Didn't You Hear? What Women Want … Is Smarter Porn

One of the world’s leading free adult streaming sites, Pornhub, has recently revealed statistics on what their women viewers search for and watch. And while they might have found the results surprising, I for one did not. As a site catering to, and run by men leads me to question the legitimacy of these ‘statistics’ about women, and I’m not the only one… Many people are left asking “how exactly can they tell if a user is a woman?” And wouldn’t the users ALREADY be those looking for the mainstream, hard core material?

Like with all sites of its kind, just the homepage might be enough to scare some porn for women
novices away: hundreds of scenes (and even more graphic advertisements) picturing voluptuous women wearing heavy makeup, having all manner of orifices filled. The texts accompanying the video clips manage to be even worse than the images, often just stringing together nonsense tag words that have nothing to do with the video at all.

For those who are well acquainted with the site and its content, and who know what they want to watch, it’s a simple matter to use the search bar. For those interested in browsing, there are a few dozen convenient categories from which you can choose. Most streaming sites now offer the category ‘For Women’ – the logical place for women to browse for videos, isn’t it?

Well actually, no. After conducting their own study, Pornhub found that women viewers were actually watching movies in the Lesbian and Gay categories at higher rates than that ‘For Women.’ The author doesn’t offer an explanation, but to me this clearly signals that women know pleasure when they see it, and don’t want traditional chauvinist attitudes ruling their sex movies. They would rather watch lesbian sex because it portrays a fairer power balance that isn’t all about superiority, pushing, shoving and dominance.

I see further evidence of this in the women’s search terms: “eating pussy,” “licking pussy,” “tribbing,” and “scissoring.” It’s all centered on the clitoris! Women know what pleasure feels like and looks like … and it doesn’t look like a person being solely a vehicle for men’s orgasm!

So where is Pornhub’s For Women category falling short? Well, one look will tell you that whoever curates the videos equates ‘what women want’ with slow, hetero sex with lots of kissing, filmed in HD using lots of light and crisp bed sheets. It’s the male idea of what female sexuality is. And that’s IT. Where are the stories of sexual women seeking and finding their pleasure, rather than being passive players? Where is the diversity in performers, bodies, sex acts and fetishes? Where can we find men jerking off, women tribbing, blowjobs and pegging in the same place? Where are the movies MADE BY women?

If you’re looking for smart porn like this, it’s clear you won’t be finding it on Pornhub, where their own study shows us that women want something smart, something new, something different. And for that, you’ll have to go somewhere that celebrates those values, like my own Lust Cinema and XConfessions!