Porn: Just The Tip Pt. 3
This transcript is edited for length & clarity—to experience the full, unedited conversation, you can listen to the audio recording above.
Jennifer C. Martin
Hi, I'm Jennifer C. Martin, senior contributor for Olney Magazine and I am talking to one of our other contributors, BeLinda Berry.
BeLinda Berry
Hello.
Jennifer C. Martin
Today we're going to be talking about ethics and porn. As you may know, I am a polyamorous mom of two boys, age 8 and 11. So that subject is very much on the horizon for me. And I'm also an ex-fundie, which I think you are too – you grew up with really conservative purity culture kind of stuff.
BeLinda Berry
Yeah, I was lucky that I didn't have it in my household. But yes.
Jennifer C. Martin
Yeah. I mean, to segue into the porn stuff like even though I've always been very horny, I started having sex even before I deconstructed anything. I just always struggled in that area, struggled with normal stuff in that area. My boyfriend (at the time) watched lots of porn and I don't know, I was jealous of it. And then I never liked it. My porn was that I would cybersex, which I don't even know if that's a term that exists anymore, but I would cybersex a lot on messengers. And then I never cheated on my husband before I became polyamorous, but I did sext a little bit, because it was text based and I like the text and like reading erotica and which is a form of porn, but I'm scared now that I have teen boys.
You know, my oldest is 11. And I've talked to him about porn in an age appropriate way, he still seems to be not as much into any sexual stuff at all, so far. And I've talked to him like, you can be open. He knows we're polyamorous and sex positive and all that. I have my two partners who live with me. I told him you can talk to us, like there's nothing to be ashamed of. But he just seems grossed out whenever I even have the mildest conversations with him. But I know in my heart that is still around the corner. I don't know when or where. And so my boys will probably end up watching porn or being curious about it. But it's, you know, hard to make it ethical, which is interesting.
I struggle with the idea of my kids watching porn a lot, which I shouldn't. I don't know why. It's very interesting, because I actually make porn sometimes. On the side, I have an OnlyFans. It's mostly baking stuff. But sometimes in the DMS guys are like, “Hey, can I buy a video?”, and I'm not gonna say no to free money. I've always been a little bit of an exhibitionist. I've always sent videos and pictures to partners. Part of the cybersex same thing. So, it's really interesting how that dichotomy exists in my life—that I'm so scared of my kids looking at porn.
You know, the articles that you wrote for Olney talk about some of the problems I have with it, which is—what if that's their sex education? Then they expect women to do things hardcore and have a kind of sex that maybe they don't want to; or that they expect women to look a certain way. Or do certain sex acts or whatever.
BeLinda Berry
I think part of it comes down to is, that you still see them as your babies. Porn has always been this very illicit thing in your life. And in our culture, it's never been portrayed as a positive thing. There's so much to tackle. I think a part of it is that the internet is such an expansive, deep, dark place, and that there's just so much that they could be exposed to very early. With that being said, I think that, for a lot of people, porn is their sex education. But I think that if you are very intentional and having these conversations with them about not just sex, but consent, what does consent look like and even just mirroring for them and mirroring consent in your everyday life with them.
There's this one story that I like to use with parents a lot about how to teach their children consent, even at a young age. I saw this on Facebook, but I think it’s good. The story goes that this mom had a 11 year old daughter, who wanted her ears pierced. The mom said, “Okay, let's, let's look at how to do this. We will do the research and make sure that this is something that you really want to do”. They do all the things they found in their research instead of just going to like a Claire's to get--
Jennifer C. Martin
—Where I got all mine!
BeLinda Berry
Same!
So, They end up putting a deposit down on it for a tattoo and piercing shop like two hours away that had amazing reviews. And there was this build up for months and months and months for her birthday. Then they drive and it's almost time for the piercing. But when they get there the girl goes, “I don't want to do it”.
