Vice Visit Vivas

LOS ANGELES—Vice magazine got to thinking about men and their porn after writer Betty Burns stumbled upon her boyfriend's porn collection. "Realizing I needed to come to terms with my boyfriend’s porn promiscuity," wrote Burns, "I reached out to expert Allison Vivas (pictured)." Vivas, of course, is the president of Pink Visual, but she is also the author of Making Peace with Porn: Adult Entertainment and Your Guy, which Burns describes as "a book ... that helps women understand the normalcy of viewing porn." Burns, feeling a little burned, was definitely in need of some counseling, and Vivas was only too happy to oblige. In fact, the piece reads like an extended advice column, which is basically what it is. Luckily, Vivas, rather than reciting worn platitudes or engaging in therapyspeak, answers Burns questions adroitly and at times unexpectedly (and refreshingly). A few of our favorite Vivas quotes: "A lot of women like to think that [men] look at porn because they want their wife or girlfriend to have bleach blonde hair and big boobs and do all of these things in the videos. You have to realize too, that’s not why men look at porn. It is just entertainment." "All of these statistics about porn viewing give us the perception that our perfect man doesn’t look at porn, but that is not the reality." "80 percent of women have sexual fantasies compared to 99 percent of men. What distinguished between the two was that, the majority of women are actually fantasizing about a man they already know. Whereas for men, they are fantasizing about a faceless woman, someone that doesn’t exist or they don’t have access to. I think if the roles were reversed and women found out that our man was fantasizing about the woman two doors down, we would be livid." "99 percent of men are going to choose sex if they have the choice between having sex or watching porn." "We as woman judge each other, so we judge porn stars. If we are confident with ourselves, we won’t have a problem with our guy watching porn." There's a lot more. Definitely worth a gander. Making Peace with Porn: Adult Entertainment and Your Guy is available here.