Why Porn Is Boring...To Women
Wise Readers,
Sexuality blogger Rachel Rabbit White launched Lady Porn Day this week, and ABC News online interviewed me about porn in that connection. Nutshell version of my part? If you want to know why women don’t watch much, all you need to know is this: Porn often bores us.
Most of the research on porn has been done to assess its impact on violence against women by men (upshot: violent porn causes violence), and to find out whether men become less committed/attracted to their female partners as a direct cause of porn even when the porn is not violent (upshot: yes). You can read my article about that at this link.
Less~a LOT less~is known about women’s take.
What we know for sure is that almost every kind of porn does turn women on physically. Interestingly, though, women often aren’t consciously aware we’re turned on! Our vaginas are doing flip-flops over everything from straight sex to gay sex to bonobo sex…but only some women are psychologically grooving on what they’re viewing.
I think that speaks to a really fascinating thing about women’s sexuality: Our minds and the way we construe sex are more core to our sexuality than anything happening genitally. So, to the extent porn fits with what women usually want, it’s going to be more of a conscious turn-on.
What it all means? Porn that specifically caters to female fantasies is probably going to ring a lot more women’s conscious bells than porn that plays out the same-ol’/same-ol’ male stereotypical fantasy.
Details? Women usually fantasize about a lot of foreplay and build-up that involves affection, love and expressions of commitment from just one man; the sex isn’t the only important thing, and in fact the relationship has an equally starring role. Male-fantasy-derived porn that depicts a lot of body parts without showcasing emotional connection will hit some women’s cognitive (and other) sweet spots, yes~but for most women, the money shot will be about heart and soul, stuff few porn film-makers have chosen to focus on in a market that is dominated by men as directors and consumers.
Movie makers in every genre tend to create the storylines that ring the cash register. And men tend to want and watch most of the porn.
Which leads me to wonder what will happen if porn directors turn their attentions more specifically to female desires. If they build it…will we come?
Cheers,
Duana
If this article intrigued, captivated, elevated or explicated you or your understanding of relationships, please click “share article” below to distribute to your favorite social media websites.
Do you have a question for Duana? Email her at Duana@LoveScienceMedia.com.
Related Love Science articles:
http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/porn-pastime-or-peril.html
http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/is-her-straight-boyfriend-gay.html
http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/qa-from-is-her-straight-boyfriend-gay.html
The author wishes to thank Donald Symons for extensive research and publication about men’s and women’s sexual fantasies, and what they show about evolved mating psychology .
All material copyrighted by Duana C. Welch, Ph.D., and Love Science Media, 2011.
Reader Comments (5)
"Which leads me to wonder what will happen if porn directors turn their attentions more specifically to female desires. If they build it…will we come? "
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You first ;-)
OK - perhaps the article touched on this and I just didn't catch it, but the biggest difficulty I have with porn is that the girls they feature are often so SO young. I understand from your past articles that men are attracted to youth and beauty but for me, it is so exploitive that I can't imagine being turned on. In fact, I occasionally happen upon some porn about which I think "Any man that is turned on by this cannot be around my children." And this is "mainstream" porn - in distributed magazines that must have some sort of model release and assurance that she's at least 18. But I'm 41, and 18 is just deeply, psychologically wrong to me. And yes, the same would go if I saw an 18 yo male in porn -- It just doesn't sit well in my head.
Another turnoff is all the plastic. I have seen porn that features more natural (and yes, still attractive) people, and I am more inclined to allow myself to observe it.
And finally, exxxploitation: Anytime a model or actress (never seen it happen to an actor) is "used" in a film, anytime sex involves someone my lizard brain thinks is abhorrent in that situation (a child or near-child adult), anytime sex is just rubbing genitals without a tender or even respectful look... It's just aversive to me.
I read somewhere that men and women experience porn differently - wish I could remember exactly how. It was something that explained the reason you often don't see the male actor's face when they are, um, in the act. Anyway, bottom line is that when I see exploitive porn, I feel exploited.
Jolene, I think everything you said perfectly underscores why women don't like male-oriented porn. Also, you added several points my own article lacked, and highlighted that male-oriented porn is not merely boring for many women; it's actively offensive to a great many women's values and inherited mating psychologies (to wit: commitment, safety for other women, and the threat women naturally feel when our own youth-and-beauty cannot compare favorably with the bevy of oh-so-young girls on film). Thanks for the contributions and your perspective.
By the way, you're right that men and women experience porn differently at the level of their brain response. The areas of the brain associated with reward light up for men when men view typical male-oriented porn; this does not happen for women. Why? Well, ancestral men who happened to want to have sex with young, beautiful women essentially were desiring that which would result in offspring; as women move away from youth and beauty, we are less fertile. Men in the ancient past who loved older, unattractive women may have been happy, but they left behind few or no children who could carry that preference forward. Today, men everywhere lust with their eyes...and what they lust for is youth and beauty. In fact, blind men (who of course cannot lust with their eyes) *still* insist on youth and beauty; given the opportunity, they ask other men about their date's appearance, and provided with various silouhettes to fondle, they prefer the same waist-to-hip ration sighted men do: .7, the most fertile shape on the human planet.
Women, on the other hand, don't have to be particularly attuned to fertility cues in men. Almost any man of any age is capable of creating children. So those cues don't mean much and theoretically shouldn't be too rewarding to women. They aren't.
Instead, what women turns women on (as confirmed by ood scientific studies of women's fantasies, plus the Harlequin Romance novels sales) is this: A willing and able provider and protector who possesses abundant resources and pledges them all to his lady faire. Pride & Prejudice with hot sex would be a porn best-seller for women, I think.
Again, though, whether women will watch porn in droves, even if porn becomes produced by and for us, remains to be seen.
ABC News Online?! Congratulations, Duana! How smart of them to come to Love Science, the best source ever, with their question.
Personally, I find porn not only boring, but undignified.Though I would enjoy a well-written novel, as you describe, with lavish attentions of all types lavished lavishly on our heroine. While I tend to jump around in my in reading interests, I do have The French Leutinant's Woman (however you spell that) on my bedside table, next up in my reading queue.
As far as movie-makers, I think they should read your column and cater to women in the way you describe, for more sales in the mainstream. After, all I've seen many a single woman alone in the movie theater on a weekend, but not often a single man. But then again I'm at the regular theatre, not the other kind.
Personally, I love going to movies (and reading books) where the strong provider takes a risk, wins a fight, whatever, to pledge himself and his ample resources to his Lady Fair. Many historical documenaries of Tudor England fit the bill, and I love them. Just enough risque behavior to pique the interest, but nothing too graphic or "undignified." That's what works for me.
Dear Gillian,
Thank you for your kind words and a spot-on description of why novels have typically had a much better run with women than porn has had.
In fact, the romance novel has been called women's porn, outselling all other literature. Too bad more aren't well-written! And I know you speak truth when you describe how many women feel upon seeing close-ups of various tab-a-in-slot-b hydraulics: Undignified.
Thanks also for this sentence, which I simply enjoyed for its own sake: "I would enjoy a well-written novel, as you describe, with lavish attentions of all types lavished lavishly on our heroine."
Cheers,
Duana