Porn For Women: Erotica, Yaoi, and the Porn Industry.

Porn.

Analyze the word. Cower in fear of the word. Regardless of what people say everyone likes it, right? Well, you're probably thinking something along the lines of, "All men secretly do but most women don't." This is true in a lot of ways but has no real answer why. Now, I could launch into some lengthy discussion of repression of female sexuality and a discussion of which is the hornier sex but I'm going to narrow it down to one specific aspect of why women don't seem to be all that into porn: accessibility.

More specifically, I'm saying that porn that appeals to women is limited and kind of niche market and a lot of porn that is actually created for women is somewhat flawed in its design.

Also, what you see to the left is not porn but a potentially very sexist joke because obviously what turns a woman on is seeing the man do the house work. Obviously.

Let me go back to a really great article I read a few months back called "What Women Want: Porn and the Frontier of Women's Sexuality." Definitely read this article when you get a chance (after you finish reading this, perhaps?). The first part of the article is an interview with a male porn star named James Deen who has recently attained a large fanbase amongst internet-loving teen girls who follow his Twitter and make GIFs of their favorite scenes from his movies. The article easily nails down Deen's appeal to this demographic that the porn industry is not actually trying to appeal to: 1.) he has a very approachable, "cute" look that girls would find appealing and that is highly contrary to the old-fashioned, early 90s, male idea of what a porn star should look like (beefy, tribal tattoos, etc.) and 2.) according to the girls, his performance style is more intimate, more like he believably cares about the female performer and her pleasure instead of just hammering away to a money shot.

In the other part of the article, it discusses the porn industry itself and how it is a male-dominated business with female-dominated actors because they are only appealing to their biggest consumers: men. However, this doesn't mean that they haven't tried to carve out a little market for women with romantic comedy-esque stories written by women but directed by men. But there are two big problems I can see with this. The first is that porn that is directed by men is unlikely to have sex scenes shot in a way that would appeal to women. The way I explained it to my male friends was this: If you are shooting a fellatio scene for a man, what are you mostly focusing on? You are focusing on what the girl is doing to the man. But what if you are shooting a fellatio scene to appeal to a woman? You mostly focus on the man's reaction to what is happening. This applies to whether you are trying to make a porn for women with plot or without plot. Not all women need plot with their porn but they do need sex that is appealing to them in some way.

The second problem is related to the plot aspect in that a romantic comedy story is not necessarily the best kind of story for a porn even if you are trying to appeal to women. Women do often find a reasoning and lead up to sex to be more fulfilling than just the mechanics, this is true, but romantic comedies derive their appeal from the idea of falling in love with the sex being very clean and romantic. Someone who wants porn is not usually looking for the idea of love so much as they are looking for desire. A story about two people who are sexually attracted to each other but keep having their attempts at consummation thwarted until they are finally able to give in, would be a much more satisfying porn plot than one about falling in love.

So the Western world is not really "women porn" friendly. What about Japan?  (Have I mentioned I have a Japanese minor? Yes, this is where all my East vs. West themed posts come from.)

In Japan there is a genre of sexy manga and anime that is completely absent in the Western world and that is the genre of "yaoi." Yaoi (often subdivided by level of content with the milder type being "Boy's Love" or "BL") is a genre of story about young, homosexual men that is written to appeal to women. The word itself is an acronym meaning, "Yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi" or "No peak (climax), no fall (punch line/denouement), no meaning". There is also the word "fujoshi" which means, "yaoi fangirl" or literally "rotten girl" and the term "bara", which is an opposite of yaoi as it is stories about homosexual men written for homosexual men.

The idea of yaoi is often shocking to people from the Western world who are unfamiliar with it and trying to understand its appeal is a real fun game of psychology (if you are like me and think psychology is really fun). I first read academic papers on yaoi in college with one in particular, "Beautiful, Borrowed, and Bent: "Boys' Love" as Girls' Love in Shōjo Manga" by James Welker, standing out to me. The article presented the idea that yaoi is designed for girls because the boys are both attractive to girls but feminized in a way that makes them not threatening (see: Bishonen). Yaoi presents boys who are safe enough to be liked by girls who have not yet fully become comfortable with themselves as sexual beings in real life situations but who are sexually interested in boys and also, the fact that both partners are male takes away from the pressure of power balances in heterosexual relationships where the girl may be playing a role she does not want to play (I talk more about this in my entry called, "The Eastern Bishonen and The Western Pop Star"). Welker then examines this claim saying that in yaoi there are still often defined gender roles with the "seme" (the "attacker") being the more masculine and strong one and the "uke" (the "reciever") being the more feminized and emotional one. So is yaoi really all that different from heterosexual porn?


