Why Do Men Even Comment on Porn Sites?

Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Westend61/Getty Images

Last Thursday, CNN reported that the Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina, Mark Robinson, has allegedly spent years moonlighting as minisoldr, a commenter on a porn website’s message board. In these posts, minisoldr admitted to peeping on women in locker rooms, said he didn’t care if celebrities had abortions (though Robinson has supported extreme abortion restrictions), self-identified as a “black Nazi,” and repeatedly used the phrase “I don’t give a frog’s fat ass.” Robinson denied the story, referring to the allegations as “salacious tabloid lies” and saying in a video he posted on Twitter that the comments are “not the words of Mark Robinson.”

The CNN story left me with a lot of questions. For starters: Why would someone with aspirations to hold public office say such vile and offensive things publicly? What’s up with Robinson’s obsession with amphibians? And perhaps most importantly: Porn sites have message boards? And people comment on them? As one user put it on X, “The fact that a comment section even exists on a porn site is disturbing enough. What would possess someone to have a conversation there?”

It’s certainly true that most porn comments could just be summarized as horny, full stop. “I’m a big complimenter,” says Jared, a 36-year-old frequent OnlyFans commenter and self-described “bater” (i.e., someone whose primary form of sexual activity is solo and/or mutual masturbation). “Like, if a guy has a really nice dick, I would specifically compliment that. I think veining on a dick is cool.”

And there’s always the possibility that a comment will get a creator’s attention, especially on newer subscription-based platforms like OnlyFans or JustforFans, which incentivize performers to interact with consumers. Jared says he frequently hears back from his favorite creators after he leaves an appreciative comment on their page (though oftentimes it’s just a simple “thanks”). Among the creators he follows, the ones that engage with commenters tend to “have so many more followers” than the creators who don’t, he says.

Jared has also formed relationships with other commenters and told me about one time he commented on a video of two men and received a reply from a guy in his area who was also into the kink. But Jared, who is bisexual, argues that the porn comments section serves a different function for gay or bicurious men than it does for straight ones. “In straight porn comments sections, there’s a fraternity aspect on there, like ‘Yeah, man, you’re getting that pussy, wish I could be like you,’” he says. “There are a lot of straight married guys who are just living a quick fantasy while they jerk off and watch some porn. Whereas on the gay ones, there’s a lot more interaction — it’s more like, ‘Hey man, we should meet up.’ There’s more accessibility there.”

The tone and tenor of the comments on porn sites also vary widely depending on the type of site. While one of the major selling points for a platform like OnlyFans is its interactive element, that’s less true for a tube site like Pornhub, whose visitors tend to have more fleeting, one-sided interactions with the creators they get off to. Then there’s old-school message boards  like Nude Africa, the one where Robinson allegedly posted, which advertised itself in Comic Sans MS font as “an online community of people from around the world that share personal information about their interest in Black Sexual Topics,” where people posted photos and videos of “sexy Black women and men,” as well as their own erotic stories. (The forum, which is restricted to members, scrubbed Robinson’s posts after the CNN story broke.)

Plenty of comments seem to have little to do with sex at all. Adult content creator Renee Olstead says that those who subscribe to her OnlyFans will often post about “aging parents, dealing with loss, dealing with their own mortality, dealing with surgeries, revealing things about their sexuality that they haven’t expressed for fear of judgment.” She says the wide range of comments can be incredibly revealing, even in instances where they can be derogatory or offensive: “People often behave differently when they think no one can see them.”

The subreddit r/PornhubComments compiles the most amusing and compelling comments from the site. They run the gamut from self-deprecating confessionals (“God, I hate myself. I’m so lonely”) to tongue-in-cheek one-liners (“I want to see a part 2 where she teaches him to read”) to solicitations of pragmatic advice (“does anyone have a recipe for beef jerky? It’s too expensive in the supermarkets”). Still, if you look at Pornhub’s list of top commenters, where the site catalogues its most highly engaged community members, most of those listed seem to be either creators or bots. (Pornhub did not respond to requests for comment.)

One man, a U.K.-based water-systems manager who goes by the handle Sir Cock Connoisseur, told me he uses Pornhub as an artistic outlet. The Connoisseur started commenting on Pornhub in 2021, shortly after he lost his job during the pandemic. “I had a passion for writing, but what form it would take I wasn’t sure. I could never find something that fully engaged me,” he says. “Then I found this.”

He’s since reviewed 185 videos on the website, including a clip called “Group Blowjob Racing” (which leads with the opener: “I tell you lads, it is a rare day indeed when I come across a piece of filth so entertaining that I simply forget to have a wank!”), and “Big-Tittied Japanese teenager sucking on a cock” (which he ranked a 5/10 due to the male performer being, in Sir Cock Connoisseur’s view, “woefully underequipped”). He estimates he leaves a comment about two or three times a week, spending about 30-40 minutes on each one.

The Connoisseur isn’t compensated for his porn reviews by Pornhub or anyone else, nor does he get much encouragement in his pursuits. “I have a miniscule audience,” he says. “I’m creatively pissing into the wind a bit … there’s very little constructive feedback.” Yet he takes his work very seriously, and refuses to accept money from the few creators who’ve asked him to comment on their videos to help boost their engagement. “I do try to be objective,” he says. “And that changes whenever money changes hands.”

Few people in Sir Cock Connoisseur’s personal life know about his side gig (his girlfriend of two years is one of them, and perhaps unsurprisingly, “she probably thinks it’s a bit weird”). Still, he says, “it makes me laugh. And it’s a good creative outlet.”

What most of these comments seem to have in common is that they’re things no one would ever share in real life. “It is authentic to comment on porn sites,” one creator told me. “Here’s someone confessing their hard-on to you, sometimes using their full name or face. At least it’s honest. I can’t help but respect it.”