{"id":742,"date":"2008-05-13T17:14:43","date_gmt":"2008-05-13T07:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.msnaughty.com\/blog\/?p=742"},"modified":"2008-05-13T17:14:43","modified_gmt":"2008-05-13T07:14:43","slug":"porn-for-women-the-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/msnaughty.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/13\/porn-for-women-the-backlash\/","title":{"rendered":"Porn For Women – The Backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Femme<\/a>Something has been bugging me for a long time now, so I’m going to have a little rant about it.<\/p>\n

It seems that there are a lot of people out there who don’t like the term “porn for women.” I realise this – and I’ve discussed the ins and outs of it plenty of times on the blog. But I’m just gonna have to talk about it again.<\/p>\n

The thing is that it seems any new female-focused erotica or porn now has to be prefaced with all sorts of disclaimers, disavowing that it’s this thing called “porn for women” in case someone assumes it’s soft focus romance porn similar to Candida Royalle’s work (and not that there’s anything wrong with that, I might add.)<\/p>\n

The determined quotes on the back of the Dirty Girls erotica anthology<\/a> being a case in point.<\/p>\n

Another example: Whenever the sex blog Fleshbot<\/a> posts about a female-friendly film such as Petra Joy’s Female Fantasies<\/em>, or Erika Lust’s Five Hot Stories For Her<\/em>, they have to always – ALWAYS – make some little comment at the start about how they don’t even know what “porn for women” is and how it’s such a silly concept. Thus:<\/p>\n

\nWe can’t help but roll our eyes a little when someone starts going on and on about “porn for women”\u2014like men can’t appreciate well-shot productions featuring sexy models who look (and fuck) like real people and not porn star caricatures? Snark aside, UK director Petra Joy’s second film “Female Fantasies” looks so good we could eat it… Link<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sure, Fleshbot, I can see your point, but what’s with the bias? Especially when you have an entire category<\/a> labelled “porn for women.” What’s wrong with identifying a particular audience for your porn movie?<\/p>\n

Another example: a review of Anna Span’s latest film<\/a> at Strictly Broadband spends several paragraphs reassuring readers that even though it was made by a woman and aimed at a female audience, they could rest assured that it had none of that nasty romance stuff and was just as hardcore as the next movie on the shelf.<\/p>\n

I keep seeing this a lot lately.<\/p>\n

And then there’s this post at Boinkology<\/a>, discussing another blog’s lame joke idea<\/a> that “porn for women” involves missionary position sex and choosing baby names afterwards.<\/p>\n

A commenter says: “Smart thing would be to stop addressing the question as Porn For Women or Porn for Ladies or what women want from porn altogether.”<\/p>\n

OK… so it would seem that an awful lot of people have decided that the term “porn for women” means softcore or boring porn. And then a whole bunch of other people have got their backs up because they feel the term “porn for women” isn’t valid because it somehow makes sweeping statements about “what women want.” Add to that all those people who feel that vanilla sex or romance in porn is either boring or not worthy of consideration.<\/p>\n

And here I am, the antichrist, with my porn for women blog and various sites. And I run For The Girls which may very well be everything these people hate. Even though it’s such a huge and diverse site, a lot of people make assumptions about what it stands for.<\/p>\n

It’s all getting a bit much.<\/p>\n

Now I think it’s time I put this backlash against “porn for women” into perspective.<\/p>\n

Cast your mind back ten years to 1998. Porn on the internet was starting to become a fairly major business. Paysites were popping up everywhere and the internet wasn’t flooded with cheap free porn like today. Photos were pretty much all you could get.<\/p>\n

In 1998 I wrote an article for Australian Women’s Forum<\/em> about what porn there was on the internet for women like myself. I wanted to find ANYTHING that spoke to me as a female. It took me a long time to find anything much. And remember, I’m a librarian so I wasn’t just stumbling around hoping to get lucky. I did eventually find two sites that were specifically aimed at women, one of them being Purve, the first women’s erotica paysite (now defunct).<\/p>\n

So, in 1998, “porn for women” was pretty much a non-existent thing. A couple of websites and Candida Royalle’s film catalogue.<\/p>\n

