suspicion that she didn't.

There are some things which are learnt behaviour through porn. I have a particular 'fetish' which surfaced long before I knew porn existed. I consider that 'normal' for me. It might not be normal for my sexual partner. You might have innate fetishes, not porn induced, which I would consider 'normal'. You could discuss your fetishes with the girl (although I think a first night is probably too soon) and see if she is willing to accommodate them. If not, then you either have to live with not acting your fetishes our, or find a girl who shares the same fetishes.

In my experience, porn induced fetishes fade. My innate fetish never has. Do you think your fetishes are innate or porn induced?

You could always wear a condom and this would eliminate any doubt about cumming on her body.

I guess that's my issue, that I don't know whether my fetishes are innate or porn produced. I guess abstaining from P in the long run and abstaining from those behaviors during sex is the only way to find out

EDIT: but it's impossible to abstain from the learned behaviors when you don't know which ones are the learned behaviours

Absolutely, quit porn and see which fetishes you still have in a year. They are most likely the innate ones.

It is going to be hard to know, but there is a good chance that if you have to ask if something is natural or came from porn, the answer is porn.  "I like breasts" is something that can happen without porn, "I want her dressed like a clown and yelling at my ass" is clearly not something that arises naturally. 

In fact, if you "need" anything other than her presence, it is likely from porn.

Personally speaking, in my porn days I "needed" certain things to feel aroused.  While certain fetishes have remained as light water marks, by no means do I "need" it to feel aroused.

"Some years ago I had a one night stand with a woman who asked me if I was going to cum on her face, to which I replied 'no'. According to my 'normal' ejaculating on a woman's face is to demean her, and I won't do it. Perhaps she enjoyed this kind of thing, but she didn't insist so I have a suspicion that she didn't."

Thank you for sharing that.  It is worth noting that women don't have a crystal ball to tell us what a world without porn would look like any more than we do.  Maybe every sexual partner that woman has had has been a porn addict, and has just learned over the years that this is how it is supposed to be done, and talked herself into thinking it is normal.  Lately I've been hearing stories like young women being permanently injured from being choked during sex, because both people thought it was a "normal" thing, or that some young women who struggle with gender identity arrived there because they saw porn and didn't find that sort of sex at all appealing and question whether they were even supposed to be women to begin with (that part comes from Debra Soh, a sex scientist formerly working with Playboy... not someone you'd consider a prude). 

Hi DoneAtLast.

I remember reading an article a few years ago in which a researcher was asking adolescent girls about what they thought sex should be like and a surprising number mentioned taking ejaculate on their faces, anal sex and, as you interestingly pointed out, choking.

My introduction to porn was through magazines and grainy VHS cassettes. I don't remember 'facials' being so prevalent, if they were they were reserved for much 'harder' porn. I remember seeing my first 'facial' and being disgusted by it. Not long after I was searching for it. Not long after that I was bored by it, because it wasn't hard enough. Although, porn has warped my taste in porn, I've never lost sight of the fact that the woman I'm having sex with is a real person with feelings.

I've often thought about my one night encounter with that woman and I sometimes have the feeling she was being ironic. It was clear in the few hours I spent in her company that she was a very intelligent woman. Interestingly, I was taking too long to finish with her and she looked me in the eyes while I was thrusting away and said "you should stop watching porn". So, she had obviously had encounters with men who found it difficult to finish because they had desensitised themselves with porn and the death grip.

Yeah, it is a wild world out there.  I also remember hearing about one (very) young woman talking about how her boyfriend was really confused why she wasn't constantly screaming during sex.  Of the three things you mentioned, I don't understand how any of them could possibly be pleasurable for either party involved.  Maybe for the man if he genuinely dislikes women and wants to degrade them at the same time as being aroused, and maybe for the woman if she thrives on being degraded or experiencing pain. 

The weird thing for the women is that if you're told you're supposed to enjoy something, you'll eventually talk yourself into it.  Obviously that isn't true 100% of the time or for 100% of women.  That's how fads happen.  If you told a bunch of people for a long time that ketchup on ice cream was delicious, I'm sure some would acquire a taste for it, too.  Being a people pleaser is a bigger deal for women in physical affection than it is for men (though, obviously men should strive for that a bit, eh?  Maybe that's a good tip for approaching sex post-porn... ).

