From female directors to virtual reality and erotica apps — how women are reclaiming the porn industry
When a tall, dark, handsome stranger unbuttons my top, then coos that he wants to show me how much I mean to him, things escalate quickly.
First, a foot rub before foreplay, and then his genitals are suddenly millimetres from my face.
Far from being arousing, it sends me into a fit of laughter. I’m not having a night of passion with a new partner – I’m trying out virtual reality (VR) porn for the first time.
Porn hasn’t traditionally been female-friendly, but that doesn’t stop almost a third of British women watching some form of it on a weekly basis.*
And the landscape is changing, as futuristic new types of porn such as VR take centre stage.
A healthy 22% of all VR porn is watched by women – and the UK is now second only to the US in its appetite for the growing medium.**
Heralded as having huge potential for female viewers, VR promises more intimacy – but the futuristic tech is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to women-friendly porn.
“Historically, women have been ignored by porn,” says Dominnique Karetsos, CEO of Healthy Pleasure Group, which specialises in sexual health technology.
“We are now seeing a younger female who is more sophisticated and more open to talking about sexual desires. She has more money in her wallet to spend and she’s demanding innovation and entertainment that resonates with her.”
Even before lockdown sent sales of sex toys sky-rocketing, VR porn had already exploded in popularity. There are 171 million users in the world, and 500,000 VR erotic films are enjoyed each day on Pornhub.
Former librarian Ela Darling, 34, from Texas, became the world’s first VR porn star back in 2013.
“With VR porn there is a sense of engagement and intimacy,” she explains. “It doesn’t feel like you are just watching sex acts on a screen, it feels like you are present and that really appeals to women.”
A lot has changed in the seven years since Ela shot her first VR scene in a college dorm in Washington. Technology has improved dramatically and become more affordable.
For around £400, you can now buy a decent VR headset, or for just £15 you can turn your phone into a VR headset with Google Cardboard – though Ela warns that you very much get what you pay for with VR.
When I try it out, I watch on a HTC Vive Cosmos headset, a device that will set you back an eye-watering £699. I was blown away by how crystal-clear the picture was – not quite real life, but how I imagine it would look if you could step inside your television.
Ultimately, however, I find it more amusing than anything, and as the action hots up, my neck – weighed down with the headset – aches. To top it all off, I begin to feel faintly seasick.
The most popular type of VR porn is filmed using a point of view (POV) technique, with the camera angled so that the viewer feels more like a participant than the traditional voyeur.
Most of the time the user will look down and see a ripped, well-hung man – though some films, such as the one I’m watching, are filmed from a woman’s POV, and when I look down I see the body of a very tanned woman in stockings.
There’s also VR porn made for couples to explore fantasies without risking their relationships – having a VR threesome, for example, is less likely to bring on a fit of jealousy from either partner than a threesome IRL.
Dinorah Hernandez is a production director at BaDoink, a leading producer of VR porn. She says they receive constant feedback that viewers want two things: more eye contact and more talking.
“It’s the opposite of a lot of the traditional porn that features faceless women,” she says.
“We’ve tried filming some rougher scenes, but they get a consistently low rating. Something about feeling like an active participant turns viewers off from rough sex – instead, users want to see pleasure and smiles.”
This is a marked difference from the types of porn that have risen in popularity since the birth of the internet in 1983.
One study showed that 88% of regular porn featured some sort of violence against women, everything from spanking to gagging and serious force.***
Separate research suggested men who watched violent porn were over six times more likely to act in sexually aggressive ways.†
There are hopes that, with so much money flooding the VR world, this craving for a more intimate, respectful form of porn may have a trickle-down effect into the 2D industry.
In the last few years, there has also been a boom in female-made erotica via free and subscription sites such as Bellesa and Ersties. Swedish producer and director Erika Lust has a cult following for her subscription-based, mostly 2D porn.
In September 2019, she released her first VR porn film, and as I wriggle back into my headset, I can see why people love her work.
Her acclaimed VR film 360º Of Lust is a world away from my last cringey experience: it’s an arty orgy scene with a diverse cast, and no leering beefcakes in sight. Instead of being filmed using a POV camera angle, this movie is voyeur-style, so the viewer can move around the set. It’s far sexier, without a single cheesy line.
“I started making porn, because I was sick of watching movies that weren’t about women’s pleasure,” says Erika.
