High tea and sex anyone? Meet the women redefining porn

A woman discovers her boyfriend watching porn in the opening scene of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s new film Don Jon. Chaos ensues.

“Why do you watch that?” she screams.

“Why do you watch all the stupid movies that you watch?” he responds, referring to the rom-coms she drags him to see.

“Movies and porno are different Jon, they give awards for movies,” she yells.

“They give awards for porn too,” he retorts.

It’s a conversation that shows the gender gap in the perception of porn. Adult film is seen as a man’s world in which women are rarely equals. Now, some females are fighting back with a growing movement to make more porn for women by women.

However, at a time when the Government is trying to clamp down on access to internet porn, women’s groups see it as exploitation and many feminist organisations are campaigning to not be judged by their bodies alone, can porn really empower women?

How many women watch porn?

Across the internet an estimated 40 per cent of internet pornography is watched by females, alone or with a partner. Anna Span, the UK’s first female porn director, says nearly half the visitors to her porn site, Anna Span’s Diary, are women.

“Forty-five per cent of the visitors are female and they range between the ages of 25-55,” the 40-year-old former Liberal Democrat candidate tells me. “There are more women watching porn than ever.”

Sarah, a 24-year-old professional living in London, is living proof of that statistic. She watches porn at least once a week. “I mainly watch it by myself,” she confides. “A part of me feels a secret pleasure that I enjoy something that men feel is exclusively designed for them.”

A man’s world

As many women attest, a lot of mainstream porn is a turn-off for Sarah. “In general I don’t like seeing a man in porn, they’re usually unattractive and older,” she says.

“They usually have sex with the girl in a way I wouldn’t find enjoyable, I like to see porn where the women seem genuinely aroused, that’s often lesbian porn. If porn stars looked like Henry Cavil and looked like they were having passionate sex with a woman this would not be the case but they don’t.”

Research, by anti-pornography campaigner Gail Dines, shows that the most popular acts performed in internet porn include vaginal, oral and anal penetration by several men at the same time and ejaculation in a female’s face, eyes and mouth.

With scenes like this being the new status quo, it isn’t surprising that feminist groups such as Object have stated a broad opposition to porn. They claim that it objectifies women and leads to a society saturated by sexualised representations of women, with no male equivalent.

However, other groups think that rather than dismiss all porn as offensive, we should instead reclaim it for females.

What women really want

Span makes porn for women. There are several differences between this and mainstream porn. First and foremost, she wants the woman in the film to enjoy it.

“Lots of things make it different, there is more foreplay and we use soft focus cameras,” she says. “I try and cast good looking guys and instead of the cameras just focusing on the female we focus in on the man as well.”

A woman’s attention to detail, too, carries through when watching and directing sex scenes. “Women enjoy a sense of reality, so the dialogue needs to be believable as does the setting,” she explains. “If the story involves a nurse and she is wearing your typical Ann Summers slutty nurse outfit it can kill the scene. We order in the same nurses outfits you see on soaps on television to keep it realistic.”

Adult movie star Kitty Stryker runs the Ladies High Tea and Pornography Society where women can meet up, drink tea and watch and discuss porn without being judged. “It’s a really special environment, there are not a lot of spaces where women are seen to be consumers of this, or respected as such,” Stryker says. “No longer did any of us feel that pornography was just for straight men, or something private, but instead it’s something we can freely talk about amongst ourselves.”

Things are changing in America too. Two weeks ago, the American actress Amanda Seyfried (who plays the porn star Linda Lovelace in the new Hollywood film about her life) praised the San Francisco porn company Kink for making female friendly porn. “Some of it’s produced in a way that’s safe and positive, like Kink,” she says. “That’s a beautiful thing.”

Exploitation?

For all the porn produced in a safe way, there is plenty that won’t be. Stryker refuses to work with many large porn companies as she doesn’t like the way they treat women.

“Are some women exploited? Definitely, but I disagree that exploitation is inevitable because I have sex on film,” she says.

“The industry doesn’t have legal rights or unionisation, in that, performers can’t really defend themselves against bad contracts or sexual harassment from producers or other performers.

“As a queer porn performer, I choose my own co-stars, I’m having the sex I would normally except someone’s filming it and my hair is slightly more done-up. I personally have chosen not to work with other mainstream porn companies because they aren’t like that.”

However, Span does admit that not all women are treated well by the industry. “Being a porn star is not something you just fall into but that’s not to say women aren’t taken advantage of,” she says. “I create a safe environment for my films, there’s no one else on set.”

So why do they choose to work in an industry with so many hurdles?

“I used to hate porn as a teenager until one day I walked down Old Compton Street and I realised the reason I was angry was that none of this catered for me or my sex,” Span says. “Now it can.”

Perhaps with safe practice and determination, these women trying to change the nature and style of porn can do exactly that.