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Porn can be a pretty uncomfortable topic because, let’s face it, it’s something people usually consume in private. It’s also hugely divisive.
Some women love it, some women hate it – but porn isn’t going anywhere. Which is why we thought it was an essential topic to tackle in our new weekly podcast Am I Making You Uncomfortable? where every Tuesday, we bring you a frank, honest conversation about women’s bodies, health and private lives.
In this episode, my co-host Brogan and I are joined by Sangeeta Pillai, a sex educator and founder of the Soul Sutras network for South Asian women. We speak about how porn impacts our sex lives, relationships, body image ideals and much more.
You can subscribe, download and listen to Am I Making You Uncomfortable? on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all major podcasting platforms and you’ll find a transcript of our chat below, to make the podcast accessible for all of HuffPost’s wonderful readers and listeners.
Join in the conversation on social media by using the hashtag #AIMYU – and go behind the scenes by subscribing to our podcast newsletter to hear what inspired us to tackle the topics you’re probably too squeamish to talk about.
Episode 5: Transcript
Brogan Driscoll
Welcome to HuffPost’s brand new weekly podcast, Am I Making You Uncomfortable? presented by me, Brogan Driscoll.
Rachel Moss
And me, Rachel Moss. This podcast is a frank, honest conversation about women’s bodies, health, and private lives. We cover under-reported issues and tackle the topics that you’re too squeamish to talk to your mates about.
Brogan Driscoll
This week we’re going to be talking about porn. Specifically, how it impacts our sex lives and relationships. And later we’ll be joined by Sangeeta Pillai, a sex educator and founder of network Soul Sutras, which is all about South Asian female power and sexuality. So to kick things off and make us both feel super uncomfortable, I thought we should start by talking about our own introductions to porn. I know, sorry, but I feel like we’ve got a really –
Rachel Moss
Go on. We’ve got to do it.
Brogan Driscoll
Exactly. We’ve got to put ourselves in these situations. So, I’ll go first because I know it’s a bit of a tough ask. My first experience of porn was very early on like weirdly early on. Me and my next-door neighbour, we used to play around each other’s houses a lot and we somehow discovered that in my mum and dad’s bedroom.
Rachel Moss
Oh no. That’s enough already. Say no more.
Brogan Driscoll
I know.
Rachel Moss
I’m joking carry on.
Brogan Driscoll
It’s so weird, isn’t it? It’s so weird. But my mum, there’s no way they’re going to listen to this so it’s fine. They had this coffee table book that was, like, from the seventies, apparently, they got given it as a wedding present and I’m a bit like, “Yeah, sure. I don’t know if that’s true.” And it was called the Joy of Sex and I think it’s, like, quite a book. Like, I think it’s got a reputation and it was, basically, a massive book, especially for, I don’t know, a nine-year-old at the time and it was all about... It was kind of set up... like the chapters were like menus. So it was like, had like, starters...
Rachel Moss
Menus?
Brogan Driscoll
It was like a menu so it had starters for foreplay and then it had the main course bit and then it had dessert-
Rachel Moss
Did it have pictures?
Brogan Driscoll
Yeah.
Rachel Moss
Was it like Cosmo style?
Brogan Driscoll
It had massive pictures.
Rachel Moss
Oh, god.
Brogan Driscoll
I’m trying to think in my head whether they were illustrations or pictures but anyway, me and my next-door neighbour who I won’t name. But like when we did, we knew people were downstairs just like creep in and, like, find it and look at it. I don’t, I literally don’t know why I told you that, but anyway, there we go. So that was my first experience of erotica.
Rachel Moss
Hilarious. Also that book does not sound sexy. It just so doesn’t. Okay. So I guess I now have to go. I feel like yours is really innocent and cute, but my first experience of porn was actually a little bit, not as jolly. The first time I saw anything pornographic at all was actually on the phone of somebody that I was dating. I was in my late teens obviously something had been left open that I wasn’t meant to see and borrowed the phone to look up something and bam, you know, wait, didn’t expect to see that. And, you now, it was quite a, like, baptism of fire introduction because as well, we don’t talk about porn. So at the time I was so confused about, like, what am I meant to be feeling about this? Do I laugh it off? Am I meant to be angry? Am I meant to be upset? Am I meant to be turned on? I don’t know. It was just so confusing. Also, because it’s such a taboo like I didn’t tell anyone about it.
