Newsflash! Women Like Porn

Nov 27, 2009 • Lessons, Porn •

We know that porn is no longer simply the realm of men, but just how many women are down? Dr. Yvonne Fulbright, founder of Sexuality Source and a sex columnist for Fox News, explores the inconsistencies in data:

During the first third of 2007, the Nielsen/Net Ratings reported that about one in three visitors to adult entertainment Web sites were female, with almost 13 million American women checking out porn online at least monthly.

This sounds like a lot, until you compare it to other findings. A Marie Claire/Esquire sex survey reported that only 17 percent of women go online for porn. The Australian government, too, reported that 17 percent of Australian women are porn consumers. (This is up 10 percent from more than one decade earlier).

Then there’s the matter of a testament on porn’s popularity often coming down to who stands to profit — or promote a personal agenda — in hyping up headlines. Hustler claims 56 percent of business at its video stores comes from women. At a recent sexuality conference, I questioned one female-oriented porn site presenter’s claim that the vast majority of women these days are into porn.

Where is the good study to support that? While the presenter’s site claimed 10,000 porn downloads per month, she had no way of knowing who was making the purchase, male or female. Regardless of the presenter’s irresponsibility in claiming to know more than she did, that sales number isn’t a lot when you consider that this is a multibillion-dollar industry.

Finally, there’s the issue of how porn is being defined in survey efforts. People tend to have distinct definitions for what constitutes porn versus erotica, which can influence data. I’ve also seen porn consumption defined beyond downloads or rentals, including activities like purchasing sex toys and phone sex.

Thus, exact numbers on who dabbles in explicit visual imagery become blurred.

Are you a woman who consumes pornography?

  • Orchid

    I’ve heard many straight women complain that most porn is not made for a female audience and not geared for female desire. And I’m not talking about soft lighting and out of focus erotica, but porn in which the male body is on display as an object of desire, and not just as a cypher onto which a male viewer can project his own image. Some women use gay porn because it does eroticise the male body, but it’s harder to project oneself into the action. Even femdom porn caters for the male audience, and appeals to the fatasy of male submissives rather than to dominant women.

    • Anaiis

      This has to be the best elaboration I have ever read as to why many women find sex unsatisfying. That’s partly what it is for me, too. I say partly because a lot of porn focuses on the scene and the faces, and unless it’s a facial, I don’t really need to see anyone’s faces. Give me organs savagely thrusting and I’m there.