A look at what erotica is available for women, and why it's becoming more popular.
Sunday, December 14, 2003
Seventeen Years Since The First Erotica Film for Women
... and not enough has changed.
Candida Royalle made a huge breakthrough in the mid eighties with her Femme series of films, the first adult movies made from a female perspective. Today there still aren't enough of these videos, so the Femme series remains popular. Candida's site is great, but the most interesting page is her "behind the scenes" stories of making the Femme films. She details her efforts to make erotica that reflected the experiences of women, and the problems (and success) she encountered. So much of her philosophy is spot-on, and I can only stand and applaud that she did all this in the eighties, with so little support.
What's also interesting is that Candida had to put up with EXACTLY THE SAME male responses 17 years ago that I get now. Back then male porn gurus were saying her films would fail simply because she didn't have "the money shot! And today so many other webmasters keep saying to me "Women aren't visual" and "Women don't like porn." Which is what they said to Candida. She proved them wrong then, and For The Girls is proving them now :)
PS - I've made a new site, it's called Naked Men News!
... and not enough has changed.
Candida Royalle made a huge breakthrough in the mid eighties with her Femme series of films, the first adult movies made from a female perspective. Today there still aren't enough of these videos, so the Femme series remains popular. Candida's site is great, but the most interesting page is her "behind the scenes" stories of making the Femme films. She details her efforts to make erotica that reflected the experiences of women, and the problems (and success) she encountered. So much of her philosophy is spot-on, and I can only stand and applaud that she did all this in the eighties, with so little support.
What's also interesting is that Candida had to put up with EXACTLY THE SAME male responses 17 years ago that I get now. Back then male porn gurus were saying her films would fail simply because she didn't have "the money shot! And today so many other webmasters keep saying to me "Women aren't visual" and "Women don't like porn." Which is what they said to Candida. She proved them wrong then, and For The Girls is proving them now :)
PS - I've made a new site, it's called Naked Men News!
Women's Erotica IS different!
OK... I finally have a scientific response to those people who say that "hardcore is just hardcore, couples don't belong in the 4women section".
From BBC Horizon site:
The reason it seems is that for women, being turned on sexually is more to do with the brain than the pelvis. Dr Ellen Laan turned to erotic videos to try to understand the female sexual response. She showed women two films. One concentrated on the man's pleasure; one on the woman's. Her subjects experienced increased vaginal blood flow with both films, but only reported being turned on by the film that was more focussed on female pleasure. Laan deduced that - unlike men - for women the genitals are not the best indicator of arousal.
See guys: "more focussed on female pleasure"! It's not rocket science you know! Although this concept does seem to involve thinking outside of the male viewpoint which seems enormously difficult for some to achieve...
OK... I finally have a scientific response to those people who say that "hardcore is just hardcore, couples don't belong in the 4women section".
From BBC Horizon site:
The reason it seems is that for women, being turned on sexually is more to do with the brain than the pelvis. Dr Ellen Laan turned to erotic videos to try to understand the female sexual response. She showed women two films. One concentrated on the man's pleasure; one on the woman's. Her subjects experienced increased vaginal blood flow with both films, but only reported being turned on by the film that was more focussed on female pleasure. Laan deduced that - unlike men - for women the genitals are not the best indicator of arousal.
See guys: "more focussed on female pleasure"! It's not rocket science you know! Although this concept does seem to involve thinking outside of the male viewpoint which seems enormously difficult for some to achieve...
Sunday, December 07, 2003
Erotica for Women set to grow.
A few weeks ago Nielsen Netratings published the results of their latest survey of surfing habits. It turns out that a third of visitors to porn sites are women, and that in September alone 9.5 million American women intentionally accessed porn sites.
These statistics came as a shock to an awful lot of porn webmasters, but no surprise to me at all. I KNEW women wanted to look at porn, but the porn industry simply wasn't prepared to respond to that need. So many stereotypes got in the way: "women aren't visual, women' don't buy porn" etc etc. Even now I face stubborn resistance to the idea that women might want to enjoy porn.
Of course, others couldn't help but notice the flashing light that the Nielsen statistics presented. Suddenly people were looking at their membership logs, and realising that a decent percentage of women were joining their male-focused porn sites. They were shocked.
(I, meanwhile, was feeling a little smug. LOL)
This survey doesn't change the fact that women want their own form of erotica, one that reflects their own experiences of sex and sensuality. It's a goal of mine to ensure that women can firstly find this kind of content, as well as enjoy it.
I've written an article on the survey, as well as possible reasons why women aren't rushing out to spend money on porn in the way that men do. Yes, Women do buy porn.
I also did an interview with Webmaster vault about the issue of erotica for women. Please note - the articles are aimed at adult webmasters, not surfers. But it gives an idea of the kind of stuff I'm trying to do. This industry needs to wake up and start providing women with decent porn!
I'm doing my best - For The Girls is steaming along nicely, new stuff written all the time, and we're finding heaps of great content. Hopefully one day it will become THE major erotica for women site on the internet. :)
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