This is an eternal contradiction in US attitudes towards porn. Porn was condemned by mainstream consensus in the 80s/90s for creating unrealistic and strange (plastic) bodily standards, but the companies that were closest to the mainstream and in every hotel PPV were Vivid and Wicked, who were the pinnacle of that slick plastic style. The farther you got away from them, the more natural people looked and behaved.

edit: even now, the places where extreme bodily exaggerations, distortions, and surgical interventions dominate are very vanilla and mainstream, like instagram and twitter, or even softcore/non-nude.

It's not even about porn. Nudist websites now also require real ID verification for their members. I can see this extended to fitness websites soon.

Studio shot material is definitely a bit more exaggerated and more selective with their performers. However, I don't really have the impression that amateur shot stuff is "showing wholesome normal sex". Some studios do produce more realistic video but in my experience the amateur stuff is just worse lit and self shot. Still usually made by someone just trying to get a few quick bucks.

All I'm saying is that amateurs are going to have amateur sex so it's closer to the norm than pro sex and probably better for teens to watch and it's too bad that a lot of it will be gone, leaving mostly pro stuff.

I understand the motivation: let's reduce the trafficking of women and revenge porn, but I'm not sure we're going about it in a good way.

I think the main problem with studio work is that it sets highly unrealistic expectations for what a woman’s body looks like. It’s professionally groomed and unnatural and girls cannot possibly meet the same standard on any given Tuesday. Neither can guys but I feel like the expectations for guys are generally much lower anyway.

Except for the large member, which I've heard intimidates the less endowed.

If I’ve remembered the relevant studies about average penis length correctly, self reported penis length averages to a value between one and two inches longer than clinically measured lengths average to depending on which studies you pick. Which is definitely indicative of that endowment anxiety as a widespread issue.

That's true, but I think it's also true of most movies and tv. Any group of people you see have been hand picked, cast, done up and very well lit.

I think the OPs point was that teenagers could start considering this the 'normal'. Personally I give them a little more credit. But it is a good point.

I don’t agree, based on at least my personal experience. My wife and I (40s) don’t engage in even a fraction of the acts I see commonly in porn. My bf (mid-20s) and I, on the other hand regularly do. He sees these acts as normal and expected. She definitely does not, and neither do I. Anecdotes aren’t data, to be sure, but my bf’s friend group has a similarly completely different view of what is “normal” with respect to sexual activity, and the same is true for others of similar age I’ve been involved with. I’m convinced porn definitely shapes the view of normal.

Interesting, but it doesn't sound like a 'problem' per se. As long as people don't do these things against their wishes. It's not a bad thing if people broaden their sexual horizons IMO (though some of the sexual acts in porn are a bit gratuitous). But I strongly believe what consenting adults do in the bedroom is their business and nobody else's.

And it does sound like it's definitely a subset of the more mainstream porn that he's practicing, after all the more extreme things often require more people.

Like the other poster I also wonder whether this is a result of influencing from porn or that porn is influenced by changing behaviour. After all, porn wouldn't be made if people didn't like it.

Not saying you're necessarily wrong, but your observations are fully explainable by porn following trends; no causal direction can be established from them.

You have a point, but I don’t think I agree. The mid-20s group get the majority of their education about what to do for sex from porn as much as if not more than from their sex partners. They didn’t set the trends for porn that is watched today, unless they started influencing the market when they were pre-pubescent.

Yeah. It's hard to control what teens see and what their interpretation is. I don't know if there are really great examples of what healthy sex lives should be like. Everything is just extremely graphic and widely available.

The market gets what the market wants.

Unless you believe there's some sinister cabal out there conspiring to hurt 18-25 years with porn, you'll just have to accept what's out there is what people pay to see.

The big hardcore porn scenes aren't cheap they are deliberate and calculated.

> depicts unrealistic sex between adults

Doesn't depict the kind of sex you like to watch or partake in but "Middle America" isn't the only view point (no offence if your not American).

There's plenty of bars / clubs / spaces / apps for "kinksters" and the more adventurous. "kink" came before porn and will exist long after it.

Its unfortunate hardcore porn rises to the homepage of these porn sites but its simple economics "ew that's gross, lemme just click it real quick" and there's the advertising space sold - its just "the algorithm" at it again.

Maybe you should make an account and let "the algorithm" do its thing.

The difference being mainly that these clubs, bars and magazines are all analog and, prior to the wide availability of porn on the internet, were not something the vast majority of people were exposed to. Kinks have existed since sex started. But that doesn’t mean they were (or are) “normal”. “Normal” isn’t meant to be derogatory as I use it: it’s just shorthand for what the 1-sigma group in the distribution considers “typical”

How are you defining kink here? The vast majority of my sexual partners had some kind of kink, even if just in a toned down level. I cannot remember many I had intimacy enough with that weren't into some behaviour or act considered "kinky".

I really don't know how you'd even define the "normal" sex behaviour, there is just so much variation.

I have never paid for porn because there is so much free stuff, so I can only speak to the free stuff. I'm talking about widely available free porn that is supported with advertising. I hear it's softer than the paid stuff.

> Unless you believe there's some sinister cabal out there conspiring to hurt 18-25 years with porn, you'll just have to accept what's out there is what people pay to see.

I don’t think porn companies are necessarily trying to harm people in the same way I don’t think social media companies, casinos, drug dealers, etc. are necessarily trying to harm people. They are trying to make money, and they don’t care too much if they cause harm in doing so.

well the problem is censorship from Visa is distorting the market. i.e., many people like amateur porn but this makes amateur porn have a higher barrier.