Ms Naughty Porn for Women Blog

There’s a part of me that’s still rather stunned that in 2010, people are conducting research into whether “the vaginal orgasm” exists. Because for a while now, I’ve held the opinion that the concept of the vaginal orgasm is nonsense, and not just because of that lovely 1970 feminist essay The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm.

For me, the idea was put to bed in 1999 when Dr. Helen O’Connell published her ground-breaking research that revealed our little friend the clitoris is a hell of a lot bigger than anyone thought. Her anatomical studies showed the clitoris extended deep into the pelvis and surrounded the vagina and that, given the reach of the little man in the boat, any orgasms achieved through vaginal stimulation occurred via indirect stimulation of the clitoris. It’s really the most sensible explanation.

Nonetheless there seems to be a continuing meme that says orgasms obtained via stimulation of the vagina or G-spot alone are somehow anatomically different. I don’t think the anatomy bears this out. If we consider that we don’t talk about male orgasms in terms of “penile orgasms” versus “prostate orgasms”, why do we keep making this distinction with women? Female orgasms originate in the clitoris but other forms of stimulation can set it off.

In any case, this rant has been inspired by the research detailed here which was looking into the relationship of the clitoris and the vagina during orgasm. They performed sonograms on a number of women, both at rest and when performing kegel exercises. The women were asked to identify their G-spot during the sonogram. The researchers found that clenching the pelvis brings the clitoris much closer to the vagina… and the G spot was the place where the clit came in closest.

Which suggests that the G-spot is a part of the vagina that can easily reach the clitoris. The fact that some women can’t find their G-spot can then be explained by natural anatomical differences. Indeed, the whole thing where 30% of women can get off from penetration alone suggests these lucky women won some kind of biological jackpot because their clitorises are closer to the vag.

This is speculation on my part but the research does seem to point in that direction. So, there’s your science lesson for today.

I remember when I stopped reading Cosmopolitan in my first year of university. It was one of the best things I ever did. The endless fashion, diets and super-skinny models always left me feeling bad about myself so I decided that it would be best if I just disengaged from that aspect of “women’s culture.”

It’s 20 years on and Cosmo hasn’t changed. Still, it’s a hugely popular magazine that many women do enjoy and when they come up with a sex survey, I can’t help but be a little curious. If you can get past the very first question which reveals that absolutely none of the respondents identified as gay, there’s some interesting titbits in there.

Naturally I leapt on this statistic:

Have you ever watched porn?
37% said yes, I love it
23% said yes, but only with a boyfriend
15% said yes, once – but I didn’t like it
14% said no, but I’d be open to it
8% said no, I hate the idea.
3% said no, because it’s exploitative

That’s statistically larger than a lot of other surveys suggest. The average figure seems to be 30% (a la Nielsen Netratings) but UK Cosmo women are keener on their porn – whether enjoying it by themselves or using it as a tool within their sexual relationship. That’s 60% right there. Add the other 14% who didn’t have a problem with the idea and you’re pretty much saying that 75% of Cosmo readers are OK with porn. Quite the impressive statistic.

Also, I think I’ll gloat a bit that not a lot of Cosmo chicks are into Dworkinesque anti-porn feminism – a measly 3%. Seems the Stop Porn Coalition have a long way to go to win over your average woman into their “all porn is bad” campaign.

OK, so this was an online self-selected survey done by a commercial women’s magazine. The page doesn’t say exactly how many women did the survey (beyond “thousands”) or what the demographics were, so it’s not the most scientific bit of research out there. Nonetheless, if we consider the sheer numbers of women who do read Cosmopolitan, it certainly suggests that more and more women are openly enjoying porn.

Just to give an idea of some of the other trends, based on what was most popular:
Your average Cosmo woman has sex 2-3 times a week in the missionary position, doesn’t have an orgasm as often as she would like and rarely has an orgasm from penetrative sex alone (oral sex or manual stimulation is better). She will still fake orgasms occasionally, will rarely have sex on the first date and prefers men who make her laugh.

SMH says: A report in the Australian journal Body Image has found that consumers respond positively to depictions of average-sized men in advertising. The survey asked over 600 students in their late teens to look at mock-up advertisements for products, some using muscle-bound men and others using thinner or chubbier male models. The results showed that the “buffed” models didn’t rate any higher than average guys.

