Women Sex Watch

Women Sex Watch

Samantha Lauriello is a social media strategist and editor. She was previously an assistant editor at Health before moving over to Travel + Leisure as a social media editor.

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There's no shame in watching porn, right? Seriously, lots of women do it. Sometimes it's the only way to satisfy those sexual fantasies that for whatever reason you aren't trying to live out IRL. You know, like BDSM, taking part in an orgy, or experimenting with the gender you don't usually go for.

Turns out that last fantasy may be a major reason women visit porn sites. A recent PornHub report shows that "lesbian" is the most popular category for female viewers of this digital porn portal. The category was actually 151% more popular with women than with men. Surprising, right?

Of course, lesbian women probably account for some of that popularity. But the data suggests that a lot of straight women are clicking into it, too. A Gallup poll found just 5% of women identify as LGBT, which leads us to believe plenty of straight-identifying women are getting off on girl-on-girl porn. To find out why so many women love to watch other women get it on, we asked a sex therapist to weigh in.

But first, let's clear one thing up: Just because you watch lesbian porn doesn't mean you're sexually into ladies. Sure, some women might be, and that's perfectly fine. But you can also just be in it for the fantasy, says Holly Richmond, PhD, a sex therapist in Southern California. The same goes for any type of porn, she adds. What you enjoy online could be entirely different from what you enjoy in the bedroom. But if you're a straight woman and you find yourself digging lesbian porn, these four reasons might explain why.

We've all seen such hardcore porn that it's made us think, Would that even be enjoyable? Richmond says the answer is usually no. "Most porn, especially hetero-normative porn, is all about the performance," she explains. "It's all about what it looks like and what it sounds like, not about what it feels like." Lesbian porn is different, though, because it's often written by women, for women, she adds. Plus, hetero porn tends to put the spotlight on the penis. In girl-on-girl scenes, the entire female body is the star of the show.

Hetero porn is typically centered around male pleasure, Richmond says, and it often involves super aggressive intercourse with the guy in control. But penis-in-vagina jackhammering isn't what makes most women hit that high note. Instead, it's more about clitoral stimulation, and there's lots of that in lesbian porn. Oh, and hetero porn always seems to end when the guy ejaculates. Lesbian porn is all about women reaching that big O.

"I always say porn stars are like our Olympic athletes of sex," Richmond says. "There's just nothing real about it." She explains that lesbian porn tends to feature a wider range of body types than hetero porn, which makes it way easier to relate to the performers and the action they're enjoying. You also won't be looking at a female porn star's body and thinking, Why don't I look like that? Instead, you can just focus on what feels good. No distractions.

Culturally, it's more acceptable for women to experiment sexually with women than for men to play around with men. That's not to say lesbian women don't still face discrimination. But when a woman hooks up with another woman, it's often seen as sexy; when a man does it, it's seen as strange.

That's one reason women are more sexually fluid, but Richmond says it's also in our DNA. Studies have shown that women are turned on by a much wider range of things than men, she says. Why we're hard-wired that way is unclear, but it's something to embrace and enjoy.

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It appears we're not as into cuddling and deep-kissing as everyone thinks.
Mainstream, run-of-the-mill porn isn't without its faults of course, but we all know we're all watching it so there's no point pretending otherwise. There's a stereotype that women who watch adult films are searching for sensual spooning, pecks on the cheek and hand-holding because that's the only stuff that gets us off. Some people think we go for romantic porn vibes, y'know, the kind with an actual story.
Well, PornHub just released 10 years worth of data that proves otherwise. Oh yeah. It turns out, while everyone thought we were cautiously typing 'couple snogging' into the search bar, we were actually looking for HUGE PENISES . The search term 'world's biggest c*ck" grew by 499% among women between 2014 and 2015. Let's compare that to the amount of women searching for 'romantic sex' which only grew 125%.
In that time period, women were also very hot for: men performing oral sex on women and hard sex that involves 'screaming', according to The Cut . The most popular type of content among women was lesbian, followed by gay (male). MILF and squirting also made it into the top 10.
While butt loads of females were searching 'for women', they were also quite into 'pregnancy porn'. Whatever gets you off pals.
We're also apparently into watching gay sex, as 37% of people watching guy on guy action were women. Plus, we're spending over a minute longer on the site than men.