Brogan Driscoll
Am I the first person you’ve told?
Rachel Moss
You are actually. I’ve told my –
Brogan Driscoll
Porn story inside for so long.
Rachel Moss
I know isn’t it crazy. But the only time I think actually I might have mentioned it to a couple of mates since, and this is the only other discussion I’ve ever had with another human being about porn was when a bunch of my girl mates, years and years and years later probably were about like 25 and we were all pissed and then somebody brought up porn. Suddenly you realise that all your friends who you’ve maybe known for, you know, 10, 15 years have all got actually quite divisive opinions about porn. Like, among this group of women, there was somebody who loved it, somebody who hated it, somebody who said, if you listen to porn or watch porn in a relationship, you’re cheating on your partner. And I was just kind of there watching this crazy ping pong battle of opinions happen. And I just didn’t expect it at all and then of course we sobered up and never spoke about it ever again.
Brogan Driscoll
I was going to say, it’s so interesting that you have those conversations you’ve drunk, when you were drunk, sorry, I’m sure a lot of people will relate to that actually, that boldness that comes out after you’ve had some wine. Unfortunately, we haven’t had any wine because it’s still quite early in the afternoon.
Rachel Moss
Oh, no. I had a strong coffee.
Brogan Driscoll
Okay.
Rachel Moss
That’s as bold as it’s getting.
Brogan Driscoll
So I guess the reason that we wanted to talk about porn now is it’s as good a time as any, obviously. It’s something that we haven’t really ever spoken about before with friends. So why not have the first conversation we have broadcast? You know we were talking about how lockdown brings quite an interesting dimension to pornography, just because obviously lots of people are spending this period on their own. People who would normally be dating or able to, like, go out and hook up with people. So there’s kind of a need there to be associated. But also then there are people who are living in close proximity with family, partners, friends. And are they still consuming as much porn as they used to? Are they having to hide it? Are they having to suddenly be open about it? There’s a lot to get into.
Listener Voice
Yeah, I’m a fan of porn. We’re all really sexual creatures and watching porn is certainly a part of our society now. I think I feel nervous speaking about it publicly as I always sort of thought that porn was a really personal thing. It’s a place where you can explore various themes of your sexual desires without really being judged or embarrassed. I find that my own tastes tend to vary quite a bit dependent on my mood or where I am in my life at the time. I think it’s really great that porn has become far more accessible these days. It’s not like it used to be: no need to go to sex stores or buy plastic coated magazines. I think the rise of internet porn has made things so much easier. I can access pretty much anything from my smartphone, from the comfort of my own bed and privacy of my own room.
Listener Voice
So the first time I really started delving into what porn is has been in the last couple of years. I run an organisation called Sisters. Whilst putting together work around healthy relationships and what those relationships are influenced by, we found that many of the young people we worked with were influenced by porn, except the porn was very derogatory and treated females really badly. And so I started really delving into what porn was and what is ethical porn. I think it’s really important to understand what porn is in the commercial mainstream sense and what ethical porn is and people really need to understand that.
Brogan Driscoll
Today we’re joined by Sangeeta Pillai, a sex educator and founder of network Soul Sutras, which is all about South Asian female power and sexuality. She’s also a host of award-winning, Masala podcast and has been a writer for over 20 years.
Rachel Moss
So, hi, Sangeeta, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re super, super excited to have you here and I see you have brought a prop with you. What is that?
Sangeeta Pillai
Yes. I’ve got my little favourite stress buster, which is, as you can see Rachel, a very large bottom with a thong in it and you squeeze the bottom like so, and it’s a great stress-busting tool. And I thought it was appropriate for our podcast today.
Rachel Moss
It’s very appropriate and hilarious. I love it. I think every guest should bring a prop and it should probably always be a stress-busting bum.
Sangeeta Pillai
Maybe this could be the prop that belongs to your show-
Rachel Moss
I would love that.