I've always been more of a Jekyll/Hyde person with porn.  I always knew it was bogus.  It didn't keep me from getting hooked or it screwing up my brain, but I never thought any of it was indicative of real sex.  If anything, I've erred on the side of assuming EVERYTHING is 100% a lie, so I tend to be surprised when I find out that someone actually enjoys X, Y or Z, and even still be suspicious after that.  For example, I have no idea if the fabled "size queen" is a real thing, though doubt that it is.  Most of the time it seems like men are more interested in the size than the women, and women in porn pretend to be interested because men want them to be interested.  If you try searching around online and looking for real answers, you won't really find anything consistent.  (I don't recommend doing that search if you're trigger prone for obvious reasons).

Thanks mousemat and done at last, I loved reading those posts. Great observations!

**Attention!** There is a possible trigger below. If you think it might cause problems for your reboot, don't read it.

That comment about being a 'pleaser' is more important for women is interesting. I remember a 6 month relationship I had in my early 30s. The young woman in question asked me to perform one of the three on her (it wasn't ejaculating on her fact nor choking). I'd never done it before and my next questions was "won't it hurt". She assured me it wouldn't and that she really enjoyed it and asked me several times again. We did it that night, and she asked me on a couple of other occasions too. Some time later, I met her ex-boyfriend and I could kind of see how she might have been coerced into doing it. He didn't come across as being particularly empathic. I can't get into someone else head and know if what they are telling me is true. Perhaps this young woman genuinely did enjoy it. However, some time later I met another young woman and I broached the subject with her and suggested it might be nice. She told me to go fuck myself! I deduced from her response that she had attempted to 'please' another guy and discovered that this really wasn't very pleasant for her. That was a wake up call for me. I'd come to the conclusion that everyone was having porn-like sex, it really isn't the case. I've had a fair amount of sex in the past, but non of it comes close to the sensation and fulfilment of making love to a woman I really care about.

Again, I think we pretty much all have certain fetishes. Some are innate, but I suspect that most are learnt behaviours. When I was a young man non of my partners ever performed oral sex on me. I suspect it was because non of the girls I encountered had watched porn. VHS cassettes were difficult to get hold of, and not too many households had a machine to play them on. I was always frustrated that non of them performed oral sex on me (I never asked them too). Even at that young age my expectations had become warped. I had learnt that women performing oral sex on men was the norm. It seems that with the proliferation of high speed/access anywhere internet porn, young women now feel that performing oral sex on there male partner is a prerequisite to penetrative sex.

I have no problem with oral sex. I'm just trying to understand how porn has altered our expectations.

I think we could go around on this for hours.  The most cynical argument is that all forms of affection/stimulation are learned.  Evidence for this might be that kissing is only a romantic gesture in roughly half of cultures across the globe ( https://hraf.yale.edu/romantic-or-disgusting-passionate-kissing-is-not-a-human-universal/ ) though, it sets aside the fact that kissing exists as a sign of affection, albeit non-romantic, in other cultures, especially ancient cultures.  People get hung up on very old documents that mention a kiss, for example.  Less cynically, it is important to note that kissing involves an intimacy and closeness, eye contact at some point, and those things are fairly common and intuitive.  Wanting to be close and form emotional connections seems to be at the heart of it, and it makes sense that the cultures with larger personal bubbles would find kissing more erotic. 

Honest question: do people who escalate to rather raunchy sexual practices find any pleasure in a simple kiss?  (I'm now reminded of a scene from Monty Python's Meaning of Life that I won't link to because it could be slightly triggering)  Is the idea that I'd even ask this question laughable to people who have escalated?

Intercourse itself, the kind that makes babies, obviously exists in every culture (except maybe the one we're creating through porn, and giving ourselves a pretty low replacement rate, but that's another matter). 

*lots of triggers*

I guess it is the total connection and offering in sexuality that is key for me when making an intuitive call.  For the life of me, I can't imagine receiving oral sex or a hand job (is there a more clinical term for this?) as being a form of connection.  It just seems like assisted masturbation.  Maybe because I'm thinking of it from her perspective; I can't imagine just staring at my own junk and deriving pleasure from it.  I can only understand her appeal from the people pleasing aspect, in part due to what I mentioned before that I'm not convinced that the penis is actually all that erotic of an object to women.  Men seem more interested in isolating body parts and eroticizing them than women.