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When women comment publicly about porn , some say they enjoy watching, but most condemn it as incomprehensible, off-putting, disgusting, misogynous, or worse. It’s surprising that 2019 Google Analytics data show that the audience for PornHub, one of the world’s most popular porn sites (30 billion views annually), is 32 percent female.
Corroborating evidence on female porn viewing comes from a University of Denver study of 1,291 coupled individuals. Among the women, 45 percent said they watched with their partners, 30 percent by themselves.
Sexologists generally agree that porn-watching women fall into four groups:
But the available evidence suggests that these four reasons don't add up to almost one-third of the porn audience. What have sexologists overlooked? Personally, I believe it’s the surprisingly large proportion of women who have BDSM fantasies of sexual submission.
Like boys (and many older men), girls (and many older women) feel uninformed about sex and curious about intercourse positions, oral sex, and kinky play. They know that porn is only a few taps or clicks away on phones or computers.
There’s been scant research on porn viewing to satisfy sexual curiosity, but studies of adolescent girls suggest that once porn has answered their questions, few return to it frequently, if at all. Consequently, it’s highly unlikely that female sexual curiosity accounts for more than one-quarter of the porn audience.
In 1984, porn star Candida Royalle (born Candace Vadala, 1950-2015) tired of its myopically male perspective and founded Femme Productions to produce sex videos aimed at women. Femme videos contain plenty of you know what, but the characters also converse, laugh, and have relationships. The sex is not fixated on the genitals. It includes whole-body massage. And unlike standard porn, there’s as much cunnilingus as fellatio.
Two studies have compared gender reactions to standard porn vs. Femme videos:
I know of no studies that estimate the popularity of feminist porn. But before her death, I was acquainted with Femme founder Royalle, who expressed frustration about the difficulty of getting her videos distributed. Mainstream video distributors wouldn’t touch Femme, saying, “It’s porn.” But porn distributors also passed: “That’s not porn.” Royalle distributed through her website and gained some traction with sex-toy marketers. But it’s hard to believe that feminist sex videos account for more than a tiny fraction of the porn audience—let alone 30 percent.
University of Chicago investigators asked a representative 1,749 U.S. women, age 18 to 59 if, during the previous year, they’d had partner sex four or more times a week. Only a small minority did.
Not surprisingly, that frequency was reported most by young adults (11 percent), with the proportion of highly sexual women declining with age (50 and older, 2 percent). Overall, around 5 percent of women of all adult ages said they had partner sex four or more times a week.
A European study supports these findings. The researchers surveyed 2,599 Croatian women age 18 to 60. Those reporting partner sex several times a week—7 percent.
A Michigan researcher interviewed 44 highly sexual women. That’s not a huge number, but this is the only such study I’m aware of. All the respondents reported intense libidos that compelled them to have lots of sex, both solo and partnered. Their attitudes paralleled those of the horniest men. It’s reasonable to presume that women with intense male-style lust would deal with it the way men do, by frequently self-sexing to porn.
But could 5 percent of women account for 30 percent of the porn audience? Possibly, but I’d be surprised.
Most studies show that women who watch porn usually do so with partners—before sex to pique arousal, and/or during sex to spice up erotic play. The Denver study (above) showed that 45 percent of couples have viewed porn together. Or have they? A Swedish study of 398 heterosexual couples age 22 to 67, shows that only 15 percent said they’d ever watched with a lover.
It’s likely that a good deal of women’s porn watching can be explained by couples viewing it together. But 30 percent of the porn audience? That seems unlikely.
The Surprising Popularity of D/s and BDSM Fantasies
Which brings me to women who have fantasies of sexual submission. Most Americans consider consensual kink—domination and submission (D/s) and bondage , discipline, and sado-masochism (BDSM)—minority sexual pleasures. As far as actual physical play is concerned, that’s true. But kinky fantasies are remarkably common.
During kinky play, men and women may assume either role—dominant (dom, top) or submissive (sub, bottom). But women generally gravitate toward playing the sub—but with safe words, ironically, they’re always in full control.
Whether or not porn explicitly depicts D/s and/or BDSM, a great deal of it contains elements of consensual erotic domination and submission. The men say things like, “Take off your dress … your panties. Now spread your legs….” The women obey, sometimes with big smiles. Or the men say nothing. They simply unzip and the willing women quickly drop to their knees.
Feminist porn also depicts a good deal of D/s and BDSM, usually with women as subs. One Femme video is titled My Surrender , and a good deal of feminist porn features women reveling in men’s playful erotic commands and domination.
Sales of Fifty Shades of Grey prove there’s a huge female audience hungry for D/s entertainment. But after women with sub fantasies read the Fifty Shades trilogy and watch the movies, where can they turn for similar entertainment? A great deal of porn.
I can’t prove that D/s fantasies play a key role in the surprisingly large proportion of the porn audience that’s female. Sex researchers haven’t ventured there. But it’s difficult to believe that the four standard explanations account for a porn audience that’s 30 percent female. Women’s fantasies of erotic submission just might supply the missing link.
Dear readers, what do you think? Do you believe that almost one-third of the porn audience is female? Why do you think women watch? And if you’re among them, why do you?
Facebook image: Marcos Mesa Sam Wordley/Shutterstock
Alter, A. “E.L. James, New Ties to Fame,” New York Times , April 13, 2019.
Blumberg, E. “The Lives and Voices of Highly Sexual Women,” Journal of Sex Research (2003) 40:146.
Bridges, A.J. et al “Romantic Partners Use of Pornography: Its Significance for Women,” Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy (2003) 29:1.
Daneback, K. et al. “Use of Pornography in a Random Sample of Norwegian Heterosexual Couples,” Archives of Sexual Behavior (2009) 38:746.
Kohut, T. et al. “Perceived Effects of Pornography on the Couple Relationship: Initial Findings of Open-Ended, Participant-Informed, Bottom-Up Research,” Archives of Sexual Behavior (2017) 46:585.
Laumann, E.O. et al. The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States . University of Chicago Press, 1994, p. 88.
Maddox, A.M. et al. “Viewing Sexually Explicit Materials Alone or Together: Associations with Relationship Quality,” Archives of Sexual Behavior (2011) 40:441.
Stulhofer, A, et al. “Is High Sexual Desire a Risk for Women’s Relationship and Sexual Well-Being?
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