(An edit has been made in clarification with regards to a comment)
I was born in ’96, back when the internet was still getting its legs under it. Mostly, the internet was for Neopets, online Disney games, The Sherwood MMORPG, and a writing site that I can sadly no longer remember but where I first attempted writing a novel about dragons. As I grew older though, my body began to change…and so did my search history. I began with the most tentative of searches: the word sex typed into the Yahoo! search bar. I would look up definitions and masturbate to that, eyes feverishly running over fairly clinical descriptions of PiV. I would type ‘porn’ into the search bar and jerk off to the descriptions of porn videos, too afraid that my parents would find out if I dared to click the link.
Later, becoming more adventurous, I actually dared click on some links to these searches. Little did I know that I was fated to discover that which western white men so love: hentai. I discovered a world of shiny-eyed heroines scream-moaning as a censored penis penetrated them, with gratuitous internal shots and depictions of semen spurting violently when the male lead ejaculated. Sometimes, if the heroine was a virgin, there would be a scene of blood streaming down her legs to show her innocence breaking. These first few scenes would begin my non-con fetish which persisted until my 20s, after which, the visceral distress became a squick rather than a turn-on. When I hit my 20’s, I realized I’d been getting off to some fucked up things because my upbringing had never given me a framework wherein a woman was allowed to enjoy sex without being ‘dirty’ except when she unwillingly enjoyed it. Once I realized this I quit cold turkey in favor of openly consensual pornography. When I did have this fetish though, I would seek out pornography wherein there was degradation, non-consensual sex, and distress on the part of the heroine. I distinctly remember reading and re-reading the same Naruto fan fiction on DeviantArt because of it’s graphic depiction of sex. The female lead had her consent violated over and over again, but would eventually give in to the pleasure of being violated and orgasm. Teenage Liz found this depiction of sex extremely compelling, and it was only fear of being caught that prevented her from adding this first fic to her spank bank.
Having outgrown DeviantArt, Liz then moved to Tumblr, back in the day when it was still legal to be horny there. For years, Tumblr was where I got my more unusual porn. With just a few taps of the keyboard, I could view almost any kind of erotica. I jerked off to amateur videos of guys cumming in fleshlights, I read erotica with themes of sissification, and I hungrily read the porn comics featuring attractive monster boys. In essence, I became an erotic omnivore. I developed a taste for some more niche fetishes, and had passing dalliances with types of pornography that no longer turn me on. For example, I used to be very turned on by pregnancy porn, wherein the sexual recipient gets pregnant as a result of sex or otherwise insemination. But the pregnancy kink so often coincided with incest that I’ve not jerked off to it for sometime now. Incest is probably one of my primary squicks what with being from the south and having that disgust ingrained in me thanks to my parents.
This brief vignette of my sexual development all serves to explain this: that thanks to the internet, sex and sexuality have evolved. For more than a month now, I attempted to synthesize a piece connecting sexting, erotic roleplay, Gaian kink culture, sexting chatrooms and erotic fan fiction to no avail. All of these elements were vital to my sexual development, but they would not stick together as a cohesive piece. So instead dear readers, I present to you my newest series: Digital Filth. This series will be a rambling dive into the corners of online sex and erotica with a wide range of subjects. It’s an exciting ride and I hope you join me as we explore!
Rocket Girl Writes 
Wonderful piece. Can’t wait for the next one
Thanks Liz
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This isn’t that interesting…most kids look up porn growing up and stumble across weird shit. But then usually they interact with other humans and come to realize that sex isn’t just about jacking off. You seem like a really smart and creative person, (not a bad writer, I might add!) and I hope you feed your mind with all sorts of inputs throughout the day-not just hentai, dildos and obscure porn. The internet is endless, and while it’s fun to spend some time looking at unusual stuff, it can suck you in, and whatever you’re spending time on can take up so much of your time and brain space. It can be exhausting…The violation fetish is really sad…you can not imagine what that is like in real life. I promise you no one who has endured that “gives in to the pleasure of being violated”…that’s a clear mark of immaturity, ignorance and being out of touch with reality…I urge you to think about the creators of that content, and what they’re trying to normalize in making it…I’m so sorry that your sex education came from the internet.
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Hey there, please be assured that I get lots of input and also that pornography isn’t inherently bad! There’s some very good feminist pornography. Secondly, I am very aware that non-consent fetishes can be indulged in extremely unhealthy ways! Being from the sex negative South, the only way I could conceptualize acceptable pleasurable sex would be as a result of violation! I also regret my internet sex-ed, but given my abstinence only education, this was all I had! I know now that it’s extremely unhealthy and as I mentioned in my article, non-consent is one of my primary squicks now! I’ve never claimed to enjoy rape and for you to call me immature and ignorant really ignores what I said in my article and what I stand for personally. Thirdly, not all non-consent pornography is normalizing rape, sometimes it’s exploring a fetish in a safe way without indulging people or it’s rape survivors reclaiming their situation. It’s a tricky situation which I address in one of my other posts. I’m sorry if my post didn’t more clearly explain how I find this unhealthy, but then this was to give a vignette of my development.
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Hi Liz,
Thank you for clarifying-I’d be interested in hearing more, perhaps in a future blog post, about the effects of abstinence only education. I think most of us can agree it’s definitely ineffective, but I’d be curious to hear you discuss your insight as someone who experienced it.
Also, never said pornography is inherently bad, I just think that 1) besides feminist porn (which is relatively scarce), hetero porn tends normalize a lot of violence against women and make inexperienced kids think that that’s what’s expected and 2) it can be an addiction at some point, again, especially for young kids. Which, like any kind of addiction, is not healthy. To clarify on the violence comment I just made, if you’re in to rougher sex or any kink, you discuss that with a partner before hand, both partners consent and have a good time, no problem at all. But if someone’s (again, read kids who have no access to good sex Ed) idea of what sex is comes exclusively from porn, I feel bad for that person and their partners. I would be interested to read a post on your thoughts on the effects of porn in first time relationships.
None of these comments meant to be critique for critique’s sake-when you put your thoughts out there, expect them to be challenged to start a dialogue.
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Hey Frankie, I had been thinking of writing a blog post of the effect of sex negativity, fetish acquisition and abstinence only education on the psyche. I can agree hetero porn can be extremely problematic, especially with the notion that cis women can orgasm or should orgasm from penetration alone. Also, it is definitely unhealthy to get all of your sexual education from mainstream pornography. It can lead to some very unhealthy notions of relationships and bad sexual dynamics.
But I’m curious what we’re having a dialogue about? It seems like you strolled in and called my post boring and then pitied me.
I appreciate you engaging with my work and hope to see you comment again.
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Liz-will love to read about culture around sex and education in American south. Responding to some early comments-no survivors will like that. Maybe you read about this on internet but most do not want this again.
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Hey there, I’m glad you appreciate this! I do understand that no rape survivors would ever want to undergo such a traumatic experience again, but as I understand it, some survivors use something called ‘consensual non-consent’ in order to reclaim the experience. Please give my piece ‘Fiction and Reality: Coping Mechanism or Not?’ a read in order to understand my thoughts there. Also, I was planning to do a deeper dive on the origins and problematic aspects of my non-consent kink.
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