Sangeeta Pillai
It could be your thing.
Brogan Driscoll
We could get our own emoji. I think that’s the kind of stress buster that you can only have in a working-from-home situation. Imagine if you went into the office and someone had that on their desk. Cool –
Sangeeta Pillai
Very serious corporate meeting with the bottom.
Rachel Moss
I like it. I’m all for it. So Sangeeta, before you joined us, we were sharing our first introductions to porn and the first time we saw pornographic material. Brogan’s was ridiculous. Mine was slightly more traumatic, but what was your introduction to porn like?
Sangeeta Pillai
I think I was about maybe 13 and I lived in India. So I grew up in India, I spent most of my life there. And I... My friends and I went to a video store because that’s what you did then. And we had this video and I remember it was the first time I’d seen sex and I was horrified. And it was some really weird stuff I think because the guy in the film had a lot of hair all over his body. He was like a very large, hairy beast. I remember thinking, this is really weird. This can’t be fun and this was my first experience of watching porn.
Rachel Moss
You’re like, does everyone look like that?
Sangeeta Pillai
Is there something I don’t know? All men look like this under their clothes?
Rachel Moss
As a sexual educator, you’ve developed a super positive attitude to sex over the years and I wondered whether porn had fed into that. I mean, what’s your consumption of porn now?
Sangeeta Pillai
It’s very different to how I was when I was growing up. So I grew up in India in a very traditional Indian family and most Asian girls, particularly the ones that were kind of me and of my generation, sex wasn’t for us. There was sexes for men. What we all we did was be prepared to get married and when you got married sex was something you put up with. You never had an active role in it. You never talked about it. Even our bodies, sex was something that was done to us, not something we did, actively. And there’s also the sense of somehow in traditional South Asian culture that you guard your body. Your body’s this precious pure thing that you guard until the time that you get married to somebody and then they get your body. So there’s no real agency. So then if you look at those kinds of ideas, then things like masturbation or porn are very far away from your experience. So I think I didn’t look at porn or even talk about masturbation with my friends until I was much, much older. None of us did it it. It wasn’t even a thing. So if you sort of think of the shame attached to anything sexual, the shame attached to the female body in any sexual sense, that makes a lot of this very, very difficult for South Asian women.
Rachel Moss
Yeah. Was there a U-turn moment where...when you realised that you didn’t need to internalise that shame?
Sangeeta Pillai
Yeah, absolutely. For me it was a much later experience I think, sort of even mid-thirties when I was single and I started dating – I’d come out of a long relationship. Starting to sort of meet people and have sex with them was this huge revolution for me and I was like, “Oh my God, this is good. An orgasm feels amazing. This is why people do it.” And, you know, it puts this glow on my skin and this little swing to my hips when I walk and that’s what good sex does. And it was like this big “aha” moment for me to think, “But why was there so much taboo attached to this when it’s actually so good for you?” So that framing of sex as something shameful to this realisation for me personally, that this can be amazing and liberating and fun and it just feels good and does good to us as women, was a huge, huge moment for me I think in my own journey. Which then led me to do the work that I do with other women and in unpacking this taboo and getting us to talk about this stuff. So yeah, it was a massive, massive change for me.
Brogan Driscoll
Here’s one woman who got in touch and she really spoke to the experience of, I guess, consuming porn as a South Asian woman.
Listener Voice
I think porn can be informative, but damaging at the same time. When I was growing up, you didn’t really talk about sex with your female friends. So the only way to find out more about it was through porn. So you’d find out about what you liked, what you didn’t and in a sense that was quite liberating. But when you grow up, you tend to be a little bit disillusioned and it can be quite damaging, especially for people of colour, because porn with people of colour is seen as a fetish rather than the norm. So you don’t really see normal, you know, it’s hard enough to see normal body types, but you don’t really see normal body types for people of colour and you just tend to be slightly disillusioned by that.
Brogan Driscoll
I wondered whether we could talk about some of the themes around how people of colour are portrayed within porn and how, you know, from that testimonial we heard how the lady feels quite kind of alienated in that space, so didn’t feel that, you know, porn was necessarily for her.
