A-Z of Porn ‘T’, ‘V’ & ‘W’

Explaining porn so you can learn about it without having to watch it (if you want). Here’s the final episode! T is for Teen, V is for Vintage & W is for Webcam

Teen

For porn to be legal it has to feature over 18s. So porn companies make people sign forms and legal disclaimers (look for the 2257 information at the bottom of the page on porn sites) that everyone in the scene is over 18. When there are ‘teens’ in porn they are talking about 18 and 19 year olds or anyone who may look that age. So a teen could be played by a 24 year old, just two years before they are considered a MILF. Sometimes there are porn scenes that have characters that are under 18 (like school girls) but in order for them to be legal they must be over 18.

The storylines around teens in porn are sometimes about them being ‘innocent’ or easily convinced into having sex. They might also be described as flexible or ‘tight’ which is a bit gross but also not how bodies work – particularly vaginas.

‘Teen’ in straight porn usually refers to women. In porn featuring men having sex with men the term ‘twink’ is a similar term (more on that below).

Threesome

See also ‘group’.

Toys

A lot of porn features people using sex toys either for solo sex or for sex with another partner (either on or inside a man, woman, trans or non-binary gender). There are a ton of different kinds of sex toys but the main differences are about where they are meant to be used.

There are toys designed for the clitoris, the vagina, the anus and the penis. Some are designed to be worn, or strapped on and some are just held. Some, known as wands, were originally designed as back and shoulder massagers but can be used on any part of the body, wherever feels nice.

Twink

This is a term used in ‘gay porn’, and more broadly with men who have sex with men, to describe younger men. Different definitions around the internet describe them as being aged around 18-24 (or appearing that age) and that they are quite slim and not hairy. It’s a little bit similar to ‘teen’ but there are more restrictions on what twinks are supposed to look like. As with many terms describing people’s gender and sexuality, some people are happy being called this term and some not.

Vintage

Since prehistoric times there have been depictions of people having sex – in all sorts of positions (here’s a couple doing it in some sitting position from 11,000 years ago that you can go see at the British Museum) and with really big penises (shout out to Priapus after whom they named a dangerous medical condition of the penis ). But vintage here doesn’t mean that old – most vintage porn is from the 60s to the 00s. Some of it was made for sex cinemas and some of it was made for home video.

The styles change: pubes come, go and come back again; boobs get bigger, smaller, bigger and smaller again; but some things are always pretty much the same. They feature the same kind of sex in usually the same kind of order as happens in porn now. Kissing, clothes off, oral both ways, entry sex in three different positions and it’s over when someone cums or orgasms. The penises were also still large and the music was pretty bad. In older porn each scene tends to be shorter and edited a lot more because they were made for films. Each film had several scenes in and also actual plot.

Read the Educational Guide to Porn 

Voyuer

Being a voyeur is watching someone having sex, usually without the person having sex giving their consent. It’s a criminal offence to do this under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

On the major porn sites there are lots of videos of people watching other people having sex. Sometimes these are ‘fake voyeur’ scenes where the actors know that someone else in the scene is going to watch them having sex, but sometimes they aren’t. There are videos on some of the main porn sites where it isn’t clear whether the people having sex have consented to be filmed and for that film to be uploaded online. It’s tricky, but if it’s not clear whether everyone has consented or not then it’s probably not cool to watch it (right?).

You might like this article about porn and capitalism.

Webcam

People film themselves taking their clothes off, or masturbating, or having sex with someone on their own webcams at home. Often these are through webcam websites where viewers pay them some cash. Many porn websites now host their own webcam sites alongside all the porn they host.

It’s often not clear whether the webcam videos that appear on porn sites have the direct permission of the person who appears in them. They may have consented to perform on their webcam to people when they did, but they may well not have consented to have someone record that performance and put it up on a website. So again, if it’s not clear whether the performer has consented to that video being up it’s probably not cool to watch it (right?).

Read the other A-Z of Porn

© Justin Hancock, 2026 Find out more about me and BISH here. If you’re an educator, head to my website BISH training, to find out about my resources for SRE and training for practitioners.

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