Unless you live under a rock (with no cave drawings in sight), chances are you are constantly bombarded with images of perfect sex. Weather you watch romantic movies, porn, music videos or all of the above, your head is full of unrealistic, fantasy-fueled depictions of sex. Romantic movies show two incredibly hot people wordlessly falling into sex and then flash forward to the same couple out of breath and happily fulfilled. In more graphic depictions, we see intercourse begin after a few passionate seconds and ends with the magical simultaneous orgasm. In mainstream porn you mostly see contrived scenarios where the men have enormous cocks, the women are infinitely horny, and it’s all sucking and fucking all the time. It’s hard to know where to begin with the fantasy land of music videos, but we are pretty sure Miley Cyrus’s tongue is not actually that long in person.
Watching erotic content can be good, fun, stimulating entertainment. But, when it is coupled with a dearth of depictions of what realistic sexual experience might look like, it sets up an unattainable and damaging expectation of what perfect sex should be. It also gives a very warped vision of the steps it takes to attain your ideal sexual encounter.
You hardly ever see those inevitable awkward sexual moments—when someone gets poked with an elbow or their body makes a funny (and inexplicably loud) sound. You almost never see people teaching their partners what kinds of touch, kisses, or words they prefer, even though these scenarios can be extremely hot and erotic. In reality, sex has moments where things cinematically flow and moments where you just miss each other. Almost every sexual relationship has some moments of satisfaction and moments of frustration, awkwardness or pause. Sex won’t always be easy and usually isn’t perfect. Especially not from an outside perspective. But from within the experience, it can feel pretty perfect. The lead up to perfect-for-you sexual moments may have included some embarrassing conversations, uncontrollable giggles, and awkwardly placed limbs, but none of that actually matters.