Sangeeta Pillai
There’s a lot of stereotyping in porn. I think whether that’s white, Caucasian bodies...there is a lot of racial stereotyping, I think. Even the way porn is categorised, whether it’s, I don’t know, Eastern women or submission or, you know, South Asian, all of that. So I think the issue is that already as brown or black women, we’re already occupying really small spaces. And then when you get into porn, those boxes become smaller where, particularly if you’re South Asian, you’re meant to be the submissive, good wife material that we’re trained all our lives to be. And then in porn, you get into those smaller boxes and if you look at categories within porn - hubs or portals - they are Asian or they are black or they are certain kind of... And it is just...those are not the people we are. It doesn’t capture who we are and it is a particular kind of fetishisation, I think, which is not healthy.
Sangeeta Pillai
The other thing is I have yet to see a South Asian couple on porn, on any porn film that looks anything like my experience or anywhere that I recognise myself. So I think that’s a huge problem with porn. While porn in itself is fine and I, you know, I’m a believer and I think it is good for us, it shows us what we want to experiment with within a relationship or with ourselves, but there are lots of issues with it. This being one of them, I think this racial stereotyping of us and our experiences. So I absolutely hear what she’s saying.
Rachel Moss
And I think you touched on there, the visual representation of people as well, just in terms of the ‘porn body’. Whatever race you are, it seems like there’s sort of an acceptable body type in porn that everyone adheres to and that’s for men and for women. We’ve read loads of reports, a load of studies around body image for young girls and a rise in people thinking they need labiaplasty or, you know, designer vagina surgery and all these things. Is that something that you’ve come across as well? Do you think porn does play a part in that?
Sangeeta Pillai
Massively. If you think about it, the way we perceive a beautiful body now is essentially a porn body. We have hairless vulvas. That’s the normal.
Rachel Moss
Yeah.
Sangeeta Pillai
I remember dating this much younger guy a couple of years ago. He’d never seen a vulva with hair – he was really shocked. And thinking about it, a lot of my younger friends, so I’m in my late forties, so my sexual experiences are different to people in their twenties or thirties and I’ve had conversations with young South Asian women where they’ve said, we’d never in a million years sleep with somebody with hair. To me, it’s really bizarre: that what is perfectly natural, pubic hair, is there for a reason; we were born that way; it’s what separates grown women from younger girls, right? It’s coming of age and it’s protective and it’s all of those things. But now pubic hair is a fetish. I mean, how messed up is that? And that comes from porn, I think, because we’ve normalised what is not normal. It’s just bizarre. That’s one of my pet peeves I think against porn. A lot of the reasons people do labiaplasty is because they want a porn vulva. But again, that’s not... I mean, who says that’s beautiful? Porn does.
Brogan Driscoll
It’s like a uniform...
Sangeeta Pillai
Yes.
Brogan Driscoll
... vulva and we know that, you know, vulvas are all different and that’s kind of weird but we’re only being shown one type.
Sangeeta Pillai
Shown one particular type and I think that’s the point. I think that’s the problematic point where we’re only being shown one type of able-bodied, large breasted, large penist if that’s even a word, body. And everything else (which is what? 99% of the human race) doesn’t fit to that because porn actors are actors, they’re performing, they look a certain way. They spend a lot of money and time to look like that’s their job. We don’t do that. We don’t look like that and I read again, a lot of reports which say that a lot of young people because now porn is accessible from our phones and we watch... It’s so easy to consume, right? But if you grow up with that being the dominant narrative of how sex looks like, how our bodies look like, how women look like, and then when we have real sex it doesn’t measure up. Of course, it’s not going to, that’s a film. This is real life.
Rachel Moss
Yeah. I think our...we were saying earlier, our introductions to porn were so shaky, but... So I’m in my late twenties, Brogan’s in her early thirties. So we’re just about within the generation who didn’t grow up with smartphones. I got it towards the end of my school career I think. Thank God for that. Because now as you say, kids have got it all the time and I don’t know whether the sex ed in schools has caught up. I’ve got a few friends who are teachers and I think some of them have spoken to students about porn, but some of them haven’t and you just think, what are kids growing up with now? If we’re confused about it, what must they be thinking about it?