Neither sex responded more positively to the musclebound bodies, and the males even found ads that showed just the item – with no accompanying model – more effective than those posed by classic hunks.

Some participants in the University of Queensland study ”may have attributed the models’ muscularity to vanity or homosexuality, characteristics which they may have found unpleasant or discomforting”, [study leader] Ms Diedrichs wrote.

It’s not surprising that male respondents preferred not to see a male model at all. This is not news; it’s why the guy’s heads are always cut off in porn films and why we never see naked men in mainstream film. To even look at another man carries hints of homosexuality for some people and therefore must not be tolerated.

It think it’s an interesting and useful study that also reveals a lot about gay stereotypes and how we allow men a lot more leeway in their appearance than women.

On a personal level, I don’t mind a nice six pack or well-defined muscles, although if the guy looks like a boofhead, I’m not so interested. I think a man’s smile and his eyes are very important factors in whether he is attractive or not.

The Times Online has followed up last week’s opinion piece about teens and sex with an article headed Boys who see porn more likely to harass girls. The piece discusses Michael Flood’s report looking at existing research into the effects of porn on adolescents.

“There is compelling evidence from around the world that pornography has negative effects on individuals and communities,” he told the Times.

Naturally I sat right down and read the full report. And you know what? The “evidence” he found in various peer-reviewed journals isn’t all that compelling. Indeed, his summary of the existing literature looking at the “harm” or otherwise of porn found it was generally conflicting or inconclusive or not long-term enough or not particularly thorough. Almost every paragraph of the report says that while there’s plenty of concern that porn can cause harm, there’s no magic bullet that proves the hypothesis.

He says that porn doesn’t cause rape and that research is unable to “encapsulate the complex role that emotions and intent play both in the use of pornography and in sex, a role that may either enhance or minimise harm.” Essentially, a whole bunch of outside factors are the deciding influence as to whether porn is a good or a bad thing.

The point became rather repetitive. Research keeps offering the rather sensible supposition that a teenager’s attitude to porn and sex is usually shaped by their family, their peers, their culture, their exposure to other media and their education. That is, you have to take a holistic approach. If a teen – usually male – is using porn in a negative way you should probably look closely at pre-existing problems or bad attitudes before you blame the porn itself. Bad porn is more like the icing on a very bad cake than the recipe itself.

That aside, there was one aspect of Flood’s report that I found very disturbing. It’s his definition of what constitutes “harm” in the first place – and I think it’s something that needs to be discussed more often. Because in all the hysterical hand flapping of “somebody think of the children!”, nobody really sits down and says: “Well, what is it that we don’t want kids to learn or do when it comes to sex?”

Flood doesn’t claim these definitions are his own. He farms them out to “the community” in this paragraph:

Not surprisingly, given the high rates of adolescent exposure, concern exists that young people are being inundated with unwanted and wanted, and possibly violent sexual information before they are developmentally capable of constructively dealing with it. This may detrimentally transform sexual attitudes and behaviours and ultimately sexuality and intimate relationships. Concerns within different parts of the community focus on the potential of pornography to:

* interfere with normal sexual development (e.g. encouraging early sexual activity)
* foster ‘open’ sexual lifestyles (e.g. acceptance of casual and extramarital sex, multiple partners, etc.) and ‘unnatural’ practices (e.g. anal and oral sex, homosexuality)
* undermine physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing (generate shame, guilt, anxiety, confusion, poor social bonds, and addictions)
* undermine relationships and foster sexual violence (e.g. Jensen & Okrina 2004; Zillman 2000).

So folks, let’s have a look at these supposed harms, shall we?

Let me go for the obvious one first. Flood raises the terrible spectre of embracing “open sexual lifestyles”! Lord save us, people might actually take up butt sex! Casual sex, multiple partners, homosexuality… the horror! And all because they looked at porn!

I’m rather stunned that a supposedly scientific report would include such a conservative and judgemental definition of “harm.” Just because a “community” (and face it, we’re talking about fundamentalist Christians here) thinks these things are wrong does not prove that they cause verifiable harm to the individuals doing them.