And I could think of people who are so consent oriented and teach it, but the first thing that I can imagine most people saying is, “no, no, no, you, you're fine. You can do it, you can do Yeah, be brave”, and kind of like guilt and coerce them into getting it. Instead, in the story, the conversation kind of just went that they sat for a little bit, gave her some time to think. At the end of the day, she didn't do it. And they drove back home for another day, when she was ready.
Jennifer C. Martin
I struggled with that exact issue with my younger son, and him riding roller coasters. Because, you know, you pay for the ticket to the amusement park. And eventually, he did go on the ride, he went on one because all his cousins were doing it and he would have just been left alone. But I wanted to force him to go on all the rides, but I knew that that was not correct. So he skipped out on all the other ones.
BeLinda Berry
Yeah, it's hard sometimes to find that line of, what's the right amount of push and support versus what then becomes coercive, right?
But I think as parents, we still mirror the behavior that our children pick up. So, sex education is sometimes as simple as just teaching our children how to understand consent, and that we respect consent. And by doing those things we can teach them about consent culture, and having these conversations even when they are difficult.
It doesn't have to be the “big talk”, so when they do happen across things like porn, even if there are questionable things that they find—they know, it's not the norm.
I'm also not monogamous, but I love to read Super Smutty romance novels that are grossly heteronormative. Like, very, very monogamous and I love it. But when I'm reading it, I'm thinking, “Oh, this is steamy. This is so fucked up. But this is steamy!”
There's things that I enjoy in those stories, that even in real life, that in practice, I wouldn't want those things. But I do enjoy consuming them. But in my actual relationships, they don't mirror or mimic them.
But yeah, spending time building your kids other foundations, so when they discover porn, they can navigate it, they have the right language and vocabulary to handle it. The tools in their toolbox.
Jennifer C. Martin
I'm only into like light BDSM—I'm not into like the hardcore role play of it. But I think that helps a lot with issues like that. I guess for some people it is, but usually not at all how their relationships are mirrored. I've met lots of people, of all genders, who are sub or dom in the bedroom, but it isn’t obvious. Because mostly I think it's just how they are in the bedroom. That's not how they are as a couple in all interactions.
I had another interesting experience you know, after I came out as polyamorous—I became more experimental. But since right before the pandemic, my other partner Ty moved in with us and we were all hunkered down and I was like, “This is nice!”, and all other dating stopped, and going out stopped. I got super, super comfortable in it and then I lost my girlfriend and all of my other polyamorous friends. That was because she was big figure in the local polyamory community. So, now it's harder for me to go out or put myself out there. Which means I haven't been as experimental sexually as I was. I don't have to have that as part of my identity.
I look at other polyamory accounts, and they're always talking about how they're doing going on new dates, or having new partners, etc...and they have seven partners, and I have two. I used to compare myself because I would think that I’m not polyamorous enough. But I know that I am. Because in some ways, living with two partners is the final level of polyamory. It's just really hard to validate myself in that. I wonder, you know? Sometimes, I try to put myself out there, and then I get nervous about it. I think, “Is this purity culture coming back to bite me?”, but then I think, “No, I don't feel guilty when I'm with my other partner. Or is this nervousness relating to anxiety over losing a partner? Or am I nervous about something else?”
I went through a period where I was having more casual sex about two years ago. Then it kind of died down? So I go back and forth on is this right or wrong? What does it mean?
BeLinda Berry
I think it's all of those things, and none of those things at the same time.
When I came out as being bisexual (I more commonly use the word queer as my identity now, because it's the one that feels the most right to me at this point in my life) I never felt gay enough. Both of my long term partners have both been cis men. And I don't usually get clocked as being queer. Heck, I didn't realize it until I was 24. I was 24 when I was thinking, “Oh, that friend of mine. I really liked them. I think they're really pretty.”
