By MIA FREEDMAN

Yesterday I accidentally watched a woman I didn’t know have anal sex. And it made me really sad.

Her name was Farrah Abraham, she’s an American MTV reality star and I watched her having butt sex while my kids played across the room on the other side of the screen.

I had headphones on, let it be known.

So how did I come to watch this stranger having sex and why did it make me sad?

It began the way it always does — falling down the rabbit hole like you so often do online (you needed to pay a bill or check Facebook and somehow end up watching a youtube clip of the best way to peel a banana). I clicked on a link and then another one and then there I was. Watching Farrah Abraham having anal sex.

Her face wasn’t really familiar but I knew who she was because my brain is porous when it comes to accidentally absorbing pop cultural crap. I’d read about it on Mamamia. I’m not going to pretend I was there by accident. I wanted to see it because this particular video has a story attached to it which was frankly, more interesting than the tape itself.

THE SHORT VERSION OF THAT STORY: Farrah Abraham was one of the stars of a US reality show called Teen Moms that was presumably about women who had babies when they were teenagers. Dunno. Never watched it.

Worried that her *cough* fame was fading after the show had finished, she decided to shoot a sex tape that would then be ‘accidentally’ leaked.

Kim Kardashian. Paris Hilton. One minute you’re on all fours, the next you’re releasing your signature scent. It’s practically a blueprint for global fame which is in itself a terrifying indictment on our obsession with celebrity.

Whatever it takes.

A few months ago, Farrah decided to manufacture a ‘leaked’ sex tape. Because that’s a thing now (read Mamamia’s post about sex tapes as a career move HERE) First up, she quietly hired famous porn actor James Deen (yeah, I know) and signed a deal with porn publishers Vivid Entertainment.

Her intention was to make the tape look amateurish and home-made and then have it accidentally ‘leak’ online at which point she would make some straight-faced statements about being shocked and saddened that a private moment with a trusted ‘partner’ (Deen’s face isn’t shown in the video) had become public while posing clothed for as many media outlets as possible and talking to anyone with a microphone.

And this, my friends, is how you extend your 15 minutes of micro-celebrity. Perfume deal anyone? Your own reality franchise?

Gah.

But it all went a bit wrong when she was photographed going into Vivid Entertainment’s offices for a meeting. Someone then recognised James Deen’s penis in the video (yes, apparently it’s THAT famous). And suddenly, Farrah’s cunning scheme was sprung.

So, the video.

The first thing you need to know is that it’s called Backdoor Teen Mom. As the title suggests, the point is that it’s Farrah having anal sex – something I’ve heard described as ‘the new oral’ in porn. Now that there’s so much porn available, those (mostly men and boys) watching it are becoming desensitised to the regular stuff and more extreme types of sex such as anal are becoming the new baseline.

I have a massive problem with this.

Not because I have a problem with anal sex – if that floats your boat and it’s consensual and you’re doing it safely, then whatever.

But for most women, anal sex is not baseline. Most women do not enjoy it. Even if they do, anal sex is not the bread and butter of most women’s sex lives.

And yet according to porn, every woman is gagging for it.

This worries me hugely for a generation who are growing up believing this to be true – boys and men who think every woman loves anal sex and every girl who is being led to believe that she SHOULD love it and that if she doesn’t, she’s somehow prudish or frigid or abnormal.

Mostly though, what made me sad about this video is how soulless it is. I don’t watch a lot of porn. I’ve seen my fair share but frankly, it just doesn’t do much for me. Perhaps all porn is soulless.

But there’s something about knowing the story behind this that makes it particularly… depressing. It starts with the camera on her as she tries on some of the lingerie she claims to have bought with her girlfriend for the occasion.

The guy holds the camera as Farrah babbles about what she thinks might look good and tries a few things on. When he tries to kiss her and they start to fool around, she immediately drops to her knees and starts giving him a blowjob. He tells her he wants to take it slow but she leaps up and runs downstairs. 
“I’m getting the lube!” she calls back to him as he stands there waiting. “Because we’re going to do anal!”

Right. This is sexy so far.

You can imagine the rest but I’ll confirm that it’s the most depressing, unsexual sex I’ve ever seen. He slams into her from behind while she turns around to look at the camera while moaning loudly and making sex faces, doing a terrible job of faking pleasure. At one point she grabs her own fake boob, thrusts it towards the camera and starts squeezing it really hard as if she has mastitis and is trying to roughly massage out a blocked milk duct.

Because that’s what turns most women on, right? Having some guy pound your bottom into oblivion while you squeeze your own fake boob really hard.

Is this how sex is now calibrated? Is this the kind of thing young boys and girls are watching before they’ve even had sex? Is this the visual wallpaper they’ll have in their minds that first time? And is this what young men and women are being conditioned to believe women want?

It is.

And it makes me want to weep. For Farrah’s 4yo daughter who is going to grow up in the shadow cast by Backdoor Teen Mom. For a world in which a transparently manufactured sex tape is considered a legitimate path to fame and a career. For the women and girls who are having sex with men raised on a diet of porn, who believe this kind of shit is indicative of women’s sexual responses and who feel pressured to perform like porn stars in their own bedrooms for fear of being considered square, selfish or unadventurous.

And for the men and boys who are being brainwashed into believing women actually behave like this in real life and who find themselves feeling surprised, disappointed, frustrated or inadequate when the women they’re sleeping with don’t respond to their porn star moves with eager, uncomplicated porn star enthusiasm.

Because every woman’s sexual response is different. The same woman can respond differently with different partners or on different days. And that’s something you can’t ever learn from porn.