The ethical voyeur
Hello, my name is Caitlin and I am a voyeur. I'm also a terrible hypocrite.
This has been on my mind for a long time but I avoided facing up to the issue until a comment on my profile called me out on it (thanks pheerless for challenging me, even if I am squirming uncomfortably right now). As you'll see from my profile, my posts and my favourites, the best porn for me is women masturbating in a natural way that I can relate to. Sure, most of these videos are fake or at least staged to some degree, but that's ok - I just need to be able to suspend disbelief long enough to get off :)
(Actually I'd like to hope I'm a slightly more discerning porn consumer than that, but that's a topic for another post.)
What's not ok, and what I've skirted around until now, is that some of the videos are disconcertingly real, and were never intended to be made public. As a woman and as the mother of an until-recently teenage daughter the concept of "************" sickens me, yet there's almost certainly some in my favourites list. Not only am I watching it, I'm helping spread it. I'd be devastated if my daughter rang me up in tears saying a private video of hers had turned up on a site like this, but meanwhile I'm commenting "awww so cute, love how natural she looks" on what for all I know could be the private videos of someone else's daughter.
There's an obvious answer here that you're probably shouting at the screen right now: get the fuck off free sites like this and put my money where my mouth is, by supporting quality women-friendly studios like Yanks. It's true I've never payed for porn in my life, and the saying "if you aren't paying for the product then you are the product" is as true here as it is with Facebook. I go through phases of spending more or less time here, but when I'm dropping by reguarly and starting to recognise some of the names in comments I do begin to feel like I'm part of a loose-knit community. An incredibly messed up community of people you wouldn't want living in your neighbourhood, but a community all the same.
I'm also part of an ecosystem of supply and demand that somehow pays XHamster's bills and must leave them a tidy enough profit at the end to keep on doing what they do. I'm not clear on exactly how they monetise me (although the hamster plushies they've been advertising do look kinda cute...), but I know I'm not a passive participant either. At a minimum, with every comment I write, every video I favourite, and every post like this one, I'm helping "drive platform engagement" as the marketing people like to say. So as uncomfortable as I might feel about some of the content here, my own hands aren't exactly clean.
And yet, two paragraphs after saying I could pay for a Yanks subscription instead, here I am still writing this post. I do love their stuff and I think the world of porn desperately needs more women behind the camera, but sometimes I'm in the mood for something ... grubbier. The intimacy of something self-filmed in a bathroom or in bed. The naughtiness of a quick play outdoors knowing the risks she took to record it. My name is Caitlin, and I really am a voyeur.
It's not all doom and gloom. I'm still reasonably confident that most of what I watch was deliberately staged for the camera, and pro-amateur creators bring a freshness the studio-produced stuff lacks while still clearly being consenting adults. My bias towards naturalness means I'm more at risk of being drawn to stuff that was only intended for a loved one, not for the entire internet, but I can at least think before I favourite it.
Yep, still avoiding the issue.
This has been on my mind for a long time but I avoided facing up to the issue until a comment on my profile called me out on it (thanks pheerless for challenging me, even if I am squirming uncomfortably right now). As you'll see from my profile, my posts and my favourites, the best porn for me is women masturbating in a natural way that I can relate to. Sure, most of these videos are fake or at least staged to some degree, but that's ok - I just need to be able to suspend disbelief long enough to get off :)
(Actually I'd like to hope I'm a slightly more discerning porn consumer than that, but that's a topic for another post.)
What's not ok, and what I've skirted around until now, is that some of the videos are disconcertingly real, and were never intended to be made public. As a woman and as the mother of an until-recently teenage daughter the concept of "************" sickens me, yet there's almost certainly some in my favourites list. Not only am I watching it, I'm helping spread it. I'd be devastated if my daughter rang me up in tears saying a private video of hers had turned up on a site like this, but meanwhile I'm commenting "awww so cute, love how natural she looks" on what for all I know could be the private videos of someone else's daughter.
There's an obvious answer here that you're probably shouting at the screen right now: get the fuck off free sites like this and put my money where my mouth is, by supporting quality women-friendly studios like Yanks. It's true I've never payed for porn in my life, and the saying "if you aren't paying for the product then you are the product" is as true here as it is with Facebook. I go through phases of spending more or less time here, but when I'm dropping by reguarly and starting to recognise some of the names in comments I do begin to feel like I'm part of a loose-knit community. An incredibly messed up community of people you wouldn't want living in your neighbourhood, but a community all the same.
I'm also part of an ecosystem of supply and demand that somehow pays XHamster's bills and must leave them a tidy enough profit at the end to keep on doing what they do. I'm not clear on exactly how they monetise me (although the hamster plushies they've been advertising do look kinda cute...), but I know I'm not a passive participant either. At a minimum, with every comment I write, every video I favourite, and every post like this one, I'm helping "drive platform engagement" as the marketing people like to say. So as uncomfortable as I might feel about some of the content here, my own hands aren't exactly clean.
And yet, two paragraphs after saying I could pay for a Yanks subscription instead, here I am still writing this post. I do love their stuff and I think the world of porn desperately needs more women behind the camera, but sometimes I'm in the mood for something ... grubbier. The intimacy of something self-filmed in a bathroom or in bed. The naughtiness of a quick play outdoors knowing the risks she took to record it. My name is Caitlin, and I really am a voyeur.
It's not all doom and gloom. I'm still reasonably confident that most of what I watch was deliberately staged for the camera, and pro-amateur creators bring a freshness the studio-produced stuff lacks while still clearly being consenting adults. My bias towards naturalness means I'm more at risk of being drawn to stuff that was only intended for a loved one, not for the entire internet, but I can at least think before I favourite it.
Yep, still avoiding the issue.
3年前
