An Academic Look At Porn For Women

Surfing around today I was slightly startled to discover that women’s porn sites have been the subject of a very serious academic paper.

Women’s Porno: The heterosexual female gaze in porn sites “for women” by Terrie Schauer is an 18 page article first published in the journal Sexuality and Culture two years ago.

Here’s the abstract:

The article deals with a number of Internet sites claiming to specialize in providing pornography for heterosexual women, as a vehicle to examine the nascent “gaze” and visual parameters of heterosexual female sexuality. The focus here is semiotic—looking at visual coding of website images rather than audience reception (i.e., whether heterosexual women are actually the main consumers of women’s porno). Motivation for this decision is discussed.

Theoretically, the article draws from Butler’s performative notions of sexuality in anchoring discussion. The remainder of the article does a comparative textual analysis of nine pornographic Internet sites, three of which label themselves “for women.” Findings are as follows: “Women’s porno” fuses the matter and anti-matter of men’s homo- and heterosexual pornography, in the process engendering an active, sexually interested, heterosexual female gaze and typifying Butler notion of “insurrectionary speech.”

So naturally I found myself wondering which sites Ms Schauer chose for her study. Did any of my worthy efforts come under her scrutiny? What was the result? Were any of my sites charged with the crimes of “stereotypes” and “assumptionsOr should I assume that the official findings are actually positive toward women’s smut sites?

It all sounds terribly highbrow and meaningful but there’s no way I’m going to pay $32 to read it. If someone has a copy they’re willing to donate I’m happy to receive it.

Posted under: Feminism, Porn for Women