I recently decided that I need to come to terms with the fact
that I really do enjoy porn. I’ve battled with the idea that
it’s ridiculously sexist, that it’s geared toward a
male audience, that it’s addictive, and that it has to, in
some way, affect the psyches of those who watch it. For a short
while I was almost ready to jump on the abolish-all-porn bandwagon.
But then I realized that “The L-Word” might lose some
of its hotness and “The L-Word” is, well, hot.
With my new revelation giving me a strange sense of power
““ something like “Now I will penetrate this mystic
world of porn with my ruby-studded feminist spear” ““ I
decided to go in search of porn that I genuinely enjoy. This proved
to be a little more difficult. Penetrating the porn world with my
ruby-studded feminist spear soon lost some of its novelty.
I know I enjoy certain images, specifically lesbian porn and
more soft-core heterosexual stuff, but finding porn that I felt was
worth going out of my way to watch proved difficult, if not
impossible. Part of the problem is that I don’t know exactly
what I want, but I don’t really feel like I should have
to.
The porn industry is, after all, a $10 billion industry. There
should be some faction of the porn industry, however small, that
not only doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable or victimized,
but turns me on and does so in a way that gives me a good reason to
watch it.
Someone should have already figured out what women like about
porn and catered to those tastes. Who knows, maybe the result would
be like “The L-Word.”
Porn isn’t hard to come by. As long as you have a working
computer and an Internet connection, there’s plenty at your
fingertips. And it’s free. Unfortunately, none of the free
stuff comes close to my fantasy porn. For the most part, free
Internet porn just makes me feel nervous. I feel like I have to
constantly check over my shoulder to make sure nobody is
watching.
Fortunately, porn that’s a little closer to what I’m
looking for does exist. It’s porn that claims to be geared
toward couples, and specifically women. Babeland, one of my
favorite sex-toy shops, recommended movies by Candida Royalle on
their Web site.
Unfortunately, this is now getting into porn that is no longer
of the free variety. However, I decided for the purpose of research
and good times that it was worth trying. Once. If the experience
were a positive one maybe I would try buying porn again.
So I bought porn. I streamed it on my computer. I bought not the
specific movie that Babeland recommended, but the easiest of
Candida Royalle’s movies to find online ““
“Christine’s Secret.” It was about a woman that
goes to a friend’s vacation house in the country in hopes of
finding sexual fulfillment.
It didn’t take me too long to decide that there was no
danger of me spending vast amounts of money on porn.
Royalle’s way of making woman-friendly porn was to not
include close-up shots of genitals or money shots ““ and in
every sex scene, after the couple finished, they would lie there
and have a conversation. The entire thing was just ridiculously
corny.
I feel like this is almost as sexist as “normal”
porn, just in a different fashion; it’s still promoting the
same gender stereotypes. Maybe most women do want to have a
conversation after sex, but I feel like if the woman came ““
which, if it was successful sex, she should have ““
she’d want to roll over and go to sleep just as much as the
man.
To give Royalle the credit she deserves, the movie did succeed
in turning me on. It was just combined with occasional bursts of
laughter. All in all, it was an enjoyable experience. But not worth
paying to repeat.
Babeland had a few other recommendations, but by then I
didn’t trust them and was ready to think that my ideal porn
didn’t exist.
I’m not the only woman on the planet that enjoys porn.
That’s relatively obvious from the number of female friends I
have that watch porn. But I feel like more women would watch and be
receptive to porn if it really did cater to them, and not in a
corny fashion.
I’m sure all women have different tastes in terms of what
they like, but I think the porn industry could benefit from some
serious research into what would make some genuinely good couple-
or female-oriented porn.
People mistakenly assume that only men are really into porn, but
I think women are an untapped source of porn consumption.
To top if off, the morning after my porn-purchasing adventure,
my parents told me that Wells Fargo had contacted them to say that
suspicious charges had been made to my credit card.
I’ve decided to stick with Showtime and HBO. For now.
If you have any (free) porn recommendations for Loewenstein,
e-mail her at lloewenstein@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.