When I went to Anime Boston this year there was a really fantastic lecture called, "Why Western Women Love Yaoi" that delved into this same idea. The lecturer (who was absolutely amazing) talked less about the gender roles in the yaoi and more about gender roles in society and how they differ from what women see in yaoi. Her point was that in the Western world (and actually, most cultures) men are raised to be stoic and hold their emotions inside and women are constantly trying to get them to open up. The boys of yaoi are emotional men and it provides a related but different fulfillment for the women reading to experience men who are comfortable with saying how they feel and are easier for them to relate to. This would support the idea behind what I said about Western pornography and how women need feeling behind the actions. Of course, where I argued that for just simple porn the only emotion really needed is believable desire, yaoi provides more of that emotional investment that the romantic comedy porn do but in a pretty different way.


There could even be more basic ideas behind why this sort of story with two guys is so effective for some women. There could be the same idea that every straight guy I've ever talked to has used as an explanation for why he likes girl-on-girl: one girl is awesome but two being sexual together is even better. There is also the fact that many women will agree that a lot of mediums lack well-developed and likeable female characters and manga is a big culprit of this. With two male characters, there is no female character you are expected to relate to and can't.


And now we move onto the topical section of our entry: I'm going to talk about "Fifty Shades of Grey." If you have been living under a rock let me enlighten you on this matter: it is a best-selling erotica novel that was based off a "Twilight" fanfiction but with the character's names and small details changed so it wouldn't be copyright infringement. Being someone who likes to be informed about things before I made fun of them, someone who is a reader/writer of fanfiction, and someone who likes erotica to some degree, I had to read this book.

My short review? It might be the worst published thing I've ever read. I could write a master's thesis on how terrible the writing itself was before I even get into the character and plot. It was written like a Ritalin-addled 15-year-old who's primary knowledge of sex is a vague gynecology textbook and a few shots of Skinamax. The same phrases are repeated over and over, there's not a single word you might find on the SATs (or outside a middle school conversation), and the so-called S&M sex was exceedingly boring and tame.


Let me try to be nice for a short second. The characters are actually ever so slightly more developed than the actual "Twilight" characters but they are still not interesting and they are obsessed with talking about how hot the other one is. What is supposed to pass for plot boils down to a simple conflict of, "Bella wants romance, Edward wants S&M, they compromise."


But here's what IS interesting about this book (and presumably its successors): the nature of the relationship itself is perfectly crafted to appeal to as many women (and even men) as possible.

Why? It breaks down to two main nouns:  


1.) Acceptability. Although this book is often advertised as an "erotic S&M novel" the actual level of S&M is debatable. The male character of the story wants a strictly S&M based relationship which includes being in control of her every move as well as the advertised "S&M sex." The female character wants a romantic and emotional relationship and is afraid of S&M sex because of her convenient ignorance on the subject of intimacy. A pure S&M relationship itself is often an issue for some people, particularly when the female is the submissive. To some eyes, it is degrading and contrary to the strive towards strong femaleness to be a submissive. However, this is obviously misunderstood as the submissive both submits willingly and always has the power to say no to the dominant. While the book manages to address this issue, to a lot of people the idea of an S&M relationship is not as appealing as a conventional romantic and friendly one. However, the idea of inventive sex alone is something that people want from their porn so the book uses the S&M idea in the most acceptable way possible. Women (and men) can live vicariously through the characters as they have both a romance and an exciting sex life.


2.) Ignorance. To put it simply, you could find much better written and more interesting smut on the internet. Hell, you could find better erotica in a bookstore near the copy of "Fifty Shades of Grey." But because of the tendency of the public to place fanfiction on a lower ring than published literature and the fact that there are still a great many people out there (many of them middle-aged women) who still don't understand all the uses of the internet (or Literotica or kink memes), the only way these people can find porn is in the conventional bookstore way and because of point #1, this book has managed to get popular enough for people to read in public unashamed. It also helps that, in terms of style, it is written for the barely literate masses.


So kudos to this lazy fanfiction writer who loves "Twilight" for creating something so perfectly designed to appeal to the public. I wish I was this clever. Although honestly, just find smut online and if you want a good representation of an S&M relationship that separates sex from it entirely, watch "Secretary." It's a solid movie.


But, anyway, the point I'm making by talking about this terrible novel is the point I have been making all along, porn for women is still not a common thing and in order to create it, you need emotion; some emotion no matter how shallow or poorly written or unconventional. 


However, porn for women can be a marketable endeavor as this book is beginning to prove. Will this shitty book be what makes the public realize this? 

Only time will tell.