First of all, if there are any women or undeveloped males (who laugh at the word "penis") and who are easily offended by this subject, the "BACK" button is readily available.

I recently had a discussion about how pornography affects social expectations of the women in which we (guys) attempt to pursue meaningful relationships with.

We need to understand pornography as a whole before we can dive into why it bends our social expectations of women. The idea of pornography simple, to try to bring your inner-most sexual desires to life with amazingly beautiful women (purely relative - some people believe 400lb goblins are "fuckable") who desire sex probably more than you do, or at least that's how they're portrayed. These women are unrealistically beautiful, meaning you will probably never get with somebody with their looks. Many of these women were raised in broken homes, sexually abused and usually have low self-esteem. There are a few rare cases where some of these women actually have attained higher level degrees, but we'll generalize to stay on topic. Believe it or not, many of these women go through professional training to understand what "turns a guy on", ie. provocative looks they make to the camera, the high level of exposure with the positions they use while having sex and most importantly, the sounds they make (dirty talking, moans, etc.). For example, you probably won't get "turned on" if you saw a video of a girl who had a completely blank stare on her face and making no noise as opposed to a girl who seems like she's having the time of her life. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that most men honestly want to please a woman, and facial expressions and moans are probably the easiest way to detect this delivered pleasure. Many pornography movies will not even show a guy's face. Why is this? It's simply because they (porno industry) want you to believe that you are actually in the scene and are having the best sex of your life. You may oogle at the videos of these women paying complete attention to your sexual desires, but if they were to meet you in real life, chances are they would turn a blind eye and think "here's another guy who wants to fuck me, big deal" This is where pornography begins to deceive. Let me explain.

Reiterating, these women probably want nothing to do with you in real life. By watching these videos, many men begin to believe that they honestly have a shot with these absolutely gorgeous women (you can watch Hitch and say I'm full of shit, if that's the case then stop reading now). Pornography raises our expectations of what we believe a great sexual partner would be. It completely leaves out the "love" aspect of intercourse, making these women appear as sexual objects, rather than meaningful pursuits. Having a great emotional attachment to the person you are having sex with makes it that much better, which is why they call it "making love." Pornography destroys this emotional attachment, further making them appear as sentimentally empty sexual objects, which almost completely destroys the idea of commitment. Amazingly enough, this type of commitment-less fuckfest is exactly what most younger adolescent males are looking for, which is probably why pornography is aimed specifically towards this age group. Now, let's discuss how pornography affects social expectations of women during sex.

Pornography, at least the unscripted kind, usually follows these three main parts: oral sex, intercourse (anal or vaginal or both), "money" shot. Let's break all three down individually.
1) Oral Sex. Most men believe this should be a standard act to be performed before or during intercourse. Why would they believe this? Oh, that's right...because they see it happen in pornography and begin to assume that is how it's supposed to be. Truth is, don't be disappointed if she won't polish your nob - she may be extremely uncomfortable with having your schlong in her mouth or may have experienced a traumatic event and performing fellatio simply brings back that terrible experience. The mere fact that you might be disappointed is a testament to the idea that you had unrealistic expectations going into the sex. If you are in a meaningful relationship, oral sex may still be in  your future, just give it time and learn to trust each other. Be open about your desires and she may just begin to understand that this is what makes you happy and begin to perform it on you. Either that or you'll get extremely shut down.

2) Intercourse. Touching briefly on vaginal intercourse, many of these pornographic videos show rough sex, ie. the guy pounding the SHIT (not literally) out of the women, and the woman enjoying every second of it. In fact, most women want to be handled gently and lovingly. Understandably, they want to be treated with respect, not as the soulless objects as depicted in pornography, unless rough sex is a fetish you both share.

Basic human anatomy dictates the following: women have two holes next to each other, the anus and the vagina. The vagina is pretty standard for intercourse, okay that should be a realistic goal. However, anal is another story. Men desire having anal intercourse with a woman for two main reason 1) they're curious about it because they have never experienced it before and 2) it's naturally tighter than the vagina - tighter = feels better. Men may see anal intercourse in pornography being performed religiously and begin to believe that most women would rather have this than regular vaginal intercourse. MOST DO NOT. Although it is harder, yet possible, to get pregnant from anal intercourse, most women must build a great amount of trust in their sexual partner and be in control just about the whole time for anal to be a realistic success. Boys, we are a simple breed. In order to justify having anal sex, we will most likely spring with the "it is harder to get pregnant" and honestly believe it. Let's move on, shall we?