Sangeeta Pillai
And I think it’s particularly damaging to young women because I saw this really interesting show, I think it was on channel four or something, about the effect that a lot of consumption of porn has on younger women. Younger women think that is normal, like a guy grabbing your hair and forcing you to go down on him is normal sexual behaviour. Violence becomes normalised and I think those are the issues. I think if we are to carry on watching porn, we must find a way to make it more equal and educate people in terms of what is okay and what is not I think. I think that’s a really important thing to think about.
Brogan Driscoll
I know that there are a lot of... there are some feminist porn sites like Erika Lust, her work comes up a lot in terms of ethical porn. But I mean a question for you Sangeeta, how do we know what is okay? Do you have any recommendations? Is there...Are there any sites or organisations that you speak to your network about?
Sangeeta Pillai
I think Erika Lust, as you mentioned, absolutely. I think it’s important to see where it comes from. So if we can afford ethical porn, we must try and do that where you know that the actors have been paid and the people that have created are actually being paid for the content, which I believe most of the, what they call the free tube channels don’t necessarily do. So absolutely. Someone else I know is called Anna Richards. So she’s got a network called FrolicMe, she’s got a company and again, her whole ethos is about feminist porn, about storylines that depict female sexualities, female pleasure.
Sangeeta Pillai
And then there’s this whole other area, which I’m very interested in, which is audio porn, things like Dipsea and you know...there’s a few other people that are doing that and where there’s a whole emphasis on storylines, characters...And I think that is one of the ways maybe we could go around this kind of “what is ethical and what is not?” And also there are lots of porn actors who now have their own websites. I interviewed a South Asian porn star for my podcast on series two of Masala podcast called Sahara Knite and she, you know, has her own channel: so there you know it’s going to the performers themselves. So that might be another way around it as well. So I think looking at who’s providing ethical porn, looking at who’s aligned with our value systems as well: so if we’re feminists and if we’re thinking that it’s really important to show different types of bodies, that female pleasure is at the center of this for us, then going to people like Erika Lust and Anna Richards and Dipsea and places like that, where we know that that’s happening.
Rachel Moss
I love that you brought up audio porn actually because we had a feature on HuffPost about it and it just turns out something that I hadn’t really thought about before, but makes total sense, is that audio porn is making porn more accessible to a much bigger audience. So for example, there was one guy who was interviewed as a case study in this piece and he’s blind and he was talking about how, you know, disabled people are often desexualised, but having audio porn means that he can engage and he can enjoy it and that’s such a positive thing. And then there was also a girl who’d moved back in with her parents who said, “Like hell am I going to watch visual porn in my parents’ house?” Because can you imagine them walking in? But listening to a bit of, you know, horny audio in your headphones is pretty harmless. And so I’m all for that it’s been on my to-do list actually. I need to check it out. Sorry, mum if you’re listening.
Sangeeta Pillai
I loved it. Yeah. Absolutely loved it. When you mentioned that, I have a funny story. A friend of mine was at home during lockdown and she’s got kids. So she said, “Oh, I’m going to go into my bedroom. Turn on my laptop, have a little me-time.” Turns on the video. She’s watching it and there’s no sound. So she’s thinking “What’s going on?” so she carries on watching it. Then there’s a knock on the door and her son comes up and says, “Mum, there’s a funny sound on the Bluetooth.”
Rachel Moss
Oh, no.
Brogan Driscoll
Oh my God.
Sangeeta Pillai
I asked if I could mention it on the podcast. She said, “Yes, don’t give my name.” I won’t give your name.
Brogan Driscoll
That’s made me feel really-
Rachel Moss
Brogan’s flushed and fanning. That’s made her feel so uncomfortable.
Sangeeta Pillai
I can see your skin’s got a little bit flush there Brogan.
Rachel Moss
I knew as soon as you were...the sound had gone out. I was like, “Oh my God, who’s using the headphones. Someone’s using the headphones at home.”