I should point out, Flood later includes erotophilia as another “harmful” effect of viewing porn. If I may be lazy and include the Wikipedia definition:

Erotophilia is a term used by psychologists to describe sexuality on a personality scale. Erotophiles score high on one end of the scale that is characterized by expressing less guilt about sex, talking about sex more openly, and holding more positive attitudes toward sexually explicit material.

Um, I’m not sure about you, but how is this harmful, exactly? It seems to describe me quite well. Should I assume that I’m somehow psychologically damaged? More inclined to go on a homicidal ramapge?

The idea of “less guilt” when it comes to sex seems to completely contradict his third point that porn undermines “physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing” by generating guilt and shame. I would argue that any guilt or shame arising from pornography use comes from outside influences telling an individual that their porn use is wrong. Either that or it’s a pre-existing guilt arising from being raised to believe that sex is dirty and sinful.

Porn may encourage early sexual activity? How early, exactly? And what is “normal” sexual development? Some teens mature faster than others and make a conscious decision to have sex even before the age of consent (which differs, I might add, according to where you are). If a teen has safe sex and enjoys the experience without regret… is that “too early”? Again, it feels like there’s a judgemental, cultural yardstick being used here rather than any empirical standard of “harm”.

Now I don’t have a problem with some of the other definitions used in that list. If porn causes anxiety about body image or confusion about how to have good sex or how to maintain a healthy relationship, that’s bad. If it encourages unsafe sex, that’s bad. If it encourages pre-existing bad attitudes toward women or normalises a negative, possibly violent view of sex, that too is bad. If it becomes an obsession (note, I refuse to use the word “addiction”) and creates a dispute in a relationship, that’s bad.

Those things may actually result in problems for the individual viewing the porn (or their partners) and we should focus our attention and concern on those. And we should always look at those concerns within the broader context of the individual’s personality, upbringing and culture.

That’s the thing: I don’t want to come out swinging completely in favour or mainstream porn. I’ve expressed my distaste for it many times on this blog. I find a lot of it to be sexist, sex-negative, boring, cliched and sometimes cruel and we need to have a continuing discussion about the images and world view that a lot of porn presents. Because it is a part of our culture and it does have some influence on us as consumers.

I am, however, always worried when a study like this is used by media (like The Times) to say “There’s conclusive evidence porn causes harm, let’s ban it!”

That’s exactly what’s happened here in Australia with the internet filter. The whole idea of the filter was actually thought up by Clive Hamilton, who co-wrote a paper with Michael Flood in 2003 about the effects of porn on 16 and 17 year old “children”. They used the fact that almost all teen boys over 16 use porn to whip up hysteria about “children seeing porn on the internet”. This may be partly while I feel so antagonistic towards this latest study by Michael Flood. It feels as though he’s approached the issue from a pre-decided stance and done his best to make it say what he wants… even thought the actual evidence won’t come to the party.

Still, I can’t argue with his final paragraph which actually offers a perfectly rational solution to everyone’s concern about teens and porn: education.

Though restricting exposure will remain a priority, an over-reliance on this approach to protect against the perceived harms of pornography is problematic as it fails to recognise the realities of ready availability and the high acceptance of pornography among young people. Moreover, it fails to examine the holistic way in which adolescents’ sexual expectations, attitudes and behaviours are shaped in our society and the complexity of factors that give rise to the cited harms.

Protecting young people necessarily requires equipping them, and their caregivers, with adequate knowledge, skills and resources (e.g. media literacy; sex education; education about pornography and rights and responsibilities of sexual relationships; safe engagement with technologies) to enable successful navigation toward a sexually healthy adulthood, as well as tackling factors predisposing to sexual violence.

Interestingly, this is exactly the approach advocated by Joybear’s Justin Ribeiro dos Santos in this second Times piece.

“It’s out there and the reality is, we can’t stop that. French and Italian kids are allowed to drink at the dinner table and they don’t have our problems with binge drinking. Maybe it’s the same with porn. We need to stop being so prudish.”

Given the panicky headlines that Michael Flood’s research is going to create, I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon.

Just spreading the word about two academic researchers that need porn-loving women to fill out their surveys.