Some sex acts could maybe be categorized as ways to get sexual pleasure, but keep the person herself at a distance.  Anal sex might be very high on the sexual pleasure scale, and for all I know the colon is more stimulating than a vagina, but you're also not facing the person or really having to be attentive to her in any way except going about your business.  At what point is your sex partner just a super realistic blow up doll?  The word "dehumanizing" gets tossed around a lot, but I think we should all be keeping it in the front of our minds from time to time.

One thing I've noticed post porn is that the emotional/connection/closeness component is FAR more arousing than a porn addict would think it should be.  We might remember it from our adolescence, and because of this we will forever associate it with childishness, but I'd propose that it isn't childish, it is just a little more pure and predates porn.  At least in my case, I didn't get high speed internet until my 20s.  Most of the world looks down on a guy who might get a little weak in the knees making and holding eye contact or standing over a woman's shoulder close enough to smell her hair (Joe Biden jokes aside).  The fact is that these are pretty natural things, and things that get drowned out by exaggerated sexuality given to us by porn.

(One heck of a tangent, but for a long time people were talking in reboot about having the "super power" of being more attractive to women.  My best guess has always been that it has been because of small things like being able to make and hold eye contact, not being strange and jittery and giving off weird perv vibes that has led to it.  Women are programmed for the less raunchy aspects of sex more than men, and it would make sense that they'd intuit these behaviors as positive.  Evolutionarily speaking, women play "baby roulette" with sex, and are more likely to seek someone who is husband/father material.  You can imagine the soft sex guy sticking around playing with toddlers a lot more than the guy suggesting anal sex.)

Some really excellent points there.

"Men seem more interested in isolating body parts and eroticizing them than women." I totally agree.

"and for all I know the colon is more stimulating than a vagina, but you're also not facing the person or really having to be attentive to her in any way except going about your business." Exactly, isn't that what porn is about. The woman is just the means to and end. I know 'romantic' porn exists. While there was something 'excitingly taboo' about anal sex, I couldn't disengage myself from he fact that there was a real human being there and that I can't for the life of me imagine it being nice (she did ask/insist, so perhaps I'm wrong). I could never 'get into it' like male porn actors seem to. I've never done it since or felt compelled to ask after the second woman told me to go fuck myself. It's often over looked that when a woman (or anyone for that matter) says 'no', it doesn't mean 'yes'.

"You can imagine the soft sex guy sticking around playing with toddlers a lot more than the guy suggesting anal sex." I think you're right here too.

There's one other point here I'd like to make for suprastim's benefit (sorry suprastim, we appear to have hi-jacked your thread). I don't remember how many sexual partners I've had. I'm no stud, but I've been around the block, for want of a better term. In all those partners I've only ever had sex with two women who had completely shaved their pubic hair. I know it's two because I remember how strange it seemed. This has never been a turn on for me, to be honest. I just can't get it out of my head that the idea behind porn stars shaving all their pubic hair is to make them look like pre-pubescent girls. There is something quite 'dark' about the practice in my opinion. When we talk about 'normal' sex practices, this one definitely doesn't seem 'normal' to me.

Anyway, as you say we could go round for hours. I'm going to hand this thread back to suprastim. What are you're ideas on 'normal' now suprastim. 

Heh, yeah, we did kinda hijack it.  I think that is inevitable.  It is a difficult question.

Quitting porn is important, and moving away from porn you realize how much it lied to you over the years.  But, to better understand what is false, we have to start understanding what is true.  I don't know exactly how those discussions are supposed to play out on a board like this, because it will introduce so many philosophical, theological (and even ontological) differences that can't really be focused on this board, and it could get kinda wild.  I don't think it should be excluded either.  Without a sense of what my goals were (real relationships, marriage, connection, etc.) I would never have had the motivation to quit porn.  I also think that some of the guys who struggle the most with quitting are ones who won't let go of ideas about sex they learned from porn... in other words, they want to quit porn in order to make life more like porn.  That causes so many problems for recovery.  It is like wanting to lose weight so you can guiltlessly gorge yourself on cake, or wanting to quit cigarettes so your lungs will clear up enough to enjoy cigars. 

In other words, I am not sure a community can keep discussing addiction recovery without ever touching on what the clean life is supposed to look like.

Maybe some people can walk away from porn and feel entirely content with where their understanding of sexuality is.  For me it is just too much of a "red pill" to quit porn for me to not think a lot about these things.