The Problem With Fluffers

On outsourced pleasure, blaming porn, erotic responsibility, and 'The Erotic's Way' to rewire desire

I’ve been thinking about fluffers – the behind-the-scenes helpers on porn sets whose job is to keep performers aroused between takes.

It’s ironic. Even the performers in the ultimate outsourced arousal experience – porn – require a fluffer. The very thing we turn to when we don't want to turn ourselves on still needs help getting going.

Lately, Americans have been rethinking what we’ve outsourced. We’re bringing back manufacturing. We no longer just “takeout” – we deliver. But even delivery has come under legislative scrutiny. Now, politicians are proposing restrictions on access to pornography. I don’t align with the protectionist movement. I like sharing. I like help. But I do wonder, while we’re considering all we’ve unladen, why not question why we’ve offloaded the pleasurable parts of life?

As Kurt Vonnegut reminded his wife, we humans used to enjoy a walk to pick up an envelope. Now, three dozen are dropped at our door. We, too, used to do our own fantasizing. Now, we click and consume. Like a tired work-from-home parent hiring someone to build the Ikea crib, we’ve become spectators in our own sex lives – letting someone else do the fun part for us.

Christine Emba

wrote recently in the New York Times that porn’s public influence ought to be questioned more. I agree, which is why I work at MakeLoveNotPorn, a platform for real world sex videos that offer a less scripted, more human erotic alternative. As our founder, Cindy Gallop, said back in 2009, porn became sex education by default. It was never meant to be anything more than entertainment – one we humans have enjoyed since long before this millennium.

I grew up in classrooms with posters that said, “Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray.” It was the early 2000s, and the societal villain was tobacco. These days, the enemy is porn. We talk about it like a health crisis: numbing, addictive, isolating. We blame the industry. The algorithm. The men. But we forget: we’re making the convenience-store purchase. We open the incognito tab. We type the same URLs. Or, if your browser history isn’t automatically deleted, just type “p” and hit enter. No one is forcing us. The fluffer lives in our phones now, available 24/7.

“Fun House” Richard Hamilton

Some argue this isn’t a real choice – that it’s addiction, plain and simple. But the science is mixed, and frankly, addiction is another convenient way to absolve ourselves of responsibility. The truth may be more mundane: we’re lazy. Humans do what’s easiest. And nothing is easier than scrolling to climax. But ease and satisfaction aren’t the same thing. If anything, the more we rely on porn, the more we seem to forget how to rely on ourselves.

There was a time when I couldn’t orgasm without imagining women scissoring. My porn habits had infiltrated my innate fantasies. When I met my now-husband, he told me he didn’t watch porn – not out of shame, but because he liked his own fantasies better. His sexual discipline, he said, improved his life overall, like his gym routine.

In a culture oversaturated with sexual content, it may seem counterintuitive to say we’ve lost touch with our erotic selves. But hyper-availability is not the same as intimacy. Convenience is not the same as connection. We have access, yes – but we’ve let the fluffer take the fun out of sex. The proliferation of porn doesn’t mean we’re erotically alive.

Lauren Hall

of The Phenomenological Society recently proclaimed ‘Desire is dead.’ She wasn’t just talking about sex, but the broader, vital spark that drives us toward intimacy, imagination, and each other. The data – and my experience – agree. Desire may be dormant. But it can be revived.

We can blame Big Tobacco or Big Porn for our behaviors, but ultimately, no one can change our habits but ourselves. Fluffering ourselves–feeling desire from the inside out–takes effort. And discipline. The least sexy word imaginable. But maybe the most necessary.

A generation ago, The Artist’s Way taught burned-out creatives that accountability and routine were essential to making art. Julia Cameron made discipline sexy again. I believe we need an Erotic’s Way – a similar guide for those of us whose erotic lives have gone dormant not due to trauma or repression, but neglect.

We’re not broken. We’re distracted. But we can remember – just as we relearned to relax without chemical interference and create without divine inspiration – that we can climax without external stimuli. Our bodies, these clever evolved things, are capable of extraordinary imaginative arousal. With the right conditions, we can conjure fantasy. Rewire pleasure. Reclaim intimacy. But that takes presence. And maybe even the boredom that comes from reading Ikea instructions.

At MakeLoveNotPorn, we’ve seen how real world sex – unscripted, messy, funny – is often far more erotic than the fluffer-influenced fiction. Imagination beats imitation. But you can’t access imagination if you never pause the scroll. You have to stop consuming long enough to hear your own longings.

Sometimes I still fantasize about bouncing boobs and grinding thighs. But rarely. Mostly, I have sex in the moment – with my husband, with myself. And that pleasure, unmediated, uninterrupted, is hotter than anything I’ve ever outsourced.

Maybe the problem isn’t outsourcing. Maybe it’s forgetting we had a choice in what we handed off in the first place. Arousal isn’t something done to us. It’s something we can generate. With imagination. With intention. And, if we’re lucky, with each other.

Let’s stop leaving that to the fluffers.

Soundtrack:

Tell me:

• What’s your favorite DoorDash? We’ve been getting a lot of Shake Shake, lately. Thanks to the lovely dudes on motor bikes out here in Brooklyn keeping my family fed.

• What are the propaganda lines in your baby brain? I couldn’t date a smoker for ages.

• Should I write The Erotic’s Way?

Thank you for loving love with me, love lovers.