Why Are We Here On Literotica?

I went to a wedding yesterday and was struck not only by the change in the verbiage, though still recognizable as the text prescribed by traditional Baptist recitations, but so modernized as to give me cause for pause in contemplating marriage. The context presented was practical, and the vows that the couple made seemed as if they ought to be doable. The truth is that although they sounded reasonable enough, they left me with a disquieted feeling. I spent a lot of time trying to pay attention to the proceedings around me but was distracted by thoughts of my Dom and some of my friends here. They're all married men and I've helping them to cheat on their wives. I'm not at all proud of this fact, and I wondered how I could have come so far in two and a half years. I reflected on the possible reasons why sites like Literotica thrive. I asked myself why I am among the 33% of women and 72% of men who view porn and read erotica regularly.

Google, through Michael Arrington on AOL Tech, has reported in an article published in 2007 that:

* "89% of porn is created in the U.S.
* $2.84 billion in revenue was generated from U.S. porn sites in 2006
* $89/second is spent on porn
* 72% of porn viewers are men
* 260 new porn sites go online daily"

while statistics gleaned at the United Families International site on Google showed that 12% or over 24.6 million websites were pornographic during that year. Additionally, over US$3,000 was being spent and over 28,000 persons were viewing a pornographic website PER SECOND. The industry worldwide, according to the site, was worth US$4.9 billion in 2007, spawned 2.5 billion e-mails daily and 68 million or 25% of search engine requests.

I don't think that I need to go on; the truth is that none of us needed to read these statistics to realize that porn is big business. It's like an addictive drug in which one becomes hooked on the free site and eventually pays subscription fees in an effort to see the better stuff in the Members Only portals. Ironically, that's how I came to Lit. I enjoyed the stories that I could see for free and wondered what the members were getting. I didn't have to pay to come here, of course, but the principle holds that I was looking for something more to feed my addiction.

I have chatted with scores of persons in the nearly two years that I've been here, and I have asked many of them about their reasons for being here. Of course, some of the answers that I have received have led me to wonder why they have remained in their marriages; but that is material for further contemplation and, perhaps, another essay. Generally though, the persons whom I have spoken with are here for four reasons:

* Boredom/Needing excitement
* Revenge cheating
* Mutual masturbation
* Lonely/Needing to connect with humanity – needing to be loved

You don't have to go beyond some of the personals, posted even in The Playground, or receive unsolicited PMs as I have done, to know that there are several persons on the site who are simply bored. They need company for the night, and they want you to be it. The truth is that about 50% of the time it is quite easy to deflect these persons by talking about their lives and the other things that interest them. Conversations that go this way tend to result in online friendships that do not become genuinely sexual in nature at all. There may be a little light hearted flirting and a lot of flattery going on, but nothing more.

The benefit, of course, is that I have learned so many new things by this means: what it means to practice medicine, law or political lobbying in the US, what the life of a railway worker is like; the true emotional cost to a man of keeping his wife barefoot and pregnant! For the other 50%, these "relationships' do not last since both parties have no real interest in each other, and so the boredom continues even during the flirtation. I have found that if I can't get someone to talk about something other than sex in the first 10 minutes of our encounter then I lose interest in that person completely, and I begin to wonder about his emotional maturity, and feel sorry for his wife.

I have come across only one admitted case of revenge cheating, but I have seen one other case, by reading the posts of a very angry person being here to check up on her spouse. It was not a pleasant thing to read and so I wondered about the lives of the many persons who tell me that although they play here often, their spouses do not know about their guilty pleasures. Obviously, they know their spouse better than I ever will, but in my case, I told my partner about my involvement here on the first morning after I signed up. It took me only one day to realize that I would enjoy being a member here and I decided to let him know about it and to invite him to join me. He declined, but he does listen when I tell him about my encounters here. To tell you the truth, he seems to find me more interesting during the times when I have told him about the tasks that I have accomplished for the various Doms whom I have met during these months. That he is more than willing to help them manage me has shocked me, because here I was thinking that he was vanilla for the 12 years that I knew him before joining Lit!

You may feel that because he's only my partner and not my husband that things are different for me. That is probably true; he has less to lose by leaving me and yet he's stayed and become even more attentive than even my wildest dreams could have imagined. My point though, is to be honest, if only with yourself. You need to know why it is that if you are not happy with your sex life, you have not discussed this with your spouse and, if necessary, with a counselor? If you're married, why have you not told the person here on Lit early, before emotional bonding, and allowed him or her to decide if that is something in which (s)he wants to be involved. Like me, you could be surprised by your spouse.

That my partner won't actually join me here is my major regret about participating on this site. I should say, for the record, that I trust him not to be here under some sort of disguised identity checking up on me. That said, I like watching the couples here! I think that it's romantic to be perving together. In my opinion, it speaks of openness and a commitment to authentic communication in the relationship. I count as lucky the women here whose partners have established threads showing off their bodies. To be fair to him, my partner has taken many of the photographs that I share with my friends; not setting up a thread is a demonstration of my own insecurity, not his.

So, finally, we arrive at the main reason why most of my friends are here and why it was that I came here in the first place. Too many of my Lit friends are here to escape the loneliness that they feel in their real lives. They wish to find a connection with someone and feel loved and valued. For me this is the most profound, and at the same time, saddest reason for being here. I even had one of my former Doms lie to me about some important issues in his life because he wanted to impress me. I am sorry that I had not taken the time or made the effort to tell him before that happened how very impressed I already was, because discovering the lie spoiled everything even though I understood why it happened. I wonder how many times something like this has happened in the offline lives of the people here. How many times would one word of affirmation from a loved one have prevented hours of looking for love on a sex site?

I have little time for people who try to proselytize to me, but I think that if we look around at the majesty of Nature, from the cavernous night sky to the tiniest ant carrying a crumb of biscuit, and if we listen to beautiful music or read the great books of these and times past then we will experience a feeling of connection with the universe and a sense of wonder that will render us speechlessly happy to be alive in any of the most trying of circumstances. For me, this connection with the universe spawns a sense of unconditional love both by and for the world around me. It has caused me to try to understand and facilitate rather than snicker at men who like and wear silk pantyhose, given that I, as a woman, do not. I think that the attraction of sites like these is their ability to allow us to explore our darker sides without feelings of judgment from ourselves or from others. I think that sites like these allow us to ask ourselves and others the questions that we would feel uncomfortable asking in mainstream society among our friends, neighbours and relatives. They give us a sense of being courageous and adventurous, they allow us to feel open-minded and cosmopolitan, even if we're stuck in parochial little Jamaica in reality. Sites like these really do give us a jolt of adrenalin, but like most addictive drugs the feeling wears off all too soon, and we're left with wondering what next as we explore what is behind the next suggested link or as we type in our credit card number and click "submit".