Vox Pops On What Women Want From Porn

Just yesterday I was saying there hadn’t been many mentions of porn for women in the press. Almost immediately afterward, two articles popped up.

Metro.co.uk has a piece by Ellen Scott featuring quotes from different women about what kind of porn they like and where they get it. The headline is somewhat misleading (“Why are so many women choosing lesbian and gay porn over heterosexual porn?”) because most of the women interviewed actually do like straight porn.

How would you improve heterosexual porn? 

‘Less of the loud faking. I know guys must think that’s great or whatever but f*ck it’s annoying.

‘They sound like cows giving birth and IT’S OUT OF TIME. It’s so clearly fake as well.

‘Also, make the female friendly section less about the lesbians y’know – straight women might want to watch straight porn as well that isn’t anal fisting etc.

‘It wouldn’t kill them to get some good looking male porn stars either – rather than using them as props. Less shitty acting and more focus on personal connection between porn stars.’

I found their thoughts interesting but also rather depressing, mainly because almost every woman said she used Pornhub as a first choice site. Which means that they’re only seeing very mainstream-y stuff (and all the sexist ads) and it provides an answer as to why women would opt for same sex porn – at least there’s some respect for women/people in those genres. Mainstream attempts at “porn for women” tend to feature exactly the same sex acts and filming styles as men’s porn.

As always, I can only implore women who are looking for better porn to please pay for it. It’s the only way you’ll get what you want – and it means we can keep making the good stuff.

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Also, I really want to take “Amy” aside and tell her about the rape allegations against James Deen.

Glamour has also published a piece with vox pops from women discussing what porn they enjoy and why.

“1. There would be more fun and clowning. 2. There would be more banter and flirting among the people in the video. 3. Videos would show people’s personalities and show chemistry between people being videotaped. 4. There would be more sex in public. 5. The people in the video would flow in and out of sex and hang out or do different things in between.” —Claudia, 25

“Two main things: 1. the woman’s pleasure would seem both authentic and prioritized, and 2. Lots of foreplay!” —Anonymous, 23

“Dadbod. Men who don’t look like Channing Tatum or a Chippendales reject. Men with perfect bodies don’t do it for me. But men who look like Seth Rogen do.” —Anonymous, 33

The Glamour piece was inspired by this Reddit thread in which a woman daydreams about starting her perfect porn site. Right now the thread has over 1000 comments with a lot of women chiming in with suggestions about what they do and don’t like. A sample:

• No clit slapping
• Good looking male performers
• No long nails on female performers
• No jackhammers, fake moans, fake orgasms
• Less make up on female performers
• Actual engagement between the performers.
• Less cliched dialogue from uninterested performers e.g. “Yeah, you like that?”
• More build up of sexual tension
• More cunnilingus
• Male performers making noise, not staying silent or only grunting occasionally
• Less emphasis on penetration
• Women in control, though not necessarily fem-dom
• Less porny language, more respectful language
• Better communication between performers
• Less gagging and crying
• Female POV
• Less ejaculation into the eye

There’s more but that will do for now. And – what a shock – these are the rules I’ve been following with my porn for years. Posts: The Good Porn Manifesto (2006) and The 30 Most Annoying Things About Porn (also 2006).

Thankfully, Bright Desire does get a mention in the top comments, though it could use a few upvotes (anyone? Bueller?). Also, because the thread started wanted to call the site The Female Gaze, there’s a link to the site I made in 2009. Needs updating.

Of course, there are plenty of hurdles to starting a porn site for women right now. One is that a whole generation of people don’t want to pay for it and the market is saturated with free porn. Another is that there are significant financial hurdles to getting billing. Then there’s startup money needed to shoot content and set up the site – and Cindy Gallop has based her entire marketing campaign for Make Love Not Porn on how no-one will give her money because it’s porn.

On other thing: the Redditor’s daydream includes paying performers commissions for each time their video is viewed. It lovely idea… but a difficult thing to achieve in reality. I wrote about that here.

In any case, it’s nice to have porn for women back in the news.

Image credit: Dave Anderson/metro.co.uk