AUSTIN, Texas – In light of a recent article that revealed several surprising habits of women who watch porn, I sat down with an informal focus group of men whose participation I secured by offering to give each of them a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of Thunderbird, and/or one of the spiffy (albeit counterfeit and typo-laden) “Mark Amerucis Treat Agaim” hats made by my cousin Louie.
The results of my small survey were unexpected, to say the least. Some of them run contrary not only to commonly held beliefs about how and why men watch porn, but also to my own experiences as a male porn viewer.
82 percent of men prefer gonzo movies with “less dialogue.” While most people think of gonzo porn as being a plot- and character-free genre, the focus group unanimously said any amount of communication between performers, or between the cameraman and performers, counts as dialogue. While some said they didn’t mind up to 90 seconds of such dialogue, most admitted to jumping ahead in the clip until there’s a penis inside every visible mouth.
54 percent of men accidentally watch porn while trying to find recipes online. More than half of the focus group said they frequently find themselves watching online porn when the purpose of their browsing session was to discern the internal temperature at which pork tenderloin can be considered fully cooked.
40 percent of men who view porn on a daily basis say they “rarely masturbate” as they view it. This outcome was perhaps the most shocking of all the feedback collected from the focus group, as it is commonly understood the primary purpose of porn is to serve as fodder for masturbatory fantasy. Respondents gave several explanations, but all agreed the primary factor is that though they may be tolerant of people watching porn, a lot of librarians are surprisingly unreceptive to men jerking off in their study rooms.
37.283 percent of men say watching porn has made them worse at doing math. That’s right; of the 23 men in the focus group, 31 said consuming porn has reduced their ability to do simple arithmetic. Also said some, they not as anymore good with making words and sentences and stuff as am used to are.
Men aren’t sure what the word “taboo” means. One respondent said he “doesn’t like to see taboo things, like shellfish,” in the porn he watches, while another reported having “two big taboos, a ship’s anchor on my chest and a portrait of James Hetfield smoking a joint on the small of my back.” Several other respondents asked if taboo was “the name of the quasi-mystical midget character from Fantasy Island.”
Any naked celebrity, or someone who looks like one, will do. While women are (apparently) especially drawn to the Kim Kardashian sex tape, the men in my focus group reported having searched for porn made by virtually every female celebrity ever conceived, but eventually settling for “any relatively hot chick who looks more or less like Scarlett Johansson.”
66 percent of men don’t like watching things their wives are actually willing to do in the bedroom. Two-thirds of the focus group participants said the only sex acts they really enjoy watching are those their own wives and girlfriends won’t perform. One respondent who is not currently in a relationship said he only likes watching sex acts his favorite call girl won’t perform for any amount of money he offers, so as a result he “mostly watches German amateur porn.”
