Porn and the Belief that "Women Aren't Visual"

As an adult webmaster, I often come across the perception that women don't like porn, don't use it, won't buy it, and aren't turned on by it. In a discussion about women and porn, I encountered the following assumptions:

"Women are on the net in equal numbers but they don't buy like the men. They are tight with the purse strings in my experience."

"I prefer shopping over sex… I know lots of men that enjoy porn, but I don't know of one woman that enjoys it."

"...as far as women actually purchasing porn, i doubt it's even 1% of total number on the net... Men are really visual, as we all know, but women are more driven by imagination"

"Woman will spend their money on their children before anything else. Woman without children, like me, we spend money on their home, clothes, and shoes before anything else. Couple this with the fact that woman usually make less money then men and the fact that woman are less visual then men there just is not that big of a market for selling then memberships to look at nekkid men."

What these comments reveal is the breadth of misunderstanding, stereotyping and what could almost be called prejudice facing those who want to offer porn for women. I find it simply amazing that people are prepared to make such huge assumptions about women without really thinking about what they're saying.

The "women aren't visual" is the thing that really gets me. This is the standard response to the idea of making porn for women. No-one actually takes the time to think about WHERE that information came from. Or whether it's actually true.

This idea comes from Kinsey, in 1953. He asked his female subjects if they were aroused by porn. Most of them said they weren't. Never mind that most of them were 1953 housewives who'd probably never even seen porn, or that the porn available at the time was all made for men. That 50 year old Kinsey research is considered to be gospel. It's part of the cultural consciousness, accepted wisdom.

Today, we have new research which proves Kinsey wrong. We've previously discussed that Northwestern University research which showed women were turned on by ALL kinds of porn, both gay, lesbian and straight. They couldn't help it. They watched a porn video, they got turned on.

Another study at Stanford University in California showed that women can actually become aroused much faster than a man when shown an erotic video. It only took an average of 2 minutes for the female subjects to be turned on... significantly quicker than their male counterparts.

I'll bet that you get ANY woman, and you take away all her conditioning that porn is bad, unChristian, whatever, and you sit her by herself in a room and show her movies of people fucking, SHE WILL GET TURNED ON. Even if her mind is against it, her body will respond, even just a little bit. 

The problem with creating porn for women is not necessarily that females have a biological inability to enjoy porn, it's more that they are conditioned to think they won't like it. The anti-porn feminists have been telling them so for years. Their parents brought them up to be "good girls", and didn't expect to find dirty mags under their mattress, so there weren't. Their friends didn't quietly share dirty pictures, so they grew up thinking they were alone, and kind of weird. Men grow up accepting porn, women don't. That's a big obstacle.

Add to that the fact that the vast majority of porn content is made to cater to men's fantasies and not women's, and trying to offer porn to women becomes a little more difficult.

Three years ago at the Women's Erotica Network I came up with a term to describe female porn surfers. "Women are MORE than visual". It's true. Females do have the capacity to enjoy smut as is, but we also have imaginations, we DO enjoy fantasy and erotic fiction, we like to see context, and relationships, and hell yes, we probably like to shop at the same time...

Porn for women has to take all these things into account. It needs to offer erotic material that caters to female fantasy, but is also intelligent and emotional. The porn sites listed on this page all offer this kind of sexual content to female surfers.

The more that porn starts to take the female visual capacity into account, the more it will change for the better. It will move away from the disrespectful anti-woman traditions that are common and start to show a more positive viewpoint. The sooner the better.


- Grandma Scrotum, 23rd January 2004

What Porn Is Available for Women?

For The Girls - a women's magazine with porn added. Lots of naked men and couples photos and movies, but also articles, stories and columns written in house. All the content is chosen because it will appeal to women, and the writing has a strong pro-sex, pro-woman slant. Plenty of humor as well.

Pure Cunnilingus - this site offers photos and movies of men giving cunnilingus to women. Also has fiction, sex tips, and access to a number of other women's sites.

Sssh.com - thoroughly touchy-feely, this site offers a gentle, sensual introduction into the world of porn for women. Lots of articles and advice, and tastefully shot photographs.

Playgirl has finally decided to go online and their site Playgirl TV is chock-a-block with naked men, as you'll see from their tour. They also feature streaming videos from their line of couples-friendly porn films and there's a bunch of extras too.

Masturbating Men - 1000s of photos of guys getting naked and jerking off, made just for women. Access to heaps of other sites too!

Female Fantasies - this site offers pictorial representations of common female fantasies, as well as erotic fiction and articles.

Couples Pleasure Dome - if you love porn movies but you're sick of wading through all the crap... this site is for you. It features downloadable scenes from high quality films, all chosen because they are aimed at women and couples.

Full premium porn for women list

Porn for Women Home

© Porn for Women Biz 2006