In 2000 when I became an adult webmaster, I focused on porn for women because it was something I was passionate about and I knew there were other women like me who were looking for something different – something that spoke<\/em> to women as a viewer.<\/p>\n

In those early days there was a small group of female webmasters who got together and discussed women’s erotica – what it should be, what we liked and who we were marketing to. Most of us liked similar stuff – naked guys, hardcore couples pics without the sexism, and erotic fiction. None of us thought much of facial cumshots.<\/p>\n

We each made our own sites but we were also on something of an evangelical mission. The vast majority of the adult industry dismissed the idea that women would seek out and pay for porn (it still does). We constantly made an effort to get our message out to other webmasters that what we were doing was worthwhile. We told them that they should stop assuming that every porn surfer was male.<\/p>\n

I even wrote an article for AVN about it.<\/p>\n

It took a long time, but a lot of industry people listened. That’s why, folks, you’ll find “for women” categories at every major linklist and TGP out there. That’s why some major companies created paysites for women (although I must admit they were pretty crappy, hence I made my own). And that’s why there is now a distinct “niche” within porn known as “porn for women.” Type the phrase into Google and you’ll get thousands upon thousands of sites.<\/p>\n

Fact is, I was one of the people who helped shape the idea of “porn for women.” <\/p>\n

The idea is – and always was – to create a separate space in the pornosphere that said “Yes, girls, we know you’re here. Come on in and enjoy yourself.”<\/p>\n

So, now it’s 2008 and there’s a desire to question the whole concept of “porn for women.” I understand this and I think it’s a debate worth having. I agree that you cannot pick one particular form of sexual content and say “that’s what women want.” And yes, the word “women” is vast and nebulous and includes lesbians and straight chicks and bi girls and everything.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless I still believe that the term is valid and useful and will remain so while ever mainstream porn remains so overwhelmingly aimed at men. <\/p>\n

Consider, if you will, the way it is still difficult for a straight female porn consumer to find what she wants and the way she is largely ignored by the porn industry:<\/p>\n

* A woman types in “porn” and she ends up an adult site where every photo is of a naked woman and all the language assumes the reader is male.
\n* A woman types in “naked men” and every site is aimed at – and speaks to – gay men
\n* The vast majority of straight DVD boxcovers feature a naked woman
\n* The vast majority of porn movies don’t feature a female orgasm
\n* The vast majority of porn sites and movies focus on male fantasy
\n* The vast majority of porn sites and movies give priority to male sexual pleasure and satisfaction.
\n* The vast majority of straight porn films and photographs make an effort to cut the man out of the frame.
\n* Porn still perpetuates sexism, gender and racial stereotypes and it portrays women who like sex as sluts, bitches or whores who don’t deserve respect.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Until ALL those things are gone, women who like porn will be on the outer. And they will go looking for something different. Using the term “porn for women” is a great way to raise a flag, to get their attention, to say “Hey! Here’s something that’s different!”<\/p>\n

Yes, things are changing. Indie porn producers are abandoning the old cliches and stereotypes and there is a genuine effort to create adult material that appeals to both men and women.<\/p>\n

But even when the heady day comes that all porn is equal and has left behind the baggage… I still think the term “porn for women” will be useful. Because how else can you describe a movie that is aimed specifically at women? One that features female fantasies and focuses only on a woman’s pleasure? One that doesn’t give a damn if it turns on the male audience or not?<\/p>\n

I’d say that was porn for women.<\/p>\n

Giving credit where credit is due: Pic is of Candida Royalle’s Femme<\/a> – her first film and the very beginning of what is now called porn for women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Something has been bugging me for a long time now, so I’m going to have a little rant about it. It seems that there are a lot of people out there who don’t like the term “porn for women.” I realise this – and I’ve discussed the ins and outs of it plenty of times on the blog. But I’m just gonna have to talk about it again. The thing Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,19],"tags":[279,912,461,915,621,919],"class_list":["post-742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-porn","category-ramblings","tag-erotica","tag-feminism","tag-language","tag-porn","tag-porn-for-women","tag-sexuality"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/msnaughty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/msnaughty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/msnaughty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/msnaughty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/msnaughty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/msnaughty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/msnaughty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/msnaughty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/msnaughty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}