Firstly, a Women’s Studies MA student called Hayley is asking feminists for their views on porn. Here’s you chance to kick Andrea Dworkin in the butt again, girls. Tell her what you think here.

Secondly, PhD candidate Susana Mayer needs to know about the sexuality of post-menopausal women – especially those who like porn. If you’re over the hot flushes, click here to help her out.

It’s worth taking the time to help research into women and porn. For so long we’ve been hearing the “women aren’t visual” schtick. It’s nice to get some real science and research on our side!

The New York Times has an extensive article on research into female desire and lust, profiling the hardworking scientists who are studying this relatively new field of human sexuality (i.e. nobody’s bothered to look into what turns women on. Go figure.)

What I found really interesting was the discussion about how the old ideas of romance and relationships aren’t what really get the juices flowing. It’s being lusted after that makes all the difference.

Definitely rings a bell with me.

The problem was how to augment desire, and despite prevailing wisdom, the answer, she told me, had “little to do with building better relationships,” with fostering communication between patients and their partners. She rolled her eyes at such niceties…

“Female desire,” Meana said, speaking broadly and not only about her dyspareunic patients, “is not governed by the relational factors that, we like to think, rule women’s sexuality as opposed to men’s.”

“Really,” she said, “women’s desire is not relational, it’s narcissistic” — it is dominated by the yearnings of “self-love,” by the wish to be the object of erotic admiration and sexual need. Still on the subject of narcissism, she talked about research indicating that, in comparison with men, women’s erotic fantasies center less on giving pleasure and more on getting it. “When it comes to desire,” she added, “women may be far less relational than men.”

For evolutionary and cultural reasons, she said, women might set a high value on the closeness and longevity of relationships: “But it’s wrong to think that because relationships are what women choose they’re the primary source of women’s desire.”

…

From early glances at her data, Chivers said, she guesses she will find that women are most turned on, subjectively if not objectively, by scenarios of sex with strangers… “I’ve often thought that there is something really powerful for women’s sexuality about being desired. That receptivity element. At some point I’d love to do a study that would look at that.”

There’s also some interesting speculation about why women will get physically turned on by all sorts of things, even if their mind doesn’t register it.

Genital lubrication, she writes in her upcoming paper in Archives of Sexual Behavior, is necessary “to reduce discomfort, and the possibility of injury, during vaginal penetration. . . . Ancestral women who did not show an automatic vaginal response to sexual cues may have been more likely to experience injuries during unwanted vaginal penetration that resulted in illness, infertility or even death, and thus would be less likely to have passed on this trait to their offspring.”

Evolution’s legacy, according to this theory, is that women are prone to lubricate, if only protectively, to hints of sex in their surroundings.

It’s a very interesting article, well worth reading.

Just wanted to add a further post about the recent survey of the sex lives of Australian women (previous post here)

News.com.au has an article unfortunately titled “The sad sexual secrets of women” which is rather misleading since the survey has plenty of positive aspects to it, including an increase in masturbation, a desire for more consideration from male partners and a general urge to explore one’s sexuality.

I wanted to quote this part of the article, which hearkens back to the various discussions about “why women hate porn”.

But, overwhelmingly, we’re bored in the bedroom, causing many of us to stray in search of sexual thrills – which might explain why more of us are watching pornography to spice up our sex lives.

One respondent was so disappointed with the quality of porn movies available, she starred in her own.

“A lot of women described how porn is OK, but they would like it a lot better if it was made by women for women and then they would like to look at it with their partners and use it as a stimulant,” Sauers said.

On the downside porn, while titillating, had added “a whole new level of anxiety, not just about the body but about performance”, Sauers said.

She said that, while porn does carry risks because a small percentage of men become addicted, “to dismiss porn out of hand as an enemy of sexuality and an enemy of relationships is a mistake”.

I found it refreshing to read a relatively pro-porn comment like that in a News Ltd media outlet.

The aforementioned sad aspect of women’s sex lives is that one in three women have experienced some form of sexual assault.

An article in the New York Times and other media sources today cites new research that suggests straight women aren’t necessarily turned on by naked men. The study, by Meredith Chivers from the Center for Addiction and Mental Health at the University of Toronto, measured the genital responses of women to various images. It found that women were often more turned on by other women, although the researchers concluded that it was what people were doing that made a difference.

