DTF. I first heard the word on a radio morning show. The DJs were talking about a particular cable TV series about young people who often used the term “DTF” to refer to an object of one’s attraction, i.e., “She’s DTF.” The DJs, conscious about rules on censorship and use of foul language, in a roundabout way explained the meaning of the acronym as “Down to Fuck.” 

I came across the term again in a documentary called, “Sexy Baby” calling today’s teens who are so easily exposed to pornography “Generation Triple XXX.”

Generation Triple XXX is used to describe the adolescents who, because of the ubiquity of sex and pornography on the Internet, have become exposed to sex years before their first sexual encounter.

“We’re getting messages from everywhere that say that if you dress this way, you will be treated this way or be powerful. Sex is power,” said 12-year-old New Yorker Winnifred Bonjean-Alpart, who is featured in Sexy Baby.

According to the documentary, 90% of children between the ages of 8-16 have viewed porn online and went on to explore the impact of adolescents exposed to hardcore pornography: how it affects the way they view sex and how it shapes their expectations about what sex is — years before they even have their first sexual encounter.

Another 12-year-old girl, Winnifred’s friend, who stumbled upon a porn website described the images as “people ferociously banging one another.” She was at a loss for words to describe how it made her feel and could only say that after, she was bawling her eyes out.

Make love, not porn

“Kids are viewing porn at an earlier and earlier age. There’s an entire generation who believes that what you see in hardcore pornography is the way you have sex. It is not surprising that what you see in hardcore pornography, de facto, has become sex education,” said Cindy Gallop, founder of the website Make Love, Not Porn.

Watch Cindy Gallop’s 2009 TED Talk where she launched the makelovenotporn.com website here.

In answer to this issue, Gallop did not propose to obliterate porn. “I am not anti-porn; I watch it regularly myself. Porn will always be there.” She did, however, propose a new kind of pornography that shows how real people have sex in real life.

“The solution is to replace hardcore porn with images of real lovemaking,” said Gallop who has gone on to launch makelovenotporn.tv, a user-generated, open source platform where real couples called “Make love not porn stars” can upload their own videos having real world sex.

The website has launched last January and already has more than 100,000 users and has received many affirmations. “One man in his 40s and has probably watched his own share of porn, told me: ‘Watching porn makes me want to jerk off, watching your videos makes me want to have sex,’” shared Gallop in an interview with ABC News. 

Women in porn

Other like-minded women who share in the same crusade include Australia-based Anna Brownfield, who calls her work “new wave erotica,” a term she coined to differentiate her work from regular porn.

Brownfield’s work has screened at numerous international festivals and conferences such as the 1995 International Women’s Conference in Beijing. Her first film feature, “The Money Shot,” closed the Melbourne Underground Film Festival and won Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Male Lead. 

Her work is characterized by a natural rawness of the storyline with believable scenes where importance is placed on the chemistry between the characters and build-up to the actual sex scenes. She casts actors with a diversity of body types. “Natural, ‘untouched by a knife’ bodies — and that includes boob jobs — are preferred,” said Brownfield in an interview I did with her some years ago.

Realistic for Brownfield also means incorporating safe sex practices into the scenes, partly in response to the rise of  sexually transmitted diseases in Australia among 16 -25-year-olds who think you should use condoms for contraception only, and do not think about it also protecting them from sexually transmitted diseases. 

“Safe sex is a must! I wanted the sex scenes to be realistic to the scenario, and as most of the sex scenes in ‘The Band’ are one-night stands, where the characters don’t know each other’s sexual history, it was important to show condom use. Not only just during the sex scenes but also the condoms being put on, rather than just appearing.”

“Hence, I see one of my roles as an erotic film maker is also to educate the audience about safe sex, but I wanted to show it as a normal natural part of having sex, not for it to be preached.” said Brownfield.

Erotica

UK-based Anna Span put up Easy on the Eye production for the same reason; she said her movies are like “soap operas but with explicit sex.”

“I use a formula of fantasy, sensual sex. I cast non-porn looking actors and actresses, and make their scenes as real as possible by making them look into the corners of the room or into the camera.”

The only exception she makes about the porn star stereotypes is about the physical attributes of the male actor. “Men have to be endowed or you can’t get the (right) camera angles.”

On the Internet, the same place where hardcore porn is so easily accessible with a click, other sites like uporn.com show a softer, dare we say, romantic version of pornography calling it many names: erotica, soft porn, porn with a feminine touch/view.

What would it do, how would it change the views of Generation Triple XXX if they were also to be exposed to movies with sex, but with real life elements that dig deeper into the very reasons why we humans engage in sex in the first place: to address the primal biological need for intimacy and connection with someone we love.

Would it allow for the permutation of DTF to evolve into something else, say: Down to love, not porn? – Rappler.com

Like the various genres of pornography, Ana’s job is described in many ways: sex writer, sex columnist, public health journalist, and sexual health educator. She likes to simplify it by saying she writes about the different facets of sex positivism — which just means real sex for real people in real terms. Read more of her work on www.sexandsensibilities.com (SAS) or follow her on Twitter at @iamAnaSantos.