Arriving home from university to find my strict South Asian mother watching pornography felt like one of those ‘I bet you’re wondering how I got here’ record-scratch moments.
Surrounded by a Channel 4 film crew and bright lights, my mother, Jane, was red-faced while watching a threesome and listening to a cacophony of moans.
She was doing it for a three-part series called Mums Make Porn in 2019, which followed five mothers producing porn they’d feel comfortable having their adult children watch.
They faced explicit videos, sex toys and live-action porn sets. The aim was to tackle the misogyny and exploitation rampant in mainstream porn and challenge its male-dominated narratives.
My mother was invited to be a part of the series after the production company approached her on social media.
I was astonished that she agreed, but when she asked me if I approved, my curiosity got the better of me and, with some trepidation – Mum had never even seen 50 Shades of Grey, let alone porn – I said yes.
Inwardly, I hoped that her participation in the show might lead to more open conversations about sex between us – she was about to be slapped in the face with the cultural gap that I had been navigating for years.
Growing up, the only discussions that Mum and I had about sex were her bi-annual missions of barging into my room to proclaim, ‘I hope you’re still a virgin?’
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My values towards sex and relationships had developed through exposure to both Western openness and the respect-driven nature of my religious, South Asian upbringing.
I had British friends who would have conversations with their mothers about starting contraception, while I faced grave trouble for kissing a boy on my 15th birthday.
At school, I was bullied for parroting strict beliefs in sex education class, like not losing my virginity before 21. I never dared make such a proclamation again.
One of the scenes Mum and I filmed for the show together involved her asking me whether I knew about threesomes, if I had friends who had tried anal sex, and if I had ever seen a porn movie before. I answered each with a dryly amused ‘no’.
The truth was, I had friends who had done these things, and this could have been a breakthrough moment for us.
However, I could see how deeply my mother was struggling with the experience.
Not only was she confronted with hordes of sex toys, but the blasé attitudes of porn directors and, eventually, a live porn set where she witnessed porn actors having sex, which caused one of the other mums to vomit.
My mother came home dismayed. She started to have lengthy conversations with me about her inability to align her South Asian morals with what she was seeing.
She was doing what I’d spent my whole life doing, navigating the differences in culture. I had learned to deal with it from a young age but I could sense her fear and sadness and that only evoked my compassion.
Rather than wishing I could talk more to my mum about sex, I felt deeply sympathetic for her. I couldn’t face upsetting her further by bringing the topic up again.
Everything came to a head when my mother ultimately decided she couldn’t align her values with producing a porn film and tearfully made the decision to drop out of the show.
She faced backlash for this online. People mocked her, with many asking why she even bothered to do the show in the first place.
When the show was broadcast, I watched scenes of my mother on the set of a live pornography shoot, and they should have been funny; instead, I felt annoyed that viewers wouldn’t understand how much of her existing cultural beliefs she had overcome to be there.
The image of my mother crying stays with me.
In late 2024, my mother celebrated the fifth anniversary of Mums Make Porn at an event. Mum felt happy to see the cast and was warmly greeted, but she had no regrets about leaving the show and her views on porn haven’t changed – she still finds it incompatible with her own moral compass.
Five years on, my mother and I are stuck in the same dynamic we have always been when it comes to talking about sex and porn.
We have still never really addressed the topic head-on, and I pretend to go to the toilet when there is a sex scene in a movie that we watch together.
Ultimately, conversations about sex with parents are uncomfortable in any culture, and they take time and patience, especially when they involve bridging generational and cultural divides.
Perhaps the next generation – and any future children I may have – will be better able to retain cultural traditions while exploring more liberal ideas.
Until then, I am proud of my mum for standing strong in her morality, and I am touched by her courageous efforts to step out of her cultural comfort zone.
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