Heterosexual women, Dr. Chivers and her colleagues found, were no more excited by athletic naked men doing yoga or tossing stones into the ocean than they were by the control footage: long pans of the snowcapped Himalayas. When straight women viewed a video of a naked woman doing calisthenics, on the other hand, their blood flow increased significantly.

What really matters to women, Dr. Chivers said, at least in the somewhat artificial setting of watching movies while intimately hooked up to a device called a photoplethysmograph, is not the gender of the actor, but the degree of sensuality. Even more than the naked exercisers, they were aroused by videos of masturbation, and more still by graphic videos of couples making love. Women with women, men with men, men with women: it did not seem to matter much to her female subjects, Dr. Chivers said.

“Women physically don’t seem to differentiate between genders in their sex responses, at least heterosexual women don’t,” she said. “For heterosexual women, gender didn’t matter. They responded to the level of activity.”

The study found that men, both straight and gay, and lesbians, were more gender-oriented when it came to visual arousal. This echoes similar research by Northwestern University in 2003.

The research is discussed in a documentary called “Bi The Way” and is seen as an example of the bisexuality of women.

What grabs my attention here is that the study hasn’t factored in the way that straight women aren’t trained to appreciate male bodies. Society constantly presents the idea that “sexy” equals “female” and this is drummed into all of us from a young age. Advertising, films, television and magazines reinforce this. We’re taught to see the female body as alluring and erotic, as something to be desired. Men’s bodies were rarely held up as sex objects – at least, not until recently.

On top of that, there’s the way that porn, a tool of arousal, is almost always focused on the female body. From those first moments when we stole a glimpse at a Playboy or Penthouse as kids, women are trained to admire and lust after other females.

So I’m almost not surprised that the nude woman doing aerobics produced a sexual response. It’s a little Pavlovian, really.

Beyond that, the research does back up the idea that straight women can get turned on by anything. I like that we’re so flexible. It does, of course, advance the idea you can’t define “porn for women” because you can never tell what women want. Even so, I’m going to keep using the phrase because it’s a nice way of creating a little happy space on the internet for horny chicks who are sick of mainstream porn.

Another statistic to add to my collection. A survey of Swedish women by “yummy mummy” magazine Mama says that 28% of them have looked at online porn. This tallies with numerous other surveys which seem to always conclude that around a third of all women like to indulge in a little smut occasionally.

The survey also found that just because women become mothers, it doesn’t mean that they’re not also keen on sex.

43 percent of mums under the age of 29 own a dildo… 31 percent of those surveyed think their man’s freshly showered body is the greatest turn-on… 39 percent of the Swedish mums surveyed have had anal sex and 23 percent fantasize about other men or women during sexual intercourse. 37 percent of the younger mums (under age 29) have had lesbian fantasies. 2 percent have had group sex and 23 percent of mums under the age of 29 use handcuffs as part of sex play.

Ah, the freshness of Scandanavia! Cue the numerous cliches about blondes and jacuzzis and saunas and such.

My decision not to have kids was hard to make, but it was the right one for me.

Now, it seems, I’ve been backed up by a psychologist who says that having children significantly reduces people’s happiness. Research from Europe shows that, while people are very happy when expecting a baby, this drops off when the child is born and the nappies start piling up.

Apparently all those cute moments of laughter aren’t quite enough to make up for the boredom and drudgery of looking after kids.

The scientific evidence shows people are very bad at predicting what will make them happy, said Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University and the author of the book Stumbling On Happiness. He said people’s happiness goes into steep decline after they have children, and never recovers its old level until the children leave home. As a source of pleasure, playing with one’s offspring rates just above doing housework but below talking with friends, eating, or watching TV, research has shown.

Part of why I decided I din’t want children is because I’m happy with my life as it is. I do what I want, when I want. I’m unchained from the 9-5 existence and I’m my own person. And I have a lot of creative things I want to achieve which I wouldn’t be able to if I had a baby. Why would I give that up?

What’s interesting about this happiness research is that most parents will tell you it’s bullshit. Professor Gilbert has an interesting comment on this point.

