The dying art of vanilla sex.

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Sex is a very significant part of any culture, whether we like it or not. Recently, I started thinking about my own sexual experiences and thought, 'what happened to just having regular sex?'

I've had plenty of boys get mad at me for not wanting to have the kind of sex that they wanted, or for not wanting to have sex with them at all. And to answer my own question, the answer is porn.

For my generation — I was born in 2003 — porn has been extremely accessible.

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Whether it be magazines, Only Fans content, or a quick Google search, watching porn is as easy as shopping on Amazon.

In 2016, I was in year seven and mainly friends with boys. Boys who talked about porn with no shame or any concern in the world. One of them once asked me 'you've really never watched porn?' I was literally 12, so I had no concept of sex, besides my mum telling me not to have it.

I've noticed that degradation has gotten more popular in recent years, in my own experience and some Googling. The rise of degradation-focused porn makes vanilla sex look boring in comparison.

Men have become so obsessed with slapping, choking, and gagging their girlfriends, they're reshaping what it means to be intimate. And not just men, there are middle school boys watching this content.

How does this shape their view on sex? How will this affect their future sexual experiences?

Now, I understand that everyone is into different things and everyone is free to have the kind of sex that they choose. But I don't think all types of porn are healthy to consume.

Somewhere along the way, simple intimacy between two people has become lost. Image: Getty.

In my experience, I started having sex before I even knew what I looked like down there, let alone what I was actually into. My sexual partners have made me feel like I had to like rough sex, because I'm boring if I just want to have vanilla sex. Each one of my sexual partners has been avid porn watchers from a young age and I don't think this is a coincidence.

We all know that this kind of content is not healthy to consume, and it's not healthy to be with someone that obsessively consumes content that literally distorts your understanding of what sex should look like. And it creates grown men who get off from hitting their girlfriends. Which doesn't sit right with me.

I've seen a million TikToks about girls opening up about their boyfriends' porn addictions. I remember one in particular where this girl was talking about how she realised porn was a factor in her relationship going downhill, so she made her boyfriend promise to not watch it for a while and see how things go.

He ended up sobbing one night about how much he needed porn since she wasn't home all day. She eventually went through his phone and realised he had actually never stopped watching porn to begin with.

Stories like this have become the norm. Porn addictions have become the norm. Porn-induced insecurities have become the norm. Getting choked out in bed has become the norm.

Rough sex is not the only fun way to have sex, we don't need to align with the expectations we see on the screen. Especially from industries that don't give a f—k about any of us.

Somewhere along the way, simple intimacy between two people has become lost within the chaos of our porn-obsessed world. Sex doesn't need to be extreme to be considered good, it just needs to be real, and I think our generation has forgotten what that means.

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Feature image: Getty.