And I was like, oh, but not in that way of like, “Oh, my God, girls are so pretty.” Yeah. Not a straight crush. And I realized all of these things that I'd carried with me over the years. I struggled to have friendships with femmes, because I was always afraid that they were gonna think I was gay. I was thinking that's normal. I don't think that's normal.
My hero was Xena Warrior Princess. I loved watching Xena, and there were all these funny little clues. I was like, “Yeah, that's pretty nice. Yeah, it's been here all along”, but I just fell down in a slightly different rabbit hole. But I’ve always felt like I wasn’t gay enough, not queer enough.
When I'm on dating apps, I say that I'm partnered and non monogamous, and we date separately. And the first thing out of 90% of people who messaged me are asking me if my partners are females.
Jennifer C. Martin
I mean, that was me all the time. I'm like, “No, they're both dudes.”
BeLinda Berry
–usually, within seconds or minutes of that being sent. I immediately get unmatched.
Jennifer C. Martin
Oh my god.
BeLinda Berry
But that's also a different rabbit hole, but I do always not feel gay enough. And I think with polyamory, there's also this gatekeeping that happens of what non-monogamy is in general. Or how people like to say, “That's not non-monogamy. That's cheating.” And no, it's still non-monogamy.
Jennifer C. Martin
I have a common misconception. I'm very visible online and my partners are much less online in general. I think that's part of what I like about them. It's just a super chill environment at home. My partners are dating other people, but they never post about them. It's more that they’re relationships may be a little more casual than mine. Actually, Daniel has a pretty serious girlfriend right now, but he doesn't post online. He doesn't post pictures of me and him! Why would he post pictures of like him and somebody he sees less than me? So like, somebody asked me once, “Do you let Daniel be polyamorous too?”, and I said, “I don't let Daniel do anything, that's why I'm polyamorous.”
I don't control Daniel. He dates other people. There was a point in my life where I didn't have any extra partners. And Daniel had three, and he just doesn't post about it. But people make a lot of assumptions. And that makes me feel self conscious, too.
BeLinda Berry
Absolutely.
Jennifer C. Martin
Because I have a fear that lots of people think that I forced him. I was the one who brought it up originally, but lots of people think like that. And my mom actually does think this, she thinks that Daniel hates polyamory and that I forced him to do it. I don't think I forced Daniel to do anything. Daniel just doesn't post about it, Mom. And maybe people think that about Ty too. His family is not happy that he is dating a married woman with kids. But, and but I didn't force anybody to do anything. And they have very good, healthy situations of their own that I don't talk about because I don't have permission to talk about Ty and Daniel at length. I have no permission to talk about the other people and they tend to be more private.
BeLinda Berry
Oh, for sure. With everything else that involves relationships and sex and porn, anything that deviates from the “X”, the standard norm, that expectation of what is normal. There's always all these negative connotations sort of attached to it.
Jennifer C. Martin
Yeah, and I wish I didn't care so much. Because I'm polyamorous, and I’ve moved past purity culture, I'm bisexual, I'm having sex with people who are not men, it's great. And all this other shit. I think, I'm done. But then I approach to the issue of, “Oh, your children are going to look at porn and your children will have their own sexual interest.” I'm still trying to move past it before it becomes an issue. And I actually had the conversation with my oldest son yesterday. And again, he was grossed out. He seemed embarrassed, didn't want to talk about it. But I was said, “Look, if you ever want to look at things online, just let me know. And we'll try to find an ethical way of doing that together, but not together obviously.”
BeLinda Berry
But, right—finding a safe outlet. Or safer outlet. Yeah, it's amazing, the age range, honestly, between 11 and 13. And even we'll go up to like 14, doing education in the community with adolescents at that age is really hard, because there is such a difference. The difference in exposure and interest at that age is huge. So, you can walk into a room and you can have an 11 year old who's like, “Oh, what’s sex?”, and then you can have an 11 year old who has already started to dabble, and then go further and by 13, people are already having sex and having babies and hitting puberty. It can be really hard to figure out where to start with having those conversations.
