E-Mail This Article to a Friend Pause before Porn

A friend of mine is setting up a Web site with some of her friends for feminist (mostly queer) porn. I’m straight, and she asked me if I wanted to be in it, with or without my boyfriend of two years. After clarifying that I wouldn’t be making porn with people I didn’t want to do it with, and that I like it a lot rougher than would be traditionally considered "feminist," she said that anything I wanted to do was fine.

I discussed this with my boyfriend and he is more than willing to do it — but he said that it is my decision. I’ve taken a lot of naked/sexual/whatever pictures of myself for him, and I’m not particularly self-conscious about being photographed naked or even in sexual situations. I certainly enjoy my fair share of porn, and I’m not averse to giving back to the genre. I also think that the risk that someone would stumble across a predominantly lesbian porn site and associate me in everyday life with some girl with a nipple ring getting face fucked is slim to none.

Despite all this rationalization, I still feel uneasy. I am 20 years old and have no intention of running for public office, so if there is any time to do something like being in porn it is now. However, I still feel like something as permanent as pictures taken by other people for other people will end up where I don’t want them to be. I don’t feel like my friend and boyfriend are pressuring me to be on the site, but I do feel that since they have no issues with making porn for public consumption there is some repression that is holding me back. Or maybe they are the ones being ridiculous and I am being sensible. What do you think?

_Pondering Over Revealing Nudity

I think you should shut the fuck up, that’s what I think. Blah blah fuckin’ blah! By the time you finish talking about whether or not you’re gonna splash your tits all over your friend’s feminist/mostly queer porn site, you’re going to be so old that no one is going to want to see them. It’s abundantly clear that you’re not comfortable with the idea of doing porn, PORN, and your reasons are rock-solid. Pictures are permanent; lesbian-action fans, most of them straight men, will find their way to your friend’s porn site; your pictures will end up on dozens or hundreds of other Web sites. So don’t do porn! Save those naked photos for your boyfriend, drop the whole tortured undergrad routine, and go back to being one of the tens of millions of anonymous porn consumers out there.

And finally, kiddo, consuming porn doesn’t obligate a person to "give back" to the genre — and thank God for that. If everyone who consumed porn "gave back" we would have to wade through mountains of porn featuring pudgy, middle-aged guys before we found anything even remotely hot. Eesh.

I broke up with this woman recently because I could not stand to kiss her. I couldn’t stand for her to stick her tongue in my mouth because her saliva had a bad taste. Saliva is supposed to be tasteless and odorless. I know why this woman’s saliva had a bad taste. She had bacteria in her mouth, a lot of it, due to bad oral hygiene. Kissing somebody is more intimate than fucking, and it’s not pleasant if your partner has smelly spit. I brought this up to her as delicately as I could, but she got pissy and defensive about it, so I broke up with her. I don’t want some woman’s smelly, bacteria-laden tongue in my mouth. Yuck. Right or wrong?

_Only Rinsers Allowed, Ladies

Right, I suppose. You aren’t required to kiss anyone whose oral hygiene doesn’t entirely meet with your high standards, ORAL, and if a woman’s failure to brush twice a day, floss at least once a day, and use mouthwash is a deal breaker for you, then it’s a deal breaker for you. I don’t see how my opinion matters much. I would, however, challenge you on one thing: Saliva is not tasteless and odorless. People, like soda pop, come in all sorts of flavors. If you’re holding out for a woman whose saliva tastes like bottled water, ORAL, you’re going to be one lonely dude.

Dan Savage’s new book, The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family, goes on sale September 22.