My first porn was finding a bunch of Oui magazines at a construction site. It was quite the eye opener.
I remember late at night messing with the vertical and horizontal hold on the TV to try and catch a glimpse of something on the first cable pay channels. It's entirely possible I masturbated to an elbow, but it looked close enough to a boob to me.
Once I turned 18 I went to the one video store in town which was also the music store where my band practiced so I knew everyone. I worked up the nerve to go behind the curtain and rented Devil in Miss Jones and Behind the Green Door. I'll always remember that because I got to the counter and the owner quizzed me about being 18, so I told him I was the same age as his son. He just shook his head.
They don't make porn like that anymore, but thanks to the internet there's still plenty of it out there to be found. Yeah, it's pretty cheesy stuff, but older stuff had some good stories and so much bush...
I don't really watch much porn now as a sexual thing, I mostly just look for weird shit and laugh my ass off at it.
I would say that porn influenced my civilian sex life, but by the time I started hobbying there wasn't really anything I wanted to do that I hadn't already.
The actual sex with a provider versus a civilian isn't so different for me. The big difference is being on the clock versus having plenty of time to spread things out. As I get older time limits work against me and I miss the days of just snuggling on the couch and occasionally hitting pause on whatever we're watching to fuck again. On the other hand, there's a thrill in meeting a provider that would be out of my league in real life for the first time, saying hi, going straight to fucking, then leaving, maybe to never see that lady again. It's certainly a lot less work than most of my civilian experiences.