DADI.org

SEX NATION:
OBSSESSED WITH
PERMITTING PERVERSITY

Heather Corinna of Minneapolis developed one of the first erotic Web sites for women. (Photo by Heather Corinna)

VALUES AND PHILANTHROPY Women Account for Hefty Portion of Web Porn Viewing BY MARK O'KEEFE c.2003 Newhouse News Service

URL:http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/okeefe103103.html

After putting her daughter to bed, Maggie, 42, routinely sat at her computer for hours, mesmerized by an online world of erotic stories and real-time sexual discussions.

Beth, 33, usually clicked on the most visually graphic sites, disproving the theory that only men are enticed by pornography.

"A lot of people don't realize this happens with women, too," says Beth, who, along with Maggie, asked that their last names not be revealed.

The myth began long ago, perhaps because women were rarely seen walking into seedy adult bookstores or asking for plastic-wrapped magazines kept behind convenience store counters.

But in recent years, the accessibility, affordability and anonymity of the Internet has made pornography undeniably attractive to millions of women. While some women simply find it exciting, others have battled addictions and other problems.

Nearly one in three visitors to adult Web sites is a woman, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, the industry standard for measuring online audiences. Studying the Internet use of 40,000 panelists at home and work, Nielsen//NetRatings estimates that 9.4 million women in the United States accessed such sites in September.

Julie Neff, 29, of Mukwonago, Wis., sees nothing but benefits. Internet pornography "is pretty much an adjunct to my regular sex life," she said. She estimates she views it less than an hour a week, and is open about it with her boyfriend.

"We e-mail each other saying, `Ha-ha, look at this,' or, `Hee-hee, look at that,' or, `Ooh, that's good.' It's healthy. If you want to know the mechanics or the logistics of certain things, you can get education and inspiration to do stuff. Plus, I just find it prurient. I like it."

Others think it can lead to problems. There is some evidence that Internet pornography is luring even women whose values oppose it. Some speculate a forbidden-fruit factor can make it tantalizing for religious women in particular.

The editors of Today's Christian Woman had heard anecdotes of churchgoing women getting hooked on pornography, so they conducted a survey asking readers of their online newsletter if they had intentionally visited porn sites. Thirty-four percent said they had.

"Apparently online sex addiction isn't just a male problem anymore," the magazine's editors wrote in the October issue, which suggested Internet filters and other pornography-avoiding tips.

While the frequency of female pornography "addiction" is difficult to measure, psychologists agree that some women, as well as men, do engage in destructively compulsive behavior fueled by the Internet.

Maggie said she began exploring pornography to try to understand what it was that captivated her ex-husband. Soon, she was spending up to 30 hours a week surfing the Web for arousal.

She realized she had a serious problem when "I couldn't wait for my daughter to go to sleep so I could get on the computer. The light went on that I preferred porn to spending time with my child."

Maggie turned to a psychologist for help, and now keeps a Bible next to her computer "as a type of accountability." When she feels the urge, she calls friends, writes in her journal or sets her computer to "defrag," which reorganizes her hard drive, temporarily denying access.

Despite these efforts, "I don't always succeed," she said. "Dabbling with porn is a lot like dabbling with lava. There may be safe ways, but if you hang out too long, you'll get burned."

Marnie Ferree, a Nashville, Tenn., marriage and family therapist, calls Internet pornography "the crack cocaine" of sexual addiction.

"On the Internet, I can be whoever I want to be. I can look however I want to look. It's a totally false environment that's about objectification and deception, and that's not going to be satisfying in the long term," said Ferree, author of "No Stones: Women Redeemed From Sexual Shame."

The interactivity of the Internet makes it especially appealing to some women, said Al Cooper, a staff psychologist at Stanford University and the author of "Sex and the Internet: A Guidebook for Clinicians."

"We see women all the time who may not feel that attractive, but they get 20 guys going after them at a time in a chat room, e-mailing them instantly. That's affirming to a woman, and it's hard to match when your husband is in the next room drinking a beer, maybe asking you if you're going to exercise next week" because he thinks you're overweight, Cooper said.

When a woman prefers cybersex to real sex or becomes secretive about her online pornography use, those are red flags, said Cooper, director of the San Jose Marital Services and Sexuality Centre in California. But he contends that online erotica can be helpful "if you share this with your partner because you need some variety, need a way to spice things up."

While pornography may rouse a couple's interest for a while, "real women with real varicose veins and real body fat" lose in the end because they can't compete with the image of air-brushed porn queens, said Donna Rice Hughes, president of Enough is Enough, an organization trying to make the Internet safer for families.

"Pornography sells sex without relationships, sex without commitment, sex without consequences, sex without love, sex without children and sex for one's own gratification as opposed to the gratification of the other," said Rice Hughes, whose 1987 relationship with former Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., ended his presidential campaign.

Jane Juffer, an assistant professor of women's studies at Pennsylvania State University, devotes part of a class on feminist media studies to women and pornography.

"It's a misconception that porn ruins relationships or is only for men in trenchcoats," said Juffer, author of "At Home With Pornography: Women, Sex and Everyday Life." Juffer concedes that pornography often degrades women, but called it "a potentially positive thing," especially when "directed at couples, providing more information for a better sex life."

While the fact that Juffer teaches about pornography is a sign of growing social acceptance, she said many of her students "still think porn is for men and porn is bad."

If more pornography sites were made with women in mind, they would feel more comfortable, Juffer said.

One of the first such sites was "Scarlet Letters," developed in 1998 by Heather Corinna, 33, of Minneapolis, who describes herself as a pioneer of "online sexuality and sex-positive erotic art." Corinna now has three sites for women, including one focusing on sex education for teens.

"Scarlet Letters" has its share of nudity, off-color language and shock appeal. But it also features intrigue, sassy humor and attention to aesthetic detail.

To attract women, "it has to be creatively interesting, artistically appealing and intellectually stimulating," Corinna said. "Just a photograph of some guy won't do it."

One reason there aren't more female-friendly sites is that women aren't willing to pay for online porn as many men do -- at least not yet. Two years ago, "there was a boom of beefcake sites for women," Corinna said. Nearly all of them folded.

Corinna's two adult sites limp along financially with about 100 subscribers each, paying an average of $12.95 a month, she said. But the free sections of her sites can attract more than 5,000 users a day.

Society is still a long way from where Corinna wants it to be. She hopes that women viewing online pornography will be considered "as normal as going to the grocery store, mopping the floor, talking to your kids or going on vacation."

"Women don't have cultural permission" yet to spend money on pornography, Corinna said. "We're supposed to spend money on clothes so men don't have to spend so much money on smut."

Oct. 31, 2003


(Mark O'Keefe can be contacted at mark.okeefe@newhouse.com)

Back to DA*DI's Home