“Lesbian” Sex in Porn

For those who have seen (or regularly watch) porn, I’m sure you’ve stumbled upon your typical depiction of “lesbian” sex. The majority of these girls could be easily confused for real, live, Barbie dolls. They almost all seem to have unbelievably flat stomachs, perfect tans, and hair so beautiful it looks like a wig. They also have make-up so perfectly applied they look airbrushed. They also, all seem to already know what Victoria’s secret is. 

Even if they’re inside a dinky motel, these girls look surreal. During sex scenes, these girls do everything from spit in each other’s mouths, to eat bodily excrement’s, to repeatedly ask “Do you like that?”  Most notably, while touching themselves, or each other, they directly stare into the camera, as though they’re waiting for the camera to grow breasts and get in on the action. So who exactly is “lesbian” porn looking to please?  In New York Magazine, author Naomi Wolf  talks about an encounter with anti-porn activist, Andrea Dwarkin. She quotes that in the 80’s Dwarkin stated “if we did not limit pornography, before internet technology made that prospect a technical impossibility—most men would come to objectify women as they objectified porn stars, and treat them accordingly.” Obviously, internet technology did continue to grow, and now to watch porn, all you have to do, is google what you’d like to see. Point being, this “objectification” of women is totally depicted in “lesbian” porn. Lesbian or girl-girl pornography features women engaged in sex together, but is typically aimed at a male audience. Women who perform in “lesbian” pornography often do not consider themselves lesbian or bisexual. So, just to clarify, “lesbian” porn typically does not contain real lesbians, nor is it intended for lesbians. 

Origin of Pornography

 In exploring this dichotomy, I felt it would be helpful to delve a little further and find out a bit about the origin of pornography. Pornography is defined as “the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.” A glimpse of where the idea came from can actually be attributed to elephants. When elephants get together to mate, the entire group of elephants gets together to watch. This sends the other elephants into a tailspin of excitement.

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Several species of monkeys are also guilty of the same offense. It is almost silly to think of these tendecidies of animals as voyeuristic. When you break it down, (for all your porn haters), animals have the same intentions as human beings do in this, increasing libido and excitement with the  hopes of inspiring the desire to mate. There is even evidence of early “pornography” from the time of the cavemen, perhaps they too were inspired by animals, or just all the nudity they were exposed to. Whatever the inspiration, ancient pornography has been discovered drawn on the walls of ancient caves.

So, essentially, some form of pornography has existed just as long as we have. Porn continued to flourished…and very noticeably did so, during the Renaissance. Julio Romano, who was an apprentice of Rafael, did not get along with Pope Clemens VII. In an attempt to seek revenge, the artist painted an entire hall of the Vatican with frescos depicting porn.

The frescos resulted in an awful scandal that spread throughout Europe. Before these racy frescos were removed, some Roman painters made copies (in the form of gravures) of them. These copies were passed around and this is how porn initially began to spread around Europe. 

In 1972 producer Gerard Damiano made a film called “The Deep Throat,”where a woman complained to her doctor that she felt no satisfaction when having sex. The doctor explained that the woman “had her clitoris in the throat”. The film contains fifteen particular scenes of oral sex. The actors in the film worked for pennies, yet the film was extremely popular. It still hold the world marketing record with its cost to  income ratio. During this period, porn was actively promoted by hippies. Thus began the Golden Age of Porn. As technology has advanced, so too have the methods to spread pornography. And there is no doubt that is has a following!

So Bad, Its Good

Sigmund Freud argued that “visual impressions remain the most frequent pathway along which libidinal excitation is aroused.” As human beings evolved, so did too newfound feelings of guilt when it came to voyeurism, or sexually driven behaviors in general. Any excess of sexual behavior grew to be depicted as promiscuous and wrong. Anyway you want to bend it or shake it, this poses quite a pickle for the innate bestial nature of humans. So, rather than agree to view it as wrong and toss it out the window, in some aspects this negative perception, added an even more enjoyable component. The “badness” of the act of viewing pornography, somehow makes it more alluring. So, why not go all out and diverge in the most disgusting, wrong things one could imagine doing? Well that is exactly what has happened. Every perverse fantasy Freud could have ever imagined ( and then some) have been acted out. Studies have shown that men are more stimulated by lesbian sex than by heterosexual activity. So, from sucking toes, to eating feces, every unimaginable, perverse male fantasy has been reenacted by “lesbians” in porn. I’d like to include, the variety of lesbian porn available.I also feel compelled from a feminist standpoint to mentioned that race and oppression manage to make their way into this unsuspecting category as well . Starting with preferences for certain ethnicities and even hair color in our “lesbian” selection. 

