Content warning: mention of sexual violence
Until now, there have been limited spaces for women to express their experiences and relationships with mainstream online pornography. Women On Porn by Dr. Fiona Vera-Gray, released 8 February 2024, looks to change this.
We can no longer only consider men as producers and consumers of pornography, as Vera-Gray’s interviews with one hundred different women demonstrate. Their perceptions range from loving it, to hating it, to many not knowing exactly how they feel about it. The book creates a space for these experiences to be shared, and therefore encourages a better understanding of how mainstream pornography might shape our sexuality and sexual scripts.
Dr. Vera-Gray discusses her interviews, conducted with these women between the ages of 18-70, from a range of class and racial backgrounds, which reveal their intimate, and often previously unspoken, thoughts about porn. Society usually prevents women from expressing such feelings, including those of pleasure in watching porn, or feelings of guilt and shame, or often a mixture of both. This conflict of feeling, particularly given the racist, misogynistic or violent nature of so much of popular pornography, is discussed. As a consequence of feeling guilty for viewing and potentially gaining pleasure from pornography that might be degrading to women, some women expressed wanting to use ‘ethical’ or ‘feminist’ porn, yet the reality remains that the most accessible and therefore most popular pornography is that of mainstream, online websites, where women’s pleasure is rarely at the forefront.
Dr. Vera-Gray’s work as Deputy Director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies at London Metropolitan University includes research revealing that the top porn sites promote sexually violent pornography to first-time users, a startling find that is deeply uncomfortable and likely restrictive of women’s sexual freedom. Further, such high levels of mainstream porn being sexually violent leads to a blurred boundary between consensual and non-consensual sex, creating a climate in which sexual violence is normalised.
With Women On Porn opening up this conversation, women’s feelings about the content of mainstream porn sites are finally being heard. We can hope that this will contribute to changing the content of mainstream porn, and leading to greater sexual freedom of women and reducing the normalisation of sexual violence.
This focus on women’s sexual freedom and autonomy is also central to current debates over deepfake porn, where women’s faces are inserted into porn videos without their consent. Deepfake porn is freely and easily accessible online, including on porn websites, as well as across much social media. While Taylor Swift and many other celebrities are the most well-known victims of deepfake porn abuse, it can affect anyone. In a recent podcast by the University of Edinburgh’s Girl* Up Edinburgh society that I took part in, we discussed how all women and girls now face the ever-present threat of being made into deepfake porn, which creates a constant sense of anxiety and fear of victimisation, a burden simply not felt by most men. We must, therefore, listen to women’s experiences of such types of porn to better regulate it to prevent harm.
Women On Porn highlights women’s experiences with porn, and leads the way for a greater understanding of women and girls’ experiences with all types of pornography. Societal attitudes towards sex, women’s sexuality, and porn are slowly changing, with books like Women On Porn advocating for a more gender equal society free from violence against women and girls.
“Social Media Week 2015 in New York’s Highline Stages” by MichaelTapp is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0