How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous!
Dear How to Do It,
I live in Florida where Pornhub’s ban recently went into effect. I was always a casual porn viewer. I’d go to the Pornhub homepage and click the first thing that looked interesting. Well, now that’s gotten a whole lot more complicated (I know I can use a VPN). So I’ve mostly resorted to just reading erotica. But I’m so angry! And so are all of my friends.
We’ve all worked so hard within our circles to be positive and open about sex and now it feels like we’re all collectively being forced to take a million steps back. It seems like something potentially silly to be very upset by. I can imagine some people saying, “it’s just porn.” But it feels like a real regression and an additional needle in an already tall haystack of intense slights. How can I keep encouraging sex positivity in a state that seems to reject it? Is now the time to subscribe to a creator or something? I’ve never done it but perhaps sending my money somewhere could be good. Maybe I’m just looking for someone to tell me it’s right to be angry about this.
—Give Me Back My Porn
Dear Give Me Back My Porn,
Subscribing to a creator, or to an independent studio, is always a good idea, and something that would have been nice to do this whole time. You will, however, probably run into similar issues as with Pornhub. Because it’s not just a “Pornhub ban” but rather an “onerous burden of age verification for any site with a significant amount of pornography, with pornography being alarmingly loosely defined,” as I’ve written before back in 2023. There are reports of other sites in Florida shuttering completely—and others requiring government-issued ID uploads.
What you can do now is support the Free Speech Coalition, which has been working to fight these age verification laws for quite some time. Their general stance, across the two decades I’ve known of them and across multiple leadership changes, is that free speech in pornography is the bulwark against censorship—the freedom to depict sex is what protects the freedom to talk about sex, freedom to educate about sex, and freedoms of speech that have nothing to do with sex. They’ve already filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of age verification laws in several states, including Florida.
Your feelings are inherently valid, as they are feelings, but since you did ask for permission: Yes, it is OK to be angry about a disruption in your adult entertainment use. Yes, it is OK to be angry that a form of speech you used to have access to is now banned. And yes, it is OK to be afraid of what this bodes for all forms of speech.
As for how you can continue to promote sex positivity in a region that seems set against it, well, you continue to have conversations with each other. You support the legal organizations fighting these laws. You treat your partners well and advocate for your own interests and boundaries. A lot of this is private—not big, splashy, or likely to cause a headline. But most often that’s where the real work gets done.
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Dear How to Do It,
I am a 20-year-old struggling with porn and my fantasies. Humiliation and non-consensual fictional (as in hentai or anything without real people) porn majorly turn me on. But I always feel bad about it because to me, it is wrong that such things give me pleasure even as a fantasy. I know that I would never actually act on such desires in real life. When I finish, I always feel bad when I think more about what I just nutted to. I keep cycling through how I should feel about it. Is it OK for me to enjoy such things in a fictional setting or is this something that I should try to avoid entirely?
I enjoy consensual and loving stories. The sex in those leaves me more satisfied than the stuff previously mentioned. But sooner or later, I always feel drawn to the other fictional ideas. It could just be the lingering remnants of my porn addiction but I have made massive progress. I’ve reduced my consumption of porn to only two to three times a week from two to three times a day. Should I accept the kinks or reject them? They are just fantasies so they don’t harm anyone but they still feel like something I should be ashamed of as it isn’t romantic and consensual sex.
—To Change or Not to Change
Dear to Change or Not to Change,
Before I dig into your questions, I want to direct you to a fairly recent article from well-respected clinical psychologist David J. Ley. The TL;DR is that porn addiction isn’t real. Shame loops are real. Obsessions due to psychiatric difficulties are real. But porn addiction isn’t. And the feelings of loss of control, moral incongruence, and shame are compounded by the framework of porn addiction. Not to mention the fact that the vast majority of people hawking this bunk pseudoscience have absolutely no training in mental health, while the people who do have such education are almost entirely united against the concept.
I can’t tell you what’s right for you. I can repeat, as Rich and I have said many times in this column, that we believe there is no such thing as a thought crime. I can tell you that lots of people think about, or watch, scenarios that they would never actually want to enact, and that most of those people are unbothered by their viewing preferences. But I can’t tell you what your morals are—those are personal, informed by the social groups we come from and live within, and our own life experiences—and take time to develop. All I can say is that getting your actions in line with your morals is your most likely path to relief. That might mean changing your behaviors (including your porn viewing habits), or interrogating and changing your assumptions about your morals, or a combination of the two.
As you move through life, you’re likely to rethink lots of things, including your relationship to sexuality and pornography. If you’re exposing yourself to different ideas and evaluating them for yourself, while using both critical thinking and common sense, you’re going to have an amazing journey and learn a lot about yourself. Read Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality. Check in with a spiritual leader if you’re involved in, or curious about, some kind of religious community. Talk with trusted older folks and with peers. For now, when you’re tempted to engage in something that feels out of alignment with your morals, actively turn your thoughts toward something you prefer—ideally, in my opinion, toward seeking out a better understanding of why you value what you value, what your ethics are, and where your current set of morals comes from.
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Dear How to Do It,
I’ve always been interested in the concept of Kegel exercises but I don’t really know where to start. I’m not getting any younger, and I have the vague idea that this will help with my aging vagina. Am I totally off base? How do I do it safely? Or should I not be bothering to do it at all?
—Kegel 101
Dear Kegel 101,
Go to a pelvic floor therapist for instruction on how to do Kegel exercises properly. In the same way that you can injure yourself going wild at the gym without guidance, people sometimes cause cramping in their vulva by doing Kegels improperly or excessively. And, much like working out, different bodies have different needs. You’re best off in the hands of an expert, with hands-on instruction.
—Jessica
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