Photo illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Westend61/Getty Images

Last Thursday, CNN reported that North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson allegedly worked for years as a commenter on a porn website’s message board. In those posts, minisoldr admitted to stalking women in dressing rooms, said he didn’t care if celebrities had abortions (though Robinson supports extreme abortion restrictions), referred to himself as a “black Nazi,” and repeatedly used the phrase “I don’t give a shit.” Robinson denied the story, calling the allegations “offensive tabloid lies” and said in a video he posted on Twitter that the comments were “not the words of Mark Robinson.”

The CNN article left me with many questions. First of all, why would someone seeking public office publicly say such vile and offensive things? What is Robinson’s obsession with amphibians? And perhaps most importantly, do porn sites have message boards? And people comment on them? As one user on X put it, “The fact that a porn site even has a comments section is disturbing enough. What makes someone want to have a conversation there?”

It is certainly true that most porn comments could simply be summed up as “hot”, period. “I like to give compliments,” says Jared, a 36-year-old who frequently comments on OnlyFans and describes himself as a “batter” (someone whose primary sexual activity is solo and/or mutual masturbation). “For example, if a guy has a really nice dick, I’ll compliment him on that. I think the veins on a dick are cool.”

And there’s always the chance that a comment will catch a creator’s attention, especially on newer subscription-based platforms like OnlyFans or JustforFans that encourage artists to interact with consumers. Jared says he often gets a response from his favorite creators after leaving an appreciative comment on their page (though it’s often just a simple “thank you”). Among the creators he follows, those who interact with commenters tend to have “so many more followers” than creators who don’t, he says.

Jared has also developed relationships with other commenters, telling me about a time when he commented on a video of two men and got a response from a guy in his area who also had the fetish. But Jared, who is bisexual, argues that the porn comment section serves a different function for gay or bi-curious men than it does for straight men. “There’s a brotherhood aspect to the straight porn comment sections, like, ‘Yeah man, you get that pussy, wish I could be like you,'” he says. “There are a lot of straight married men who are just living out a quick fantasy while jerking off and watching porn. In the gay sections, on the other hand, there’s a lot more interaction – it’s more like, ‘Hey man, we should meet up.’ You’re more approachable.”

The tone and tenor of comments on porn sites also vary widely depending on the type of site. While one of the key selling points for a platform like OnlyFans is the 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 who turn them on. Then there are old-fashioned message boards like Nude Africa, the one Robinson allegedly posted on, which advertised itself in Comic Sans MS as “an online community of people from around the world who 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 members-only forum deleted Robinson’s posts after the CNN story broke.)

Many comments seem to have nothing to do with sex at all. Adult content creator Renee Olstead says her OnlyFans subscribers often write about “aging parents, dealing with loss, dealing with one’s own mortality, dealing with surgery, and things about their sexuality that they haven’t expressed for fear of judgement.” She says the wide range of comments can be incredibly insightful, even in cases where they can be derogatory or offensive: “People often behave differently when they think no one can see them.”

The r/PornhubComments subreddit collects the site’s most amusing and engaging comments, ranging from self-deprecating confessions (“God, I hate myself. I’m so lonely”) to wry one-liners (“I want to see a part two where she teaches him to read”) to requests for pragmatic advice (“Does anyone have a recipe for beef jerky? It’s too expensive at the grocery store”). However, looking at Pornhub’s list of top commenters, in which the site catalogs its most engaged community members, most of those listed appear to be either creators or bots. (Pornhub did not respond to requests for comment.)

One man, a UK-based water system manager who goes by the moniker Sir Cock Connoisseur, told me he uses Pornhub as an artistic outlet. The Connoisseur started leaving comments on Pornhub in 2021, shortly after losing his job during the pandemic. “I had a passion for writing, but I wasn’t sure what form it would take. I could never find anything that fully captivated me,” he says. “Then I found this.”

Since then, he’s reviewed 185 videos on the site, including a clip called “Group Blowjob Racing” (which begins with the opener, “I’m telling you guys, it’s really rare that I come across a filthy slut who’s so entertaining I just forget to jerk off!”) and “Japanese Teen With Big Tits Sucking Cock” (which he rated 5/10 because the male performer is, in Sir Cock Connoisseur’s opinion, “woefully under-represented”). He estimates that he leaves a review about two or three times a week, and spends about 30-40 minutes on each one.

The Connoisseur receives no compensation from Pornhub or anyone else for his porn reviews, nor is he given any special support in his endeavor. “I have a tiny audience,” he says. “Creatively, I’m a bit of a killjoy… there’s very little constructive feedback.” Still, he takes his work very seriously, refusing to accept money from the few creators who have asked him to comment on their videos to boost their engagement. “I try to be objective,” he says. “And that changes when money changes hands.”

Only a few people in Sir Cock Connoisseur’s private life know about his side job (One of his two girlfriends of two years is one of them, and perhaps not surprisingly, “she probably finds it 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 are things that no one would ever share in real life. “There is something authentic about leaving comments on porn sites,” one of the creators told me. “Here, someone is confessing their erection to you, sometimes with their full name or face. At least it’s honest. I can’t help but respect it.”