This is about body image. If you'd rather not build up or disturb a mental image of anyone who's likely to reply here (or of me, for that matter), please don't read this post or its comments.

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Okay. So I am not exactly equal to any of the stereotypes you see in most porn clips/movies, that sort of thing. I'm more or less used to that, but few weeks ago, I found a subreddit that I visited a few times that night because it was supposed to be about porn featuring real people, as in realistically proportioned people beyond the usual fare. As anyone who's tried to find porn featuring actually average dicks will know, it's not easy, or at least it doesn't advertise itself as such. (Apparently no one blows a 4-inch dick, for example.)

So I was browsing this thing, enjoying a few clips and of course at every point especially enjoying the lower than average recurrence of typical pornstar bodies. (Sometimes it was just one of the two (or three), but hey, you take what you can get.)

Then at some point, I found something with a guy that was more or less close to my own type, more or less how I'm built. And since this is a place that prides itself on real people and the comments had had links to source and sites with similar clips before, I went there. And maybe I shouldn't have.

The comments were filled with comments saying things like "ew", "puke", "gross", "what a whore, she must be really desperate for money", "you can tell she's really not enjoying that", each one with other people piling on and nodding in disgusted agreement, saying that this was more a way of torturing the woman in this clip with the sight and presence of the man than anything porn clips are supposed to be about. And the thing was downvoted by a fair bit, too.

Looking at it was painful, because it really did seem that she just did not want to be there, but I can't tell if that's true or not, if it's just because some clips really are like that no matter what because that's how that industry is, if it's because of being primed with those opinions, etc, etc...

I've tried to put that thing behind me and just reset and think the same things before as I did after, but it seems to be a bit stuck in. I know that it's not supposed to, that people like that are assholes, that it doesn't mean it wasn't enjoyable for the woman in the clip, that it's not representative of actual encounters with someone you have a connection with, that it's about so much more than these things... I "know" them, but this still comes back to me.

So I guess my question is... has this happened to you? Is it something you have found a way to handle? Have you helped someone deal with this kind of thing?

Edit: I think I narrowed down some of my own thinking about this in a comment; I don't mean to hi-jack the discussion so I'm just linking.