Sangeeta Pillai
I didn’t even think about it. I was like, “Yeah, maybe it just didn’t work.” And then: “Bluetooth! Mum!”
Brogan Driscoll
Oh my god. Well at least they were young enough to not really understand.
Sangeeta Pillai
Yeh, I don’t think they quite understood what was happening. They just said, “There’s a funny sound coming out of the speaker.”
Brogan Driscoll
Well, that kind of brings us onto another topic we wanted to talk about today because obviously during lockdown people’s porn habits are going to have to change. If you’re someone who does consume it regularly and then you’re suddenly with parents or your partner, that’s a whole issue. And we were also talking about maybe, you know, even if you’ve been in a long term relationship, you might not necessarily realise what your partner gets up to when you’re not at home, but now you’re at home together all the time. Do you think couples are going to have to have that conversation at the moment?
Sangeeta Pallai
Definitely I think because there is no escape. You’re going to know everything that the other person gets up to. So I think this is a good opportunity to sort of talk about stuff you’re into. Obviously people are a little bit hesitant because they might be sharing things about themselves that maybe they don’t feel so comfortable sharing with their partners. But I think it’s a great opportunity to share different aspects of you so they can get to know what your sexual repertoire might include. Might make things really exciting. But there’s this other aspect I think where for some people, their porn is a private thing. It’s their kind of...their headspace where they go to, it’s their kind of fantasy. If that’s what it is for you, maybe talk to your partner and say, “Would you like to go for a walk for an hour? Have your social distance walk.” And I’m going to have my-
Rachel Moss
I’m having some self-love in the-
Sangeeta Pillai
Yeah self-love while you do your social distancing.
Rachel Moss
An hour feels like quite a while. I mean...
Sangeeta Pillai
Well, it just depends. Doesn’t it? I can do an hour. You know?
Rachel Moss
So with each of our guests who come onto the podcast, we ask the same question. So as a way to end Sangeeta, what makes you uncomfortable?
Sangeeta Pillai
Ooh, that’s a very...that’s already made me uncomfortable.
Rachel Moss
Just Brogan’s voice.
Sangeeta Pillai
What made you uncomfortable? What makes me uncomfortable? Yes. Things that I’ve kind of battled all my life. People’s judgment where if you, you know as a South Asian woman, if I say I watch porn, that’s immediate judgment. And then I’ve got to kind of fight my battle within myself to say, “Yeah, they might think that, but that doesn’t make it abnormal for me to do this.” So those things make me uncomfortable because they’re deeply wired I think in my psyche, in my upbringing. So that’s my personal discomfort, if you will. There was one other thing I wanted to say about porn actually. What porn has done within kind of heterosexual relationships is made sex fit into a little box. It’s this penis-centric view of sex that we’ve all now, you know, internalised as that being sex. Man, woman, penis into vagina, boom, boom, boom. Man has an orgasm and that’s it and everybody goes home. You have a sandwich, whatever, you know. Finished. End off.
Sangeeta Pillai
But within a relationship, or even within somebody you might be having casual sex with, sex is this whole, you know, wonderful feast of all of these things you could do with each other. Penetration is one part of it and we seem to have lost the rest of it. It’s like going into this buffet, absolute feast of 50,000 things you could eat, but you get stuck on the chicken because that’s the only thing that everybody’s told you about. You know? So I think that’s something that porn’s done as well and I think it would be good to keep it in mind when you’re with your partner, your lover, you know, to say there’s all of this wonderful stuff out there.
Rachel Moss
Sangeeta, thank you so much for joining us. That was such a fun chat and I learned a lot so wonderful, educational and fun.
Sangeeta Pillai
Thank you so much for having me. It was an absolute pleasure.
Brogan Driscoll
That’s it from Am I Making You Uncomfortable? This week. I’m Brogan Driscoll and you can find me at @Brogan_Driscoll.
Rachel Moss
I’m Rachel Moss and you can find me at @RachelMoss_
Brogan Driscoll
This podcast is produced by Chrystal Genesis and our sound engineer is Nag Kirinde.
Rachel Moss
You’ve just listened to Am I Making You Uncomfortable? Hashtag #AIMYU.