The Greys

This strip was inspired by a conversation I had with a friend of mine, several years ago. She’d just seen her first ever pornographic film, and commented that “it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected”. I then had to explain to her that she’d got lucky, and just happened to see something that fell within her notion of acceptability. She could just as easily have been exposed to something that would have been far worse than she’d expected.

The odd thing about pornography, though, is just how quickly arousal can turn into horror – as I’m sure many drunken tourists to Bangkok can testify! There’s only a very small step from “I’m enjoying this”, through “I’m not sure, but I’ll give it a try” and into “URGH!”. Or to put it in graph form…

Of course that’s a gross oversimplification. For a start there’s no single measure for “Intensity of porn” that can be used on the x-axis — one man’s fetish is another man’s perversion. And the “OMG” crossing point tends to move to the right with time and experience (or, in the case of this comic’s Grey, gets reset back to the left). But everyone has their limit, and whilst it can be fun to push the boundaries of your sexual tastes, just be careful not to push them too far: mind bleach doesn’t really exist.

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