Ethnicity Pornography: Asian, Ebony (or black), European, Indian, Interracial, Latina, Middle Eastern

Preferential Hair Color Pornography: Blonde, Brunette, Black and Redhead.

Teen Pornography: features young actresses depicted as being aged 18 or 19.

Lolicon Pornography: contains hentai animations featuring young, female, child-like characters.

Mom & daughter Pornography: The typically consists of an elderly “mother” and a voluptuous younger “daughter” performer who perform lesbian acts on each other.

Big Beautiful Women(BBW) Pornography: features overweight women.

Big Breasted Pornography: features women with large breasts.

Big Butt Pornography: features women with large buttocks.

Hairy Pornography: involves conspicuous amounts of body and/or pubic hair. The models may be partially shaven, show body hair stubble or be completely unshaven, with an emphasis on the socially tabooed armpit hair.

Hair Fetishism Pornography: Features women with anywhere from hip-length hair, to floor-length hair, using their hair to give each other sexual pleasure.

Cameltoe Pornography: involves women with large and/or prominent labia or clitoris.

Leg and Feet Pornography: extreme emphasis on legs and feet.

Disease Ridden Pornography: involves women that are said to have ‘disease ridden’ body parts. Lepers are a main focus in this style of pornography.

Flexible Pornography: involves women that perform gymnastic exercises and take a flexible position.

Tiny Tits Pornography: features women with very small breasts. These women are often portrayed as teenagers.

Puffy Nips Pornography features women with elevated areola.

Bondage Pornography: features performers tied up or constrained in various ways.

BDSM Pornography: depicts bondage and discipline, domination and submission, sadism and
masochism. 

Face Sitting Pornography: when a woman or a young girl sits on a woman’s face.

Menstrual Pornography: features sexual activities involving women who are menstruating, with a focus on the menstrual blood.

Scat Pornography: features defecation or consumption  (Such as is depicted in “two girls one cup”.)

Milking Pornography: features women being milked or milking themselves.

Water Sports Pornography: features sexual activities involving urine, such as “golden showers“.

Emetophilia Pornography: involving vomiting and gagging.

Preggo pornography: features pregnant performers and may include lactation as a fetish.

Squirt Pornography: involves women ejaculating.

Saliva Pornography: involves salivation and saliva.

Diaper Pornography: involves performers pretending to be infants.

Fisting Pornography: involves the insertion of one partner’s entire hand into a woman’s vagina .

Incest Pornography: features sex between actors who portray a familial relationship, such as twin sisters.

Lolita Pornography: features women who are 18 years old or slightly older, who pretend to be underage teen girls.

Pantyhose Pornography: involves women dressed in pantyhose, tights, or stockings.

Cheerleader Pornography: involves pictures of cheerleaders, both staged and real.

Medical Pornography: Can include “doctors, nurses and patients,” in sexualized medical situations, often fake, including gynecological pelvic examinations.

Enema Pornography: involves giving enemas to others.

Teacher and Student Pornography: involves sexualized situations, which take place between the teacher and student.

Resolution

The point of this is not to critique lesbian porn, what a sad world that would be! Merely to bring attention to an under explored topic. Where is the real stuff at? There is plenty of amateur porn out there for heterosexual people. Could it be possible that even pornographers are hesitant to make films depicting “real” lesbians?

Annie Sprinkle,  is a porn star turned PhD, and an avid supporter of sex- feminism. She interestingly targets part of the equation in this issue in stating that “We are all sexually abused by virtue of the fact that we live in a sex-negative society.”

 

Another inspirational sex-feminist is Susie Bright, a prominent writer, teacher and speaker on sexuality. In her pod cast, she discusses how things changed for women in the late 70’s and 80’s. With the release of Our Bodies Ourselves, (a book about women’s health and sexuality) the discussing of female health and contraception became more commonplace. However, just because it was suddenly acceptable to discuss the overall physiology of the female body, did not make it okay to actually explore and embrace their sexuality.

Bright delves into this contending that everything was going along nicely until you started talking about what goes on above the neck, desires, and fantasies. The way you imagine yourself, your erotic identity, your sexual philosophy, all of that is very psychological. It is deep and its highly individual and idiosyncratic and imaginative! That’s when there started to be fishers between people who enjoy imagination, and freedom of expressions. No one ever dropped dead from seeing a sexual idea in print or hearing one! How many people died because they saw a naked picture?  Show me the corpses!