Explaining why the statistics conflicted with most people’s view of parenthood, Prof Gilbert made the unusual comparison to buying a pair of Armani socks.

“When people own Armani socks they can’t stop telling you they are the best socks, the most amazing socks,” he said.

“(But) I suspect that one of the reasons that people who own Armani socks think they are wonderful is because they have paid $US85 ($A90.30) for a pair.

“The psychologists tell us that we like things more when we pay for them – what does that sound like? It sounds like children.

“We pay for them in time, attention, blood, sweat and tears – what kind of idiots would we be to devote all of that to the rearing of our young if they didn’t bring us some happiness?”

Naturally this makes me feel very smug… and lucky. And relieved.

There’s a bunch of comments here, most of them obnoxious and refuting the idea, but there’s also a retort from Professor Gilbert himself where he says:

The studies aren’t mine. I’m just reporting their results. The studies show that on average, people become less happy when they have kids. You may well feel differently than the average parent does. But why would you insist that the average parent must necessarily feel as you do? Do you really believe that YOUR experience must be EVERYONE’S experience?

Sources: SMH, News.com.au

The Porn Report seems to be making waves at the moment, with most newspapers giving the story a relatively positive spin. The Courier Mail, for example, gives Alan McKee plenty of column space here, with only lip service paid to the conservatives who argue against porn, albeit without any proof, by the sounds of it. I think that’s the cool thing about this book – it offers good, well researched statistics that can be used to counter all the usual hysterical arguments against porn.

The Australian has an excerpt from the book here.

The authors have also set up a site for the book, including a blog by Kath Albury that is already making for great reading. I’m going to include it in my blogroll because I think Kath has a lot of really worthwhile and intelligent things to say on the topic.

I’m a bit late with this but it’s worth blogging about anyway. Three Australian researchers have released The Porn Report, the result of several years of research and surveys. The finding that the media have jumped on is that – gasp! – women like porn.

17% of those interviewed for the book were women and the authors say that women make up an increasing percentage of the porn market.

That newcomer, says author Catharine Lumby, is likely to be a woman aged under 35 who lives in the suburbs, votes for a progressive party like the Greens, is in a monogamous relationship with a man and earns slightly more than average.

Lumby says research indicates that women who consume pornography favour watching DVDs on a laptop in the privacy of their home and also like to watch porn with a partner.

I actually participated in that survey and I’m pleased to see the book is finally out. I hope their findings are useful in reducing the stigma surrounding porn in this country and that it can be used to remove the ridiculous censorship laws in place here.

There’s a blog post and numerous comments on the topic here.

Most porn films these days (and I’m not talking about the frightening XXX types which are just wrong) seem to make the women’s needs as important as the man’s. (NB men). There is a big difference between the hardcore porn that could only possibly do things for dirty, disgusting pervs, but more the soft porn variety, which is not as, um, intrusive.

That’s probably one of the reasons more women are embracing it these days. It’s about having the choice and realising that porn comes in lots of different forms, from movies, to books, to even the naughty text message.

Nice to see a positive comment on porn in a News Ltd publication.

USA Today reports on a survey of 813 students about attitudes to porn. The researchers have concluded that young people are more accepting of porn than their parents, seeing it as an “acceptable way to express sexuality.” Naturally the study has prompted much hand wringing about the terrible influence of internet porn.

Most headlines have focused on the idea that women are more accepting of porn, although apparently most of those interviewed didn’t actually use it much. The study found that:

…only 31% of young women reported any viewing of pornography. Only 3.2% said they saw such material weekly or daily…

The men in the study reported watching it more often, with 86% of males having viewed porn in the last year.

The Inquirer brings us a rather salient point about this particular study and its participants. It was conducted by Brigham Young University which is a conservative Mormon university entirely owned by the Church of Latter Day Saints. Wikipedia says that 98% of all students there are Mormons.

So… essentially, your average young Mormon woman doesn’t have too much of an issue with porn, even if she’s not too inclined to use it regularly. It reminds me of the poll conducted in 2003 by evangelical magazine Today’s Christian Woman that found 34% of their female readers had accessed online porn.

See? Even the fine upstanding religious ladies like a bit of smut every now and again.

Pic is from here.