Prude: Lessons I Learned When My Fiancé Filmed Porn

by Emily Southwood

Overview

In a culture obsessed with sex, the era of Dad’s Playboy is long gone. Today, endless free porn is a click away and full-frontal photos appear on sites as accessible as Twitter, yet many couples struggle with the underlying issues of pornography.

Emily Southwood considered herself to be sexually liberal—until her fiancé landed a job filming porn for a network reality TV show and her whole world changed overnight. Once confident in her relationship, she suddenly felt jealous, insecure, and obsessively comparative to the porn stars her fiancé was around everyday. She was forced to confront feelings she didn’t even know she had: about the treatment of women in the porn industry, the hush-hush attitude toward women watching pornography, and the unrealistic expectations about sex that are often propagated by porn. Prude is a humorous memoir that explores why there is so little communication about porn in relationships. Southwood tells the story of her transformation from feeling sexually liberal-minded to realizing she had issues with porn and the industry her fiancé was a part of. 

She reveals her bizarre journey to conquer her discomfort around porn—and how she ends up finding herself (and ultimately fixing her relationship for good) along the way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580054980
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	09/24/2013
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Emily Southwood writes for websites such as Betty Confidential and Huffington Post, and she can be found blogging at imarriedapornographer.com. She has been featured in Canadian newspapers and magazines, including the Montreal Mirror, The Globe and Mail, and Elle Canada.

Emily received a bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing and English Literature from Concordia University in Montreal and later completed an MFA in creative non-fiction from the University of British Columbia. In 2008, Emily moved to Los Angeles to be with her fiancé, who was there filming porn stars in action for the reality TV show Webdreams. The experience of planning a wedding while her betrothed witnessed crude encounters inspired this book.

Emily currently divides her time between Montreal and Los Angeles. Without a fixed address, her mainstays are her station wagon, her husband, her son, and a small, white dog.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Hand Job 1

Chapter 1 Squirting 16

Chapter 2 Gonzo 37

Chapter 3 Shaved 50

Chapter 4 Milfs 72

Chapter 5 Anal 87

Chapter 6 Threesomes 103

Chapter 7 Couples 124

Chapter 8 Amateur 139

Chapter 9 Fantasy 156

Chapter 10 Swallowing 173

Chapter 11 Stand-Ins 190

Chapter 12 Masochism 210

Afterword 235

Editorial Reviews

08/12/2013
When her fiancé Robbie landed a job filming a reality TV show about porn, Southwood, who had just moved to Los Angeles to live with Robbie, unsurprisingly, had conflicted feelings. Southwood skillfully and calmly shares this time of her life, examining how porn both threatened and strengthened their relationship, and how it brought other issues—insecurity, lack of communication—to light. Southwood also explores her own relationship to porn, placing it in the greater context of today’s society, citing what she’s learned about different types of porn, porn usage, and exposure. The writing is straightforward, comfortable, and just a bit quirky; the memoir reads like a conversation over cocktails with a close girlfriend—possibly because such scenes often recur as Southwood struggles between her desire to be open-minded, and her ingrained moral stance on porn. For those who, like Southwood, are uncomfortable, intimidated, or simply unfamiliar with porn, this book is a fun way to start pushing your own comfort zones. For everyone else, it’s a sweet and original examination of the complications of romantic relationships. (Oct)

Publishers Weekly

“A hip, humorous confessional written with maturity, panache and sex-positive vibes.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“For those who, like Southwood, are uncomfortable, intimidated, or simply unfamiliar with porn, this book is a fun way to start pushing your own comfort zones. For everyone else, it’s a sweet and original examination of the complications of romantic relationships.”
—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

2013-09-01
The dream nuptials of a bride-to-be become complicated by a fiance with a penchant for porn. With great relief, Internet blogger Southwood writes of formally consummating a three-year long-distance relationship by relocating from Vancouver to her boyfriend Robbie's place in Los Angeles and getting engaged. A restless gal of 28 who's happy to divulge her sexual repertoire of only "twelve guys and one girl," this move would be her tenth so far--and hopefully her last. Just days before Southwood's departure, Robbie, a Hollywood cameraman big on expressive feelings, drops the bombshell that he's been offered a prized cinematography position with a "reality TV porn" program. Flabbergasted and ambivalent, Southwood agonized over her reaction: Would her latent sexual prudishness spoil their relationship and hijack the wedding, or should she just process the information and deal with it? Their situation worsened before it resolved, and throughout, the author shrewdly ruminates on relationship pitfalls. Southwood's contemporary analysis revolves around the "ownership" credo of monogamy; these days, she asks, "exactly how much of our significant other's body and soul do we get?" However, as Robbie's livelihood put unwanted pressure on their sex life yet concurrently provided a surfeit of hilariously awkward predicaments, the author pauses to shrewdly comment on the male-dominated world of pornography, its effect on early sexual development and infidelity, alongside an explicit cornucopia of porn varieties, sexual positions, terms and conditions, compliments of Robbie's new job. The main theme running through Southwood's memoir, however, is not how soul-sucking and unapologetically raunchy the sex industry can be labeled by outsiders, but how much open and unfettered communication is required when one-half of a partnership becomes threatened by the other's involvement in it. A hip, humorous confessional written with maturity, panache and sex-positive vibes.

Kirkus Reviews