When we started talking today. You were saying, I'm pretty sure he hasn't, and you're having those conversations. You probably are right and have a really good handle on where your son is, but there's always that doubt of, “What if there is more than what is being let on?”, and so trying to gauge that with them—even just starting to have that conversation can be really difficult.
Jennifer C. Martin
It was initiated because I belong to some mom groups. Some of the other kids are already getting caught, like googling boobs or whatever. And, I get engaging in those sort of conversations with them. In some ways, my child doesn't seem to be interested in it at all, so far. But I was pretty young, really young, when I started to have “boyfriends”, in like, second, third, or fourth grade I would have a boyfriend for like a week. And then I got really into having a boyfriend in middle school. That I was obsessed with. I was definitely developing full crushes on people at 11, and then getting more and more interested in sexual activities at 12, and 13. And I just kept escalating the sexual elevator until 16. And so, yeah it's strange.
BeLinda Berry
And you said that you grew up in a very religious, fundamental household, Yes?
Jennifer C. Martin
Yeah, I was expected to be a virgin. My mom was maybe a little more progressive than others. So when I was 15, she took me to the doctor, and she told the doctor that I had PMDD, which I don't even know if that's real or not anymore, and that I needed to be on birth control pills. And so I was put on birth control pills even though I wasn't sexually active. So, then when the time came, for me to be sexually active, and he had never had sex before, we should have still probably used a condom, but we didn't. Like, we had both never had sex before. We were both monogamous with each other. So, we didn't use a condom. And it was really great. Good that I was on those birth control pills.
BeLinda Berry
At this moment, I kind of want to use it as an anecdotal comparison that I think is helpful. So, even though I went through my church phase, and I started going to church when I was like an adolescent. I was in junior high school. It wasn't something I was forced to do. I was just a weirdo loser in junior high who struggled to make friends.
Jennifer C. Martin
Yeah, I went to a church, and in high school, too.
BeLinda Berry
Then I went to a church outside of the town I lived in, and I realized that I was popular. I know I'm weird, but maybe it's not just me. These people have known me at my peak weirdness for however long, but I can go other places and be accepted for my weird; which was true to a degree. I went through that phase, I went to church, I still managed to inherit a lot of the purity bullshit. However, I did have a mom, who was having talks with me, at a very early age, they started very, very young, and they were always appropriate. They were questions—they were gauging.
I still remember the time I came home from school in the fifth grade. Somebody had been talking about blowjobs, and I come home and I'm like, “Mommy, what's a blowjob?”, and she told me later, “I died inside. I was not ready to have this conversation at all.”, but I asked, and she didn't lie. She told me a blowjob is when somebody puts their mouth on a penis. And I was like, “Oh, mommy, pee comes out of that.” That was the end of the conversation.
One—that was a really good way for her to gauge where I was, and she would address those things. But I remember she would talk to other parents about the talks we were having. They treated her, and even me, like we were heathens and I was going to be knocked up in a year. And I didn't lose my virginity till the week before my 21st birthday.
Jennifer C. Martin
I had my first kid when I was 21.
BeLinda Berry
It's always this interesting dichotomy because my parents didn't go to church with me. So, I was always the bad kid, and as a redhead, I was always like the bad kid all my life. Like—all my friends’ parents thought I was bad. But out of my friends group, I was still the last to have sex. That doesn't mean I wasn't doing other things, like oral sex and exploring that way. But even that I didn't do to the degree of others.
Jennifer C. Martin
Yeah, it's such an interesting dichotomy, like the difference between my upbringing and my kids' upbringing. I was raised in a house with all girls and a very over protective, domineering conservative, ex military dad. And he was very strict. But my mom was slightly more lenient, and I wonder to this day, if she really put me on birth control pills for PMDD, or if it was just “in case”. They both expected me to be pure, or whatever, and not have sex at all. But unfortunately with my boyfriend in high school, his parents were liberal secular Jews, so they didn't give a shit.
