What You Need to Know About Feminist Porn

If you’ve been following along with Girl Boner®, you know that like many folks, I’ve had an um, sticky, relationship with porn. And not in a fun way.

I remember coming home from working abroad in my late teens to find porn in my then boyfriend’s DVD player. I hit ‘play,’ then sat mortified, absorbing scenes that would go on to haunt me.

It would be years before I’d understand my complicated cocktail of feelings about what I’d seen. In addition to having learned that porn was shameful, I was devastated by the demeaning nature. The women depicted had no purpose but to please one man. Their bulging breasts were playthings, and their mouths, his devoted servants. (There’s nothing wrong with a good orgy or boob scene, of course, but the underlying message for me then wasn’t pleasant.)

Today, I can’t help but wonder how different so many of our experiences with adult entertainment and pleasure would be if feminist porn were a mainstay. Last week I interviewed a woman doing powerful work to facilitate that.

Michelle Shnaidman is the founder and CEO of Bellesa, a new, free and hugely popular porn site for women committed to  “depicting women as they truly are – as subjects of their own desires, not objects of conquest.”  They offer videos, original erotic stories, SFW articles about sex, women’s health and relationships and more. I suspect you’re going to love what she had to say!

Here are a few highlights. Listen to our full chat on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher Radio or below!

AM: One thing I appreciate about feminist porn is that it tends to be more inclusive, of genders, ages, shapes, sizes and ethnicities. How do you define it? 

MS: I think a huge part of it is that it’s female pleasure focused. In most mainstream porn videos, you’re seeing a lot of the male gaze… They’re focused heavily on just the women’s bodies. A lot of the time, people talk about just seeing this humping torso, or not really seeing the man in the video or his pleasure… Our videos really focus on the whole sexual experience. You’re seeing a lot more real bodies and real orgasms and the sex looks and feels real. And there’s more storyline. 

AM: Some people consider ‘feminist porn’ an oxymoron. How do you respond to people who say, ‘how does that even make sense? — feminist and porn?

MS: It’s feminist as long as you feel empowered by it, which you should. Sexuality is nothing to be ashamed of. When we created Bellesa, we didn’t want it to be something where women would hide under their covers, or clear their browser history after going to the website… We really wanted to bring it to the forefront and make it something that empowers women. And that to me is feminist.

AM: Equal opportunity for pleasure, right? We should all have that. 

MS: Exactly. A lot of the time, when you have a sexual encounter, men go into it expecting an orgasm, and if it doesn’t happen, they’re sort of confused. I think many women go into these sexual encounters, and if they have an orgasm, they’re like, ‘Oh yay,’ but they don’t really expect it. I don’t think that’s fair. I think we should all come into sexual encounters expecting an equal ratio of orgasm. 

AM: What kinds of scenes or videos are especially popular? 

MS: A lot of the time when we say we’re doing porn for women, males think, ‘Okay, it’s soft core, pink, sort of fluffy watered down porn.’ So not the case. I think our most popular category is Rough. Women actually do like all kinds of sex. Clearly we can really like rough sex, but on Bellesa, in feminist porn, it’s done in a way that the women are actually enjoying themselves. They’re being empowered by the scene. It’s not happening to them. 

AM : Some porn has consensual BDSM and, sadly, other porn celebrates violence toward women. 

MS: Yes. There’s BDSM that people consent to and you have safe words, and it’s done in a way that is totally fine. Then there are scenes that are so upsetting, where you see it’s so clearly not consensual. The woman is crying in the scene. It’s awful. You’d never find that sort of thing on Bellesa. 

AM: What is your biggest vision for what could happen with this work?

MS: We really want more women to start living unapologetically, and to feel empowered by their sexuality. We want to end slut-shaming. We want to change the stigma around female sexuality. If that could happen, we’d be super happy.

For more empowering fun, follow Bellesa on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and visit Bellesa.co. For more from Dr. Megan, visit GreatLifeGreatSex.com.