on porn.

i have a confession to make.

i find hard-core pornography unsettling.

i don't know why this is; as a liberated young woman of the twenty-first century, i feel as though i should be embracing porn with open arms, as though i should have my own collection. i'm certainly okay with it conceptually. i don't have a problem with people, en-relationship or otherwise, having collections. i don't have a problem with people appreciating or working in porn. i don't have a problem with buying it or selling it (or, at least i'd imagine i'd have no problem selling it; i've never tried). but there is something...

i've got to be honest. walking into XXX dvd and video on 8th ave today (office field trip, best not to ask), i just felt out of my depth. walls upon walls of video cases, each featuring a cleverly punned title and a pneumatic actor/actress, smiling or pouting in an approximation of seduction. an army of coiffed exhibitionists daring me to watch in awe as they shake their collective groove thangs.

really, though, i think what it is is that hardcore porn makes me feel like i'm fifteen again (kindly refrain from boorish comments, thanks), lost and bewildered in the jungle of human sexuality and jumping at all the shadows of lust. things lurk behind those cases that i can only imagine, that i can barely fathom, and that i am nowhere near bendy enough to accomplish. i know there are some who find innocence of that sort beguiling, but i don't relish going back there. and while i'm no longer quite an innocent in the world of sex, i am certainly an innocent in the world of porn; and having fought damn hard to be the jaded prat that i am, i am unsettled when reminded of how much there is left for me to learn, should i choose to learn it.