Tyra Banks’ Show On Porn For Women

Violet Blue has posted her roundup of her experiences appearing on the Tyra Banks Show to talk about porn for women here.

We don’t get the show here and I’d only vaguely heard of Tyra Banks but it sounds like the kind of show I’d run a mile from anyway. Like Jerry Springer hosted by a scary model. And her website is a shocker.

From Violet’s description, they didn’t treat her very well and possibly didn’t really know who they were dealing with. The show also featured Candida Royalle and Nina Hartley, along with an audience debate between women who liked porn and those who didn’t.

Violet Blue has a very specific idea about the future of women’s porn and has long campaigned against the idea that it’s all romantic guff. She feels that the show has “set women and porn back ten years.”

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An excerpt:

I watched as the show evolved into a giant ad for Candida Royalle’s films — which is great, except the underlying message was, in repetition, that women who watch porn want romance. And romantic porn. That porn made for men is icky and dumb, and women don’t like that. (…so, if we do, then we should be ashamed?) No mention was made about any other kind of porn, or that the women watching porn (and getting off to it) are watching *all kinds* of porn, showing how empowered we women are to now really finally be asking for what we want (to see, and do) sexually. To Royalle’s disservice (though she came off terrific), only Candice’s older, more romantic, nay, softer films were showcased.

While I support Violet’s desire to see a more varied presentation of porn for women, I’m a little surprised that she expected anything else. If these people were freaked out about the tattoo on the back of her neck, they were definitely not going to be interested in discussing any kind of “freaky” new wave porn for women.

Fact is that the mainstream media are still having a hard time getting their heads around the fact that women like porn at all. When they do approach the subject, Candida Royalle’s style of films is what they talk about. That’s because she’s the industry pioneer, has made the most films and her stuff is nice, non-shocking and TV-friendly.

The other fact is that she’s SOLD the most films and a lot of women DO like romance with their porn. Especially the kind of vanilla housewifey women that might be watching daytime television. Yes, it was successful ten years ago but it’s still successful now because plenty of women like that brand of adult entertainment. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Oh, and an awful lot of the porn made for men IS icky and dumb. Really. If some women like icky and dumb porn, well… it’s hard for me to understand why, but good luck to them, I guess.

OK, that’s a bit tetchy-sounding, but it bugs me that often the argument against the perceived idea of romance-based porn equalling women’s porn tends to get a little “kinkier than thou” in the process. In trying to make a point about the breadth of women’s tastes, there’s a kind of disparagement toward softy, Candida-type porn as not being hard or cool enough. As though the women who like romance-based erotica don’t really know what they like. Or they’re ten years out of fashion.

A couple of years ago we were contacted by ABC television for permission to feature For The Girls on the TV show Mondo Thingo (transcript here). We were over the moon about it and happily signed a contract saying they could use the image of our website during the show.

Well, the majority of the show focused on movies and Candida got the spotlight. The influence of the internet was ignored and our moment of fame was actually 2 seconds worth of close-up footage of the tour. You couldn’t even see the name of the site.

That’s just what happens. In the end we had to be happy that they’d even talked about porn for women at all. And I think that’s what has to happen with this Tyra show, as depressing as it sounds. Given that the vast majority of discussions about porn revolve around “addiction” or “think of the children”, at least this show acknowledged that women do like porn and that there’s a movement to recognise that and cater to them.

And it may well be that a lot of the women who watch the Tyra show will go away thinking that it’s OK to enjoy porn. They’ll check out Candida’s movies, sure, but if they don’t like that, they’ll go looking for something else. And that will lead them to Tristan’s films, or Petra Joy’s movies, or (hopefully) my websites. So it can’t be all bad.