The never-ending debate about women and pornography has led to many assumptions about female sexual desire. A common perception depicted by the media is that women are turned off by porn that is made for men, by men. Advocates for so-called female-friendly pornography—that is, porn founded on mutual respect where the female subject demonstrates true agency in her sexuality—believe that if there were more emotive-driven, personality-based storylines in porn, more women would watch it. However, surprising research on porn patterns suggests otherwise.
Neuroscientists Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, co-authors of the book,
A Billion Wicked Thoughts, conducted research on visual pornography in relation to female sexual desire in an attempt to unlock the secret of our sexual habits. The results of their study found that while most women don’t watch porn, those who do are not watching female-friendly porn but rather the same mainstream, male-targeted, hardcore sites that men view.
“There is a real interesting phenomenon in women’s sexuality—not seen in men’s—and that is this divide between what erotica
shouldbe and what actually turns women on,” Ogas told AlterNet. “Studies show that what turns women on is different to what they wish turned them on or how they politically feel about it. There is a paradox in the brain that women have to wrestle with. Men like what they like sexually. But with women, we see political manifestos embedded in their sexuality, with just as much emphasis on whether or not we’re discriminating on any particular gender or race. Whereas, for a man that just doesn’t occur.”
An interesting correlation is found between women who like hardcore porn and certain personality traits, Ogar explains.
“Women who like hardcore porn tend to be more aggressive, more socially assertive and more comfortable taking risks. They are comfortable playing both roles sexually, they like being dominated and being submissive. They possess a constellation of personality traits that you would normally associate with men. It is reasonable to imagine then that for a minority of women, their sexual brain develops in a masculine way,” he said.
Angie Rowntree, the founder of Sssh.com, offers a different explanation for the trafficking trends.
Rowntree says, “Among younger women, there’s less and less concern for such constructs, and more openness to erotic material and more comfort with their own sexuality. To me, ‘female-friendly porn’ just means porn that doesn’t make a second-class citizen out of the women performing in it, or the women watching it. It depicts two people truly enjoying themselves.”
