Being a Porn Critic is About More Than Criticizing Porn

Writers Gotta Read and Write, Porn Reviewers Gotta Porn.

While discussing the endlessly fascinating topic of human sexuality with a lover, it was opined that writers need to not only write but read voraciously. When the topic is socially acceptable, that’s a simple matter. You can find endless numbers of books and articles about non-controversial topics like recipes and celebrity scandals.

But when it’s a topic that meets with shame-based social disapproval, becoming educated about it gets far more complex. When the topic is sex, it’s increasingly difficult to find worthy reading material. There’s plenty written about how those of us who enjoy watching porn or engaging in sex are addicted or dysfunctional, but there’s not as much written about the joys of healthy, expressive sexuality. This has been changing during the past few decades, but all we have to do is look to Texas or Florida for evidence that access to carnal knowledge is still legally fragile.

As is the case with sexuality, so is the case with being a porn critic. There are as many paths to the glamorous life of a porn reviewer as there are paths to an excellent sex life. It’s not like there’s a college degree that fast tracks you into a career in the porn industry. That’s not to say there aren’t courses and degrees about various aspects of sexuality. Sometimes a university even slips a presentation by someone like Tristan Taormino past the pearl clutchers. But my experience is that there is a difference between the approach of a sexual academic and a sexual adventurer.

It's rare that a sexual academic chooses adult videos as a topic for their writing. It’s not exactly considered a fine art worthy of serious study unless the goal is to pathologize it. Yet, we know that an appreciation for erotic entertainment reaches back to some of our earliest human moments and that the cave art in question involves vanilla as well as “deviant” behavior. We know that the Egyptians wore garments designed to draw attention to the genital area. We know that the Romans took walks through pathways decorated with depictions of erect phalluses. Our interest in erotic imagery is likely older than spoken language.

I know these things because my path to watching pretty people fuck on video took me through two years of Classical Greek language study and led to dual BAs in History and Anthropology. Chances are good that most of your friendly neighborhood porn reviewers have an equally indirect line connecting any higher education goals they may have had and their publication reality. I think this is both because some areas of academic study are simply not meant to lead to lucrative employment within the mainstream world and because sexuality is just so interesting, especially to those of us who don’t have the good sense to get a degree that will get us lucrative employment within the mainstream world.

Writers write. It’s what we do regardless of what else we should be doing. But writers also need to read. When our topic is porn, it’s good to learn about porn either by in-person experiences or as an appreciator of the genre and its reason for existing. If our background in porn consumption has been minimal, an understanding of film theory and technique can be of value. After all, porn is more than just body parts slapping together. It’s how well-lit the scene is. It’s how much chemistry the performers have. It’s how convincing the settings are. How supportive or overpowering any accompanying soundtrack is. How sexy or nasty the pillow talk is. It’s a movie. But it’s a movie that’s unabashedly about sex.

And sex deserves good movies. People who enjoy sex deserve good movies about sex. That’s where I and other writers come in.

It’s been decades since those Classical Greek classes and during that time, I have watched an enormous amount of pornography. I am now far better versed on the names of various sexual positions than I ever was on conjugating verbs. I can recognize more porn stars than I can easily identify dead Greek philosophers and poets. But whether it’s Sappho or Stormy Daniels, the subject is sex and sometimes even love.

A love of sexuality is a bond with the past and all who have, quite literally, cum before us. Pornography is just one way of expressing that love. While an affection for pornography is a must-have when taking on the responsibility to critique it and writing talent makes those critiques more entertaining and useful, it’s the fusion of many things that makes for an effective review.

While it’s tempting within a self-righteous society to assume that porn consists of drugged-up people who can’t get “real jobs,” and are thus condemned to a life of sexual slavery, it’s such an exaggeration and projection. Likewise, those of us who find pleasure in explicit media aren’t jacked-up addicts who can’t sustain a healthy relationship with another human being and hope someday to move out of our parent’s basement. These are the stereotypes that critics, producers, performers, and fans must contend with. They are the stereotypes that have slowed the industry’s maturation and enabled its foes.

Porn critics aren’t the saviors of the industry nor are we its arbiters. But we can be translators for those who don’t understand what we see in it. We can develop relationships with those even deeper in the craft so that our own understanding increases. We can stay alert to audience preferences and trends. And we can use our varied backgrounds, educations, and experiences to write reviews that say more than “then they fucked.” Given the abundance of content available to fans, the fucking is a given. What viewers need to know is whether it’s fucking worth watching and, if it is, why.

That’s where the porn critic, with our invariably odd personal and professional histories, springs into action. Like a multi-tasking superhero who has seen some shit, the porn critic is there to make sure you don’t have to see any shit that you don’t want to see. It’s the least we can do in our quest to selflessly contribute to the healthy development of sexuality and relationships while encouraging explicit sexual art to grow and improve.