Is 'porn for women' solving industry issues?
You can't solve a puzzle with only one piece
Over the last couple of years you’ve probably heard the term: porn for women. You then probably wondered what that actually means. As a woman, I’m still wondering. I personally find this term a bit problematic, because it assumes what porn for women should be. Nevertheless, one good thing that some of these sites are calling for is better porn literacy, and sex education. This is incredibly important, and very much needed. However, they are missing the mark, and ultimately are not providing the solution to these problems around porn, sex ed and consent. Why? Three reasons:
You can’t fix a problem if you are only talking to half of the audience
The issues in our society around porn, sexual violence and consent are large. It is vitally important that we do something to improve sex education, and improve porn literacy in order to in turn reduce sexual violence. However, if we are only providing better porn literacy for women, then we are not going to solve anything, because we are only talking to 50%.
Don’t get me wrong it is important that we have these services and resources for women, but what about men? When I first started Freyja I had reached out to numerous sex educators to get them onto our site, and most of them were targeting women as their audience. This started to really bother me because I wanted to make sure our site catered for everyone. So, I tried to find more sex educators for men, and this started to feel like a mission impossible. This is a true shame as on Freyja we received a lot of requests from male users wanting this type of content. And so, the demand is there.
Too niche
A lot of these ‘for women’ sites are on a subscription based service or just cater to a particular niche. Not that there’s anything wrong with a niche, but the reality is that most porn consumption is done on tube based sites, and so if we want to fix these issues on a larger and more impactful scale then we need to be hitting it with a tube site solution, not just another niche.
You can’t alienate the mainstream performers
The mainstream industry is popular, that’s why it’s mainstream. And as new niche pornographic companies you have to have an understanding of how the mainstream industry works and the performers in it. There’s been many mainstream performers who feel or see the niche ‘for women’ companies as insulting, or judging them for their work in the mainstream industry, and in turn they then alienate these performers who have a big influence and so could play an instrumental role in the solution.
Overall, I’m not saying that niche ‘for women’ sites are bad, but that if we want to solve the issues around consent, education and porn literacy then it needs to be a team effort and better content needs to be made for women, men and the LGBTQ+ community. If we only have one piece we aren’t going to be able to solve the puzzle. Similarly, there needs to be a solution that is not just a niche, but a safe/ethical alternative for the mainstream tube/fan sites, where the actual audience is.