Watching Men Come

In feminist writings, I've often encountered the argument that the emphasis on cumshots in porn is purely for male gratification: that it provides confirmation of his potency and his orgasm and disregards the woman's pleasure.

I can understand this view to a certain extent. Generally speaking, it's not that exciting to have someone ejaculate on you. [Notwithstanding my occasional bukkake-style fantasies, which are about degradation and exposure and excess and mass loss of control, and may or may not get a separate post at some point.]

And yes, the emphasis on the male orgasm as the endpoint of sex can definitely be detrimental in real life, even if it does provide an easy narrative closure. But I think these critiques perhaps miss the fact that for some women - for me at least - seeing a bloke come is very very erotic.

Admittedly, a lot depends on the specific way it's represented. I'm not aroused by watching a woman's face or breasts as she waits to be splattered on: in particular, the emphasis on women looking apprehensive or resigned or disgusted is unappealing, and probably somewhat misogynistic. And porn which fetishises the spunk itself doesn't do it for me either. Bubbles? No no no.

But watching a man masturbate - the gradual build-up, the rapid, instinctive, almost unconscious movements of his hand as he gets close, the twitches in his belly and thighs and balls, the sudden pulse through his body in the millisecond before he comes, the moment where his consciousness is annihilated - is incredibly erotic.

Hardcore pornography breaks down the boundaries between fiction and reality, performance and life, and this is perhaps most evident in orgasm. It must be difficult for a man to come on command in what is most likely an unsexy and uncomfortable environment. So to see him overcome that, to get to the point where the context doesn't matter any more, and he's just intent on reaching orgasm ... appeals to me very much, for some wrong reason.

I actively like the disjunction between the industrial conveyor-belt nature of porn and the immediacy, the realness, the physical ooomph of watching a man ejaculate. I like seeing him have to make a conscious mental effort to block out the surroundings. I like the flicker of relief in his face when he realises that, despite the situation, he is going to come.

Yeah, that's not right, is it?