Can porn be feminist? These female directors say ‘yes’
Increased viewership spurs new projects with a woman’s gaze
There’s a new F-word in the porn industry: feminist.
Last year, women accounted for 26% of all traffic worldwide for pornography site Pornhub. As viewership has increased, so has the desire for adult entertainment that emphasizes female pleasure and mutual respect in the bedroom.
Spearheading this movement is erotic filmmaker Erika Lust, who is featured in Rashida Jones’ Netflix docuseries Hot Girls
Wanted: Turned On (now streaming), which explores the relationship between sex and technology.
Porn made with feminist values “is about showing an authentic representation of human sexuality,” Lust says. “Mainstream porn is full of repetitive codes and tiring power tropes that are all about (female) genitalia and body parts, yet nothing about the woman. For the men who dominate the industry, pleasuring women normally entails rose petals and silk sheets. Oh, no — women like sex just as dirty, kinky and exciting as men do.”
With her X -Confessions project, which she started in 2013, Lust creates short films based on erotic fantasies submitted anonymously by fans and followers on her site, featuring both heterosexual and lesbian partners.
Key characteristics of feminist porn include clear verbal consent, sex positivity and inclusive casting of women that encompasses different ages, body types, races and ethnicities. Australian pornographer Ms. Naughty creates erotica that is “smart, sensual” and “fun” for her site Bright Desire, which highlights intimacy between partners and doesn’t use derogatory terms in video descriptions.
“I find the most interesting porn involves seeing people’s faces rather than their genitals, so we focus on faces and hands, and then genitals if we are able to get the shot,” she says. “I don’t insist performers are ‘open to the camera’ because those positions often aren’t comfortable and don’t produce as much pleasure.”
Women-run Tumblr pages such as Lady Cheeky, Her Lust and My Feminist Porn Blog similarly promote imagery — primarily GIFs — that is respectful, body-positive and inclusive of straight and LGBTQ couples.
“It’s hitting a mainstream stride now, where I’ve noticed that more people are doing this and more pages are popping up,” says Lane Moore, Cosmopolitan’s former sex and relationships editor and host of comedy show Tin
der Live!. “There’s a huge market for (feminist porn). I have friends who run a lot of sites like this and have a huge audience.”
That more adult entertainment is catering to a female audience should come as no surprise. According to a survey of 24,000 women by free pornography site YouPorn released in April, 18% say they watch porn daily and 63% watch weekly or a few times a month. Eighty-nine percent say they watch it without their partners, while 34% say they tend to select videos featuring participants they can relate to (similar in age, weight, ethnicity, etc.). The second-most popular factor in women’s porn selection is that it “has a female lead or dominant character,” the study found.
According to a Marie Claire study in 2015, 56% of more than 3,000 women surveyed admitted they’re conflicted about watching porn because of how the adult-entertainment industry treats women, as well as the negative stereotypes such videos can perpetuate. Jones — who co-created
Hot Girls Wanted with Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus — is among those who have been dissatisfied logging onto “tube sites,” which are mostly free porn websites in the vein of YouTube that feature user-uploaded content, much of which depicts women in degrading, sometimes violent scenarios.
“I used to find it hard to find things that I like and turn me on, because it did feel like those tube sites are flooded with this abusive imagery,” Jones says. “I think that’s a reason why women are not as comfortable accessing porn, because the first thing that comes up is not necessarily the thing that is going to turn you on.”
The debasement of women in porn means there is no way it can be feminist, argues Dr. Gail Dines, a professor of sociology and
women’s studies at Wheelock College, and author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality.
“The core of feminism is that you can’t engage in any activity that hurts other women,” Dines says. “We know that being in pornography has a profound impact on a woman’s emotional cognitive well-being, we know that it can cause post-traumatic stress disorder. Not to mention all the STDs, all the harm done to the body.
“I can’t imagine a feminist world where you have a flourishing porn industry. It’s part of a patriarchal society where men get women where they want them to be: flat on their backs, legs spread.”
The only way it could potentially be feminist, she continues, is if women did porn solely out of want, rather than need.
“If you got rid of poverty and racism and global capitalism, and weren’t really desperate for money, I wonder how many women would really volunteer to be in porn,” Dines says. “There’s a reason you don’t have women with Ph.D.s and law degrees lining up to do porn, and that’s because they have options.”
Recognizing its female viewers, PornHub has taken strides to feature more female-friendly work by partnering with content providers Ersties and Yonitale, whose videos are made by and targeted toward women. Sister site YouPorn launched its “Female Director Series” last year, a specially curated collection of adult videos directed by women.
Having women behind the camera is crucial to more realistic representations in porn, says Amanda de Cadenet, who conducted Marie Clarie’s survey and runs a foundation, GirlGaze, that supports female photographers.
Celebrities are helping broach once-taboo topics of female sexuality and desire through pop culture. TV comedies Inside Amy Schumer, The Mindy Project,
Broad City, and I Love Dick all are created by women and feature empowered female characters casually discussing — or in the act of — masturbation and watching porn.
“Media has had an incredibly negative role in suppressing female sexuality for generations,” de Cadenet says. Now, “these are women that are using the media to flip that script and say, ‘ We’re not buying into that anymore. Now that we’ve got a platform, get to write our shows and have a voice, this is one of the things we’re going to draw attention to to change the stigma.’ ... I think people are trying to normalize (watching porn), as they should.”
“There’s a huge market for (feminist porn). I have friends who run a lot of sites like this and have a huge audience.” Lane Moore, Cosmopolitan’s former sex and relationships editor