NSFW. Porn, is it for women?
During this topic I mainly reference straight porn but that is because I am looking at the evolution of porn from the point of view (POV) of the man to the POV of the woman and where this has occurred. When i get to the discussion on porn written for women obviously this has many forms, straight, lesbian, group etc so please take this into account when i have just written ‘man’.
This is a topic that is fascinating. Typically video/film porn is made with men in mind and can be very formulaic. Beginning with teasing, moving on to fellatio then various positions of penetrative sex. Often the woman is young or looks young and the man is powerful, holding her head whilst in control of what his penis does in her mouth, or spanking her, moving her around into the positions he wants her in. There is also the thought that women are being coerced, trafficked, underage or abused into taking part into making these films. This lack of reassurance that the woman has chosen to participate can have a large impact on women’s enjoyment or participation in watching porn.
Even in lesbian porn there is often a formulaic presentation of starting at the top and working down, sometimes with penetrative toys and I wonder how many of these scenarios are directed by women or if male directors/ writers still predominate.
As porn has moved on, clitoral stimulation has entered the mix in professional films either orally or fingers or both. It is still very angled towards what the man wants to do to the woman and she expresses pleasure at his choices. Of course there are fetishes and niches that are accommodated with age ranges and scenarios aplenty to choose from but what do women choose?
Of course there are some women who want to be objectified and controlled during sex, that is their choice and their pleasure but I am not sure that regular porn films made by men accomplish this in the way that women would prefer, as they are still very much made from the point of view of the man.
In the past it has been well recognised that women have read erotic novels and more recently the phenomenon of the fifty shades series has cemented the idea that women like to read porn. The films that were made from these books were largely frequented by women, it was almost as if they had permission to enjoy the story as they had invested in the books and were now following up on the narrative in film, proving that the narrative didn’t have to be particularly well written but it was written from the point of view of a woman, at least partially.
Something that has seen a rise in recent years is audio porn which, as a genre, is clearly aimed at women. Initially the erotic novels were shaved down to just the erotic snippets from within the longer story. The next stage was writing just erotic shorts and this is where it became more interesting. At this stage instead of a typical Barbara Cartland story of the man swooping down to make the woman his with romance and sex, the story focussed instead on what women want in the bedroom/bathroom/office/park or anywhere else she might find erotic. These newer stories don’t focus on what the man does to the woman but rather on what the woman wants and what the man or other woman gives her, how she responds to this and how she directs the next action.
Some of the less well written fiction often swings chapter by chapter from her POV to his POV and back again but even in the chapters from his POV this is still from the angle that women choose to hear about. How he feels, his vulnerabilities, his indecision, worry when he thinks he has blown it with her etc, rather than the traditional portrayal of men in porn as the centre of the pleasure with it performed on them or him giving it to her by his generous choice. Although the narrative of the stories in these sites can often be very traditional in their power dynamics, the boss and the secretary, the woman married off to the man she didn’t choose, the surrogate, the alpha wolf etc.
The next interesting step is women who are good at writing are producing short stories. These are often written just from the POV of the protagonist, not the to and fro-ing of the less well written fiction, some is not fiction but stylising personal experiences and in these stories the power dynamic is completely reversed. Even in stories of group sex or where the woman is submissive it is very clear that she holds the power. She makes the choices and the action comes from her point of view. This is still true in lesbian writing, the protagonist holds the power. More often than not the narrative is one where the woman seduces the man whether he is more powerful than her or not or the protagonist woman seduces another woman. The situation may well be salacious, seducing the plumber, the doctor, the new office clerk but again it is the woman's choice, she is the protagonist with the power even if she chooses to give the impression she is submissive during the act itself.
The next step in the evolution of porn aimed at women was to then make these stories into audio erotica with the recognition that it is now acceptable and encouraged for women to provide their own pleasure and perhaps need their hands free when ‘reading’ erotica. Mostly they seem to be narrated by women, often the women who write them but sometimes others. They are read in a soothing quiet voice and I am not sure who made that decision but the fact that they are read by women supports the POV that they are written from. I wonder if women would find it more or less erotic if the words that are written as spoken by a man are read in a man’s voice?
I love that women have developed their own niche in porn, they have found a voice and are actively using it. Women with power are erotic protagonists for other women, however they choose to use this power. No longer are one size fits all porn films, where men have the power and provide or take the pleasure, the only view of sex. I watch with interest as to how this may have an effect in the film industry in general and men…feel free to join women in the use of audio porn, perhaps there are some talented male authors out there who can write a female erotic protagonist convincingly….although I am yet to be convinced of that.