(This post, which was first published online at
Good Vibrations Magazine, is an excerpt from the Introduction of
After Pornified: How Women Are Transforming Pornography & Why It Really Matters.)
I never wanted to watch porn. When a former boyfriend years ago
showed me some of his “glossier” porn, as he put it, I was completely
grossed out. The premise of his porn was that all these Barbie-looking
women would seek out a stud residing in this huge mansion, where he
would provide them with their ultimate satisfaction by spraying his come
all over them, which they in turn would greedily lick and smear all
over their bodies. The cliché portrayal of yearning women in need of a
man was in itself offensive to me. But it was especially the prolonged
scene featuring the guy hosing down a group of women with his ejaculate
that turned me off.
You’d think from our pornified culture that we all want porn. But we
know that’s not the case. Sure, women represent a large and growing
audience for porn, representing at least a third of all consumers,
adding up to millions of women watching porn each month.[i]
But not everyone is crazy about what they see. Whether it’s “high
gloss” or amateur porn, in either case featuring deep throating women
who are pumped hard, legs spread wide, all the while moaning for more
with come-hither eyes. The stacks of mass-produced porn at seedy
superstores off the interstate. Trashy hotel room porn. Online smut
catering to any imaginable (and unconceivable!) fetish. And even
“softcore” and “couples porn” allegedly improved to appeal to women, but
not really. Plastic looks, porny music, bad acting, faked satisfaction.
But then I found something radically different.