BeLinda Berry
Yeah, we can think that as adults or parents, that we can control things. But Kid kids are gonna do what they want to do. And as parents, teachers and educators, I think it's our job just to make sure they have the tools in their toolbox to deal with whatever it is.
Jennifer C. Martin
Yeah, for a very long time, because I'm a polyamorous parent, I get a lot of shit from other parents. Even so called liberal people who say things like “how are you raising your kids around this and bringing like people in and out of your child's life?” And like, I mean, I don't really introduce my kids to partners, unless they're serious. And they don't start coming around the kids very often unless it’s very, very serious. Not to be super tragic, but they were really close to my previous partner, the one that broke up with me. That was a little hard, but it was still lessened by the impact that we hadn't seen each other because of the pandemic.
But it's the sort of a thing that would happen if I was a single mom or even widowed and trying to get married. My parents have been married, never divorced, still married. And I moved around a lot. And a lot of people went in and out of my life too. And I thought it was unfair, but because of the criticism I got from even other liberal parents, I got really self conscious about presenting a very wholesome family-friendly image of polyamory. My kids are super close to my other partner. It's a three parent household, they just don't call him dad. They just call him Ty because that's his name. All the duties are split three ways and all the parenting split three ways.
I leaned in so hard on being this wholesome, polyamorous family almost removing the non sexual components to it and people are asking, “Are you guys in a closed triad?” No, really, we're not a triad. And also we're not closed. I just don't post about that as much because I was trying really hard not to seem like it was all this like sexual debauchery so my parents would accept it. And it kind of worked. Me, Ty, and Daniel and all of us went down to see my parents for Christmas and Nashville where they live. And they were very accepting of Ty. And it blew me away, almost. But it's because I've worked so hard to cultivate this family friendly image, but you know what? Sexuality exists, and I have sex outside of my two partnerships sometimes. And Ty and Daniel have sex outside of me. So, I feel like I kind of feel like I brought sexual repression back into my life when I worked so hard to keep it out.
BeLinda Berry
It really made me think of something: you're a mom. So, it doesn't matter what you do to some degree. As mom there's always going to be somebody to tell you're doing it wrong. Watching my sister become a mother—it’s a lot. She's like, “I'm going to do what feels right. I'm going to double check to make sure it's okay. Like at the baseline”, but she can't dive into so much of this stuff.
She says it will make her neurotic and not okay, and more stressed out. Which isn't good. She's pregnant, so, not good for the baby, and at some point, you just kind of have to go: “Okay, this is what I'm going to do. Because there's always somebody who’s going to criticize and it doesn't matter what it is.” But we all do bring in our own my biases to things, because I think we all have those things that we do that are outside of the norm, and when we do those things, we tend to cling to something else to try to validate our existence.
Jennifer C. Martin
I'm definitely in that phase right now. And I'm trying to move past it. It's perhaps compounded by the fact that I'm so open and vulnerable and honest online that I feel such an obligation also to be palatable for everyone, which is impossible when you're polyamorous communists from a conservative Christian family.
BeLinda Berry
Yeah, yeah, they'll make it tough.
Jennifer C. Martin
Anyway, I don't have anything else to ask.
BeLinda Berry
I think we've had a pretty good conversation and covered a lot of good ground. Maybe we were both really good at falling into some rabbit holes that were very good. Definitely. But they were very interesting. And I think worthwhile, but I don't think I have anything else to add.
Belinda writes about your sex, health and relationship related questions in her regular column here at Olney Magazine and you can submit anonymous questions to her here at Ask BeLinda!
Stay tuned to Olney Magazine’s social media accounts as this interview here is the precursor to a new podcast hosted by BeLinda, Jennifer and a third host, Melissa Noel (a nurse practitioner) which will cover multiple aspects of health, sex and relationship topics that so many deal with in the modern cultural sphere—to be titled “The Nerds & The Bees”.