“I was also perplexed by the number of aggressive narratives, which are anything but sexy. We are used to adult movies made by men, where you have close-up genital shots and emotionless story lines, where sex is something done to women, rather than them actively participating.”
Erika’s movies are unlike anything I’ve seen before. Intriguing story lines replace shrieking fake orgasms, and instead of watching women perform for men, female pleasure takes centre stage. As well as being more enjoyable to watch, female made porn can also be better for the performers.
“Dinorah is the first female producer I’ve worked with in my five years in porn,” says Honour May, who’s now made a dozen VR films and is one of BaDoink’s most popular stars.
“Working with a woman was a totally different experience. She let me stop for breaks when I was in uncomfortable positions, whereas a man wouldn’t think about it. It’s frustrating when a male director asks me to do something ridiculous, something uncomfortable that women wouldn’t enjoy. Women make porn that other women actually want to watch.”
Neuroscientist Dr Nicole Prause has spent years studying sexuality and the brain, founding her own research company Liberos.
“When we measure the genital responses of people watching traditional porn and ask them how sexually aroused they feel, there’s a big disparity between what men and women report,” she explains.
“Men’s reported arousal state tends to mimic their erections, whereas women will be having a genital response to the porn, but say they don’t feel mentally aroused. They also report increased negative emotions such as anxiety, anger and shame.”
While male sexual difficulties, such as erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation are widely discussed and heavily researched, women’s issues are often brushed under the carpet.
“For women, sexual issues aren’t as simple as a lack of blood flow to your penis – if we have sexual difficulties, we’re seen as just not being into sex, which is a big common misconception,” says Billie Quinlan, co-founder of Ferly, a free app that helps women reconnect with their sexuality via erotic audio stories.
These stories range from trysts on the Tube to a cosy seduction in a cabin in the woods, with several of the stories available with either a male or female narrator.
This is something that’s proving hugely popular with women – Ferly has 30,000 loyal, predominantly female users, while competitor Dipsea saw an 84% rise in subscribers during lockdown.
Billie and her co-founder are both survivors of sexual assault – a group for whom porn can be triggering – and created the app to help women become more sex positive. “We’re at the beginning of a real sex-tech awakening for women,” she says.
“We’re now talking about it from the lens of the female experience, which ultimately has the power to transform the male experience, too. It’s exciting that women are leading that change.”
The future possibilities of sex tech are mind-blowing. Ela’s latest project, which she hopes to launch within the next year, involves creating real-world spaces where long-distance couples can meet to hook up, using VR and sex toys controlled over the internet, known as teledildonics.
She also sells teledildonics, which can be linked up to match the on-screen movements of a particular adult film.
Meanwhile, vibrator brand Satisfyer is launching an app that will allow couples to remotely control each other’s sex toys from anywhere in the world.
Adding a physical sensation to VR porn may be the obvious next step, but this “haptic technology” is still fairly rudimentary.
Haptic gloves, which mimic the sensation of touch, already exist for gaming, costing upwards of £550, but they aren’t likely to get anyone hot under the collar in their current form, because the technology is still fairly basic and is geared towards gaming rather than anything erotic.
Prototypes of haptic body suits exist, mimicking heat and moisture, but they are still a long way from feeling like human touch – plus, the prohibitive cost holds them back.
For those with the funds (and the inclination), a mere £5,500 can buy a sex robot that will connect to a VR headset to simulate real sex, or even link up to a human cam girl with her own set of corresponding toys.
These technological advances are just the beginning.
“In the near future, you could put on a VR headset and ‘have sex’ with an avatar of your long-distance partner.
“It could smell like them, look like them and sound like them, and could feel like they’re really there with you,” says Angelina Aleksandrovich, founder of Raspberry Dream Labs, a collective of artists and engineers working in VR.
But Angelina thinks the possibilities for VR could be much more exciting than merely recreating a partner.
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“You don’t have to be human any more. You can be anything your imagination wants it to be,” she says.
According to her, it won’t be long before a couple can each strap on a VR set and easily change their appearances – the bottom of Kim Kardashian-West for you, the abs of Tom Hardy for him.
This might all sound like an episode of Black Mirror – but the tech is well on its way.
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Sources: *Marie Claire **VR Focus ***Violence Against Women †Aggressive Behavior
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