3) "Money" shot. The majority of the money shots occur orally (on the woman's face). Guys, do you honestly believe that most women want hot, gooey splooge in their eyes? Do you think they want to spend 20 minutes washing out their hair over and over and over again? No, but these porno actresses want  you to believe they do, yet another unrealistic expectation. Last, but not least, you've probably seen women swallow. Here's a really misleading expectation of women. Semen is a protein-rich substance that is used to keep the sperm alive on its way to fertilize the egg and contains a great amount of sodium. Simply put, it's salty. Many women in porno that swallow appear to love the taste, leading us to believe that most women feel the same way. This couldn't be further from the truth. I'll leave it at that.

Gentlemen, we are being fooled into believing that all women we have sex with should be able to look and perform like porn stars. This is an unrealistic social expectation of women based off of performances we see in pornography. Don't get me wrong, there are always exceptions. Some women may love to perform fellatio, have anal sex, and swallow. Truth is, many women, at least the ones who have a good level of self-respect find these types of acts degrading, and rightfully so. Without a certain level of trust and, yes "love", even pondering about performing these acts can be considered taboo. I, myself am a victim of this deception and maybe that's why I wasn't happy enough with my sex life with my ex-wife. Yes, I'm 22 and I said "ex-wife". I foolishly believed that like most women I saw in pornography, she wanted to pursue anything and everything. I was wrong. This may have been a partial factor in my divorce, other than the fact that she grew up in an extremely messed up family, but that's a whole different discussion.

Any thoughts?

EDIT: Please leave any immature comments in the other threads. Believe it or not, this is a serious subject.

I wasn't trying to gain sympathy for porn actresses, you may have misconstrued my intentions and strayed somewhat off topic. I was merely stating a commonality in their lifestyles growing up. My intention was to state that these women are "portrayed" as sexual objects, rather than human beings.

Growing up my folks never talked about sex with me. We did, however, have a computer.

One day in the early-mid nineties I decided to hop on ol' AOL and see what the fuss was about. Porn was a lot easier to find back then but more limited.

Anyway, watching porn from age 12 I thought that's how everything was done. Rough sex, etc. It wasn't until I was much older and a partner of mine sat me down to discuss what I was doing wrong. I was simply being too rough/hard/faster/stronger.

It took some serious open discussions before I was able to improve upon my "game" and get it right. It was embarrassing to talk about initially due to the fact that a lot of men are insecure about this stuff and want to be told how awesome they are, however, in the long run I was happy that someone was finally telling me the truth. The result? I'm not one to brag, but my sex life has been a much more satisfying experience now, for myself and my partner(s).

Porn is a double edged sword. On one hand, it serves a purpose in that you are able to visualize your greatest fantasies. On the other hand, I've found that porn desensitizes me to actual sex. The expectations, as touched on by Gooch, are simply too high. The sex that you come to believe everyone else is having and you aren't doesn't exist in a common frame.

There was a period of time when I was just like "fuck it." and would rather masturbated than gone through the effort to have sex. It didn't seem appealing when I could get, what I thought at the time, much more from porn and my left hand.

It wasn't until I cut the porn out for the most part, limiting myself to occasionally when the lady friend is away did wonders for my actual sex life and gave meaning to it again.

Wow. Very insightful.

One quick question - why, if pornography is to fulfill men's desires, do men watch these movies together? It really has always fascinated me.

I've never understood that myself. I've never done that.

Except for "Clown Porn" which Sirus and I watched... because it was that bizarre.

Sorry about your divorce, Gooch. However, as James said, you're 22. I don't know why you rushed into marriage in the first place. You'll rebound.

I have no advice for your porn addiction as it appears to be related to a much larger issue. Depression. The symptoms you described as being lethargic are symptoms of depression. This can also lead to a decreased sex drive. To me, it seems your porning it up because at this point, due to the depression, it's the only thing that excites you and you feel you need to do it. Also, idle hands.....

I could be mistaken. Find a hobby. Do something fulfilling to keep you productive and interested. I've found that if I'm working on something (servers, for example) the urge to porn it up disappears. The only time I get the urge to porn it up is when I'm sitting around doing nothing but read Digg and shit. It's a boredom reflex. I see some advertisement with some scantily clad young woman and I immediately go "porn time." This doesn't happen if I'm preoccupied in an activity.

Simple, Porn is generally funny. When you want a good laugh some porno movies fit the bill. Hell Pirates gives us such classic lines as, "I'm the greatest pirate hunter in the world." Its not unusual to walk into a friends dorm and see porn in the background. Pure entertainment is what it is at times albeit rarely.

As long as hit and runs / dip jumping and crazy driving in general don't count. I can attest to this statement.

Watch them together? wat?

I'll second WDF here. Porn is very much a strange brew. It's good to blow off some steam, but it's very, very easy for the images and concepts represented there to creep into your brain and convince that what you are seeing is real and possible. I too have tried cutting porn out of my routine to a degree, and I have found that sex becomes an altogether stronger and more impactful experience.