My first point of call research-wise was the trusty ol' Cosmopolitan website but the only time in my life, when I genuinely needed it, it was a big fat let-down. Not a sealed section in sight.
It seemed as though their writers just took a wild guess, and we need more than a wild guess in 2021 people.
I mean 'can she see up my nose?' Really? that's the best they could come up with? I'm not doubting it happens, but really?
With no choice but to delve deeper, I turned to the books.
My saviour came in the form of 'Boys & Sex' written by Peggy Orenstein, a compilation of interviews from males aged 16-22. After I read the first chapter I realised it wasn't going to be a rose-tinted glasses and schoolgirl giggles kind of read.
As it turns out, the young men so commonly portrayed as emotionless, sex-hungry animals, perhaps had more emotion when it comes to the act of sex than women did.
"I was surprised by how raw our conversations could be, but boys so rarely feel permission to speak candidly, from the heart, about their interior lives." - Orenstein, 'Boys & Sex'
See what I mean? It's heavy, it's real, it's all the stuff you're not going to find on Cosmopolitan, so everyone say thank you to Peggy and her brilliant book.
It seems only fair we start with porn, the 21st-century virtual (though fictional) guide to sex.
When I was 18 one of my friends told me how she and her boyfriend watched porn together to spice up their sex life. Another friend told me he had given up porn because of the damage it causes. Two completely contrasting and intriguing decisions.
Like it or not porn is a massive part of sex education in youths. From learning about positions to initiating sex. Anything from direction to cues during intercourse can be learned from porn, and it actually doesn't result in long-term pleasure. If 'Boys & Sex' will teach you anything it's that porn-influenced sex is uncomfortable for women and damaging for men.
The young men interviewed by Orenstein discussed their dissatisfaction, morphed perceptions of women – some admitting they saw women as objects, as well as their desensitisation to normal or 'vanilla' sex, and their reliance on porn.
"This will skew the way you view women. It's not real and it's not going to help you get a girl; it's only going to keep you from interacting with girls in a healthy manner." – Mason, page. 54
"I think porn affects your ability to be innocent in a sexual relationship. The whole idea of exploring sex without any preconceived ideas of what it is, you know? The natural organic process has just been f**ked by porn." – Unknown page. 57
"I have a friend who was a legend among the high school crew team. He claimed that he'd stopped using porn completely. We were like whoa! How does he do that?" – Cole page. 45
It appears watching porn has become a normalised toxic masculine trait much like bottling up emotions which leads us to our next lesson from 'Boys & Sex', masculinity.
via GIPHY
In Orenstein's research she heard about these pressures and societal expectations so often, she wrote a whole chapter about them and some of it wasn't easy reading. The big three themes focused on their value of looks, stamina, and popularity with the ladies.
"The guys I talked to actually were concerned with female satisfaction in a hook-up; they just didn't typically define it through orgasm. Rather, they believed it to be a function of their own endurance." - Peggy, page. 88
"The whole goal of going to a party is to hook up with girls and then tell your guys about it. And there's this whole race for 'experience'." – Nate page. 83
"You've got to look ripped, be tall, have fair skin, talk to a lot of girls." - Marcos describing the 'ideal guy' page. 9
These interviews examined mostly how men felt about sex and how they reflected on their experiences but there was very little telling me how they actually felt during sex. That was until I came across Caleb, page 90 and his honest response made me ponder, maybe Cosmopolitan publishing what I assumed to be made up thoughts men had during sex, wasn't so wrong after all.
"As a guy, the way you think about a hook-up is very binary – either you overthink it a tonne because you care or you disassociate yourself from it entirely and do it to like, get praise from your friends or something. I want to believe I'm self-reflective, but a lot of the time, yeah, it's either overthinking or not thinking at all."
'Boys & Sex' by Peggy Orenstein will leave you wondering if you know anything at all about young men and their relationship to sex, porn, and masculinity and it leaves the door open for much larger discussions.
The topic may seem taboo and this column may be one you want to hide from the public eye but as I said in the last column, sex isn't taboo, it is natural. If the Greeks could celebrate sex enthusiastically in the 6th century BC, why can't we?
Who knows, it might stop some of that porn use and bring back the 'innocence of a sexual relationship'. And wouldn't that be nice?
