The Internet is for Porn.

Just like the very infamous song from Avenue Q “The Internet is for Porn,” over 30% of all internet data being transferred is porn. 70% of men watch porn, 30% of women watch porn, and the numbers keep increasing. Many mainstream porn sites offer a wide variety of porn with many different themes and fantasies. But looking closely to one of the more popular mainstream porn sites, we can look critically into many of the different themes that are prevalent.

I decided to look at the porn site xnxx.com. Right away, within the first three videos on the main page there is a video with the title “Anally devirginized without Consent” and the video has an image of a girl with tears in her eyes, her mouth being covered. There is this huge issue with rape culture and the question of consent, especially in the adult industry.

There seems to be three main themes when it comes to heterosexual porn:

“1. All women want sex from men.

2. Women like all the sexual acts that men perform or demand.

3. Any woman who does not at first realize her sexual desire for sex can be easily persuaded with a little force.” (Aulette-Wittner 127-128)

Generally most of the videos featured on the main page are geared toward heterosexual themed and 7 out of 60 of them were interracial, the majority featured white couples. The couples featured in the videos were typically young, fit, and able-bodied. There was one video that involved an older couple having sex with a young girl named “OldCoupleFuckTeen- Fix This Fuck That,” and then there was one video that involved two sets of twin girls having sex with each other which was named “double the twins, double the fun.”

There is a whole section where you can dive into the many other themes that are offered, and it seems to be limitless to the things you can find. No matter what you are looking for, the women in porn can be portrayed as completely submissive to the male, reinstating this male dominated culture with the portrayal that they are in fact the ones who have the power. The names of the videos often refer the women with a very negative language, often being referred to as whores, sluts, slutty, or a freak.

There is also this reinstatement of heterosexuality over homosexuality which is clear when there is only one video concerning women having sex with other women, and there were no videos that featured two men having sex.

With these free mainstream porn sites, they do offer many different options and kinds of porn to watch, but they advertise this overwhelming cultural standards of today. Many of the porn directs your attention to straightness, whiteness, ablebodiedness, and generally being sold to a male audience. Of course, this is not to say that women would not be interested in watching some of these videos, but you get a sense that they are really looking towards more of a male audience.