by Coleen Singer at Sssh.com Porn For Women
Ever since the for-better-or-worse explosion of “Fifty Shades Of Grey”, there has also been an explosion in mainstream media examining and theorizing “What Women Want” in their porn.
These range from funny lists of websites that the authors think women would like (many of which many women probably wouldn’t like), to the odd new wave of articles that “porn for women” is hot, fully clothed men vacuuming and doing dishes.
Having been a senior editor at porn for women website sssh.com since 1999, I get to see a LOT of the polls that our members take for what they would like us to create for our new movies. Here’s a little take-away…
COMMON WISDOM: Women want porn that has story lines, romance, exotic locations, soft focus, sea pirates and millionaires that sweep the doe-eyed gals off their feet and take them away on sailing ships or helicopters to secret islands or penthouses.
REALITY: Women’s kinky and sexual tastes for porn are as unique and varied as snowflakes. Sure, some women like a Harlequin novel coming to life, but others like hardcore, down and dirty sex. And everything in between!
So how did this Porn For Women confusion all come about? Harlequin!
According to their website:
Harlequin is one of the world’s leading publishers of books for women. The Toronto-based company publishes more than 110 titles a month in 34 languages in 110 international markets on six continents. These books are written by over 1,300 talented authors worldwide, offering women a broad range of reading from bestseller fi ction to romance, from young adult novels to nonfiction, from African-American novels to inspirational romance, and more. With half of its books sold overseas and a tremendous 95% outside Canada it is both the country’s most successful publisher and one of its most international businesses.
110 titles a month in 34 languages with an army of 1,300 romance genre writes? Now THAT’s market reach! My theory is that in the absence of any other successful business model for “what women want”, the Harlequin template of “hot romance novels” became the box that “porn for women” was put into in the minds of mainstream media columnists. Plus, Harlequin is a Canadian publisher, so everything tends to be very polite!
Read on…
Buzzfeed also piped in on the topic with this funny video that reinforces many stereotypes about women watching porn…
BACK TO THE GOOGLE
It probably doesn’t help matters that Google returns first page results for “porn for women” pointing at The Mirror (who insists all women search for is lesbian sex movies) and other pretty un-porny or inaccurate sites. Intermingled are a few really good (albeit PG-rated) ones such as Women24’s “Porn for women: 7 sites to get your rocks off to”. That article provides a wide range of site suggestions ranging from the mild Beautiful Agony to the wild Kink.com. Also of note is a good one by YourTango. However, the only real site on the topic on Google’s first page results is MsNaughty’s smart and sensual movie library, BrightDesire . Now THAT’s porn for women!
Things are actually getting better in the Google search results lately, but just plain silly books like this on the google first page boldly states “Prepare to enter a fantasy world. A world where clothes get folded just so, delicious dinners await, and flatulence is just not that funny. Give the fairer sex what they really want: Beautiful PG photos of hunky men cooking, listening, asking for directions, accompanied by steamy captions: “I love a clean house!” or “As long as I have two legs to walk on, you’ll never take out the trash.” Now this is porn that will leave women begging for more!
I assume that this book is actually satire, but until it gets off the first page of search results, women will just need to keep digging a little deeper to scratch that itch!
Erotic Cinema For Discerning Adults
Anonymous Adult Search
Having an academic background in the social sciences, I always knew that what women want is much different than conventional wisdom would lead us to believe. Survey research, conducted as scientifically as possible, reveals a much different picture, one in which women are turned on by group sex, stranger sex, and other things that no one believes they are. I’m glad this article points out that women really do have a wide array of sexual desires and fantasies.