The online world as we know it today is filled with pornographic material – And all of it is just a few clicks away on your computer screen. I myself don’t mind a weekly dose of porn and I even subscribe to Kink.com.
Everyone has an opinion when it comes to porn, but a general one is that porn is, in most cases, made with a male audience in mind. It is a consensus that I have agreed to myself, but I am actually starting to doubt it.
I’ve read a really interesting column on this subject today; Sex columnist: Porn fest just not for men.
The author, Jeanetta Bradley, points out a couple of interesting things. One is that in most porn movies women are gorgeous and men don’t look that good, with a reference to the old porn dog Ron Jeremy.
But is this a totally fair assumption?
Look at it from another perspective – Internet is filled with all sorts of diverse kinks and the perception of beauty is, as always, in the eye of the beholder. There is a lot of porn out there that differs from the normative concept of beauty. Porn with large women, amateurs, housewives, home made, grannies and trannies.
In other words, Internet has made the porn industry become more diversified and in some cases it has made the porn industry divert from the normative concept of beauty, which is all good in the end.
Jeanetta also mentions Kara’s Porn for Women as place where you can find porn made for women as a target audience. A site where you can find chiseled hunks in different poses.
But isn’t that just turning the tables?
Instead of having gorgeous women we have gorgeous men and voila – Female porn.
There might be a few reasons for this interpretation of what female porn actually is. One is that the porn industry itself might be affected by an ongoing gender discussion which leads to gender differentiated material based on rather simplistic interpretations regarding gender based markets.
Another reason is that porn represents an ideal as it is based on the fantasies of both men and women. This ideal is usually pushed into an extreme so it can be represented in accordance with the type of media that it’s portrayed within. Movies have a limited running time and the expectations of either gender, when watching a porn movie, are instant gratification and visually oriented material. Books on the other hand are usually oriented towards feeding other parts of your brain, which makes them suitable for a rich description of emotions and internal processing within the portrayed character.
A rich emotional description of internal thoughts and feelings is usually not possible communicate in a porn movie and the audience, independent of being male or female, is usually not expecting this either.
I usually refrain from saying that women are less turned on by porn movies as I am fairly sure that there are women that get off from watching a simple porn movie where the plumber knocks on the door and a gorgeous and busty female in a thin night gown opens the door and grabs him by his cock with the famous line “There you are, I am so horny – Let’s get down to business.”
I also try to avoid saying that women are more turned on by books compared to movies because of the emotional descriptions as I believe that being turned on by something is quite contextual – If you want instant gratification working with your visual cortex, then you watch porn as it is quickly digested. If you want a complex web of emotions and the possibility to build the image in your head and insert yourself into the setting, then you read an erotic story.
In the end it all comes down to one critical question; Is it really feasible to differentiate porn into female and male porn or is it just a fashionable statement based on gender discussions?
There is no simple answer to that question, but I would like to offer an alternative foundation when it comes to categorisation of porn.
Why not talk about reality porn and porn based on fantasies?
Amateur porn, porn with big women, grannies etc is what I would define to be more in the reality domain of porn. It depicts real body shapes and how people actually l0ok and it is not based on the normative ideal. It has of course an element of fantasy built into it, but the main emphasis is geared towards to how people actually look.
Fantasy porn represents the normative ideal descriptions of the characters which have all perfect bodies, the largest pair of tits you’ve ever seen and of course – Well hung and a six pack if you are a male character.
When it comes to BDSM porn it is the same thing, both categories exist. It is still a boiled down brew based on the fantasies of it that people usually have.
On the other hand good, BDSM porn in movie formats is usually geared towards showing the brain fucking that goes on within BDSM – If we are looking at reality porn based on BDSM.
When it comes to reality and BDSM then it is a different matter as I perceive the BDSM community to be a crowd with a warm welcome to people of all kinds, body shapes and looks. But that is a different story and has nothing to do with porn.
I’m not a porn person myself, but am totally in support of people who enjoy it. I think you’ve got it right, though, that making sites like “for the girls” (I’m an affiliate because I write for them) is sort of just “turning the tables.” At least there, though, the option of seeing “amateurs” is available. Still, the idea that viewers only want to see “perfect” (in a gross definition) is false.
Lately I’ve realized that what makes me angry about porn (and I’ve been angry lately) isn’t just how less-than I feel when I watch it (that’s mostly my own issue, not the porn’s issue) but that there are so many assumptions about what men and women want. That is, there’s this massive variety available and most porn looks the same (that is, the “popular” (well-funded) stuff). It’s a classic case of the market appealing to the lowest common denominator instead of trusting the consumer might have the capacity to enjoy a wider range of images and ideas.
Well said! Marketing is sometimes the thing that keeps the gender stereotypes alive. Added to that is the concept of morals and other societal factors that are affecting the perception regarding what turns us on. These stereotypes seem to not be as hard coded into a sex positive environment. Women can get turned on by hardcore porn and men can get turned on by reading books. I think many people into BDSM have accepted this as they are going beyond what the porn industry has to offer them.