Why Cum Facials Aren’t Always Degrading
Face it: There are more reasons for a face full of cum than you think. Here’s what makes the money shot so loaded.
The Sticky History of Cum Facials
Humans have been horny since ancient civilization, but in the 20th century, we found ways to document our sex lives and jerk off to them later.
First, there were ‘stag films’. These clandestine pornos were screened primarily in frat houses and brothels, but they weren’t exactly artistic. In essence, they were boned-up collages of close-up fucking, strung together with no narrative.
From Silent Stag Films to Storytelling Money Shots
This changed in the 1970s when directors began structuring porn films like any other. Sex became storytelling, and the ‘money shot’, or warm, sticky load shot onto stars’ bodies, in plain sight, was the conclusion. Instances of cum shots crept up over the years, cementing the popularity of what's now known as the ‘facial’ (type the term into Lustery and you’ll find a plethora of facial porn videos).
Why Are Cum Facials So Popular?
Depending on who you ask, cum facials are either problematic or hot as fuck. Anti-porn activists see them as an act of male dominance. This neglects to acknowledge that plenty of us take pleasure in submission and the countless videos of guys contorting their bodies to spunk on their own faces. The kinkier, sex-positive crowd argues the upsides of facials as a type of kink. They give us a close-up of the action, represent acceptance of desire, and can also satisfy a craving to be humiliated or dominated by a partner.
The reasoning doesn’t always have to be complex. A friend tells me she loves facials, and when I ask for an explanation, she answers:
“I just love cum tbh.”
Cum Facials and Cleansing the Shame
In a comprehensive Jezebel article, Hugo Schwyzer recalls a humanities class in which a dude equates his love for facials to a scene from The Vagina Monologues, written by a woman who feels ‘cleansed’ by a guy who gazes lovingly at her pussy for hours. The student argues that guys feel shame too and that facials are popular precisely because they ‘cleanse’ men, and affirm that their loads aren’t filthy or disgusting.
Politically, this argument is a huge stretch—women’s bodies have been policed and stigmatised way more heavily for centuries—but it’s one echoed by the surprisingly sage commenters of Reddit’s /AskMen forum.
One guy offers an in-depth theory:
“When you’re 12 or 13 and discover the joys of masturbation, you realise this nasty, white sticky shit comes out at the end, and it’s like ‘holy shit, this stuff is gross, hide the evidence.”
And...
“Having a woman be like, ‘I think it’s hot when you do that, I want to taste it / touch it / have it in/on me’ is kind of a relief to a very deep-seated sense of shame/guilt for a lot of guys, and they tend to find it incredibly hot.”
But maybe the most important part of his post is the comment that he ends with:
“Personally, I’m just thinking, ‘shit, I got it in her eye, didn’t I? I hope she doesn’t wipe it on my pillow case again.”
Peek Behind Closed Doors — Watch Real Amateur Sex
Are Facials Really Degrading?
Navigating the Fine Line Between Kink and Disrespect
The moral of his comment is that we don’t really think too much about sex; we go with what feels right. If your partner wants you to shoot all over their orgasm face, go for it—as long as you don’t get it in their eyes (ocular gonorrhoea is real). There’s nothing inherently wrong or shameful about wanting a hot load to trickle down your cheeks.
How Porn Popularized the Facial Finish
Arguably, though, the same can’t be said about porn—it’s been shown to shape our desires and stand in as sex education. So it’s worth asking whether adult content creators have some kind of ethical responsibility.
The Stats: Who Loves a Cum Facial?
In a 2017 study of 740 straight respondents, researchers found:
- 42% of men love facials
- 12.7% of women feel the same
- 0.9% of men specifically love to cum in their partners’ eyes (seriously, fuck those guys)
Note: This depends on context, though: if it’s a weird power trip move, then you might not have the most courteous lover. But if you’re a sub gagging to have your eyelashes clogged up, then go forth and take that load.
They also found that the more people watched porn, the more often they finished IRL fucking with a facial.
Reframing the Money Shot
This nuance is missing in most conversations about facials. Sites like Beautiful Agony literally remove fucking from the picture by hosting neck-up videos of stars twisting their faces into expressions of intense desire as they cum. These clips are horny as fuck, and solid proof that faces can be the main attraction in porn.
There’s also room for conversations around their popularity in gay porn, where facials usually factor into hazing scenes of ‘straight’ guys being fucked by frat bros as ‘initiation’. Elements of degradation and humiliation come into play here too, as do conversations about the immortal ‘straight guy turned’ trope in gay porn. But plenty of other videos feature dudes who simply love to close their eyes and take a load—or several.
From AIDS to COVID: Facials as a Safer Option
Then, there’s the practicality element. Facials swelled in popularity around the time of the AIDS crisis, when they became a comparatively ‘safe’ way to cum with your partner. Decades later, we have research and meds that eradicate the risk of HIV transmission. But back then, caution led to facials replacing cream-pies and cumming inside. Now, we have a new pandemic on our hands—and with evidence suggesting that coronavirus can’t be transmitted through semen, the ‘new normal’ of porn could feature even more facials. I mean to be honest, even real-life couples making porn on Lustery love their fair share of facials.
Consent, Kinks, and Closing Your Eyes
Essentially, there’s enough material to write an entire book on facials—and porn studies scholars are doing an excellent job of documenting trends in fascinating books and journals. Sex can be political, but sometimes it’s best to strip your own sex life of Freudian bullshit and focus on doing what you like, when you like—as long as it’s consensual, of course.
Oh, and remember that the key to a good facial is to close your eyes (unless you’re unlucky enough to sleep with the 0.9% of guys with an apparent kink for pink eye), tilt your head back, and keep a towel on standby.
In the immortal words of Lil’ Kim: “I’m a freak so I don’t care, just don’t get none in my hair.”
