From XOJane:
Do You Really Want Your Porn To Look More Like You? I just want my porn to feature women who are confident, self-aware, and get off. I realize this is a lot to ask. by Julieanne
Get excited, my fellow perverts: The sex industry is finally ready to cater to your every womanly need -- in exchange, of course, for your lush mounds of money.
In a Slate column about vibrators, Amanda Hess reflected on the recent shift away from phallic shapes in the dong industry. She wondered, ultimately, if perhaps a sea change in our nudie films might be next:
If even dildo manufacturers can successfully transcend the severed organ, surely the porn industry can offer women a little bit more than the old standby—a disembodied penis thrusting through scene after scene until it satisfies every male fantasy. What if porn were designed with an eye toward the female aesthetic in the way that Jimmyjane’s toys are? What if Girls did for porn what Sex in the City did for the vibrator, breaking the taboo? And what if women demanded more from the porn they’re already viewing?Doesn't it feel like Don Corleone's wedding day? Go ahead! Do a little twirl and ask for something! The world is your Dutch Oyster.
Of course, Hess isn't suggesting that there's something we all want unilaterally. Certainly, female sexual desire is as varied and as different as the whorls of the fingers with which we gently diddle ourselves.
But it's an intriguing thought: what if "good sex" on screen looked like the good sex we're actually having? (Or, okay, would like to have, under ideal circumstances.) It sounds like an unlikely, especially since asthetics in porn seem to shift glacially at best. Besides, most of us can't get instant free sex toys on on RedTube.
Still -- given your druthers, would you change the standard hung stud/horny teen pump-and-blow? The "I'm a naughty tattooed bisexual with no bodyfat having an aloof fingerblast in a warehouse" of alt porn? Or would you be on board with (I'll say it) the Dunhamification of your spank films?
Would you want it to look more like you?
Well, for those of you who consume porn, that is. I realize that some of you don't, or feel guilty about it, for ethical reasons. But if buying more porn is indeed an emollient for the problems that have historically plagued women in the industry (which is ailing or thriving, depending who you ask), then I guess now's our time to come up with a list of demands. Let us hold a summit, and draw up a Vagna Carta.
Whether or not you want to actually see yourself in your porn, "fem porn" director/producer Erika Lust made an interesting point in the Guardian: It would be nice to be able to relate to it a little more. "To get excited," she mused, "women want to see something that looks like us. We want to see independent women exploring their sexuality, who are not afraid, but are not sex heroines either. We want to see attractive men who share our lifestyles, our ideas."
This is difficult, as I realize we are not all into penises or vaginas or sex at all. So, this is going to take a lot of generalizing. So, you know, if you're not into mainstream porn, I'm not trying to leave you out. But, just like some of us like Hawaiian style or deep dish or hand tossed, most of us can agree that pizza is the greatest.
So for generality's sake, we're going Papa John's here. Let's talk about what we'd like to see in our garden variety, ho-hum, porny porny porno. I'll throw out some of my demands, and you guys can hit me with yours. Sound good? Onward.