Sex and the women

“Doctor, please counsel my wife,” pleaded the middle-aged man. “To get into a better mood I asked my wife to watch blue films with me. Initially she was reluctant. I forced her. Now she can't do without it. She wanted to enact the lesbian themes in real life — that of two women lesbians having sex. She does not want to sleep with me anymore but only with other women,” lamented the distressed husband. This is one of the effects, though rare, of watching pornography.

Is porn a new phenomenon? Do women watch porn? Porn is not new; representations of sexual acts have existed through the centuries and across cultures. The Kamasutra, the temples of Khajuraho, Konark, and Mondhera in India, in Athens the Phallic Statues of Priapus on street corners, Greek plates depicting sexual intercourse point to the prevalence of the depiction of sexual acts in art. Technology was merely changed the form from sculpting to photography to video and now in digital form. The creation, storage and accessibility has changed.

The internet and smart phone revolution had made it easy to access porn, which has become much more pervasive than before. The revenue from pornography industries is more than that of top technology companies Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Ebay, Yahoo, Apple, Netflix and Earth link coimbined.

Today we cannot shut ourselves to the World Wide Web The availability of pornography on the computer has changed the way millennial women view sex. It is guesstimated that 42 per cent of internet users visit porn sites. Breakdown of male/female visitors is 72 per cent/28 per cent pornographic movies and pictures were originally made for the titillation of men, but with the media revolution, it is accessible to a female audience too. Women producers and directors are producing porn to cater to women’s tastes.  

Research reveals that one in three women watch porn every week. Women spend a larger time watching porn than men: American women on an average spend about 11 minutes per session.

Women watch porn by themselves:
Your relationship to porn is mostly about you — your sexuality unencumbered by a partner. Women like plots — a sort of play. Women aren’t into stuff they can’t pull off in their own bedroom.

Extended exposure to pornography can have a whole raft of effects
It dehumanises the other person, the relationship, and any intimacy. It fulfils the desire for control over women  and  encourages transience, experimentation and moving between partners. It also  encourages people to make their home in shallow relationships.

Is an addictive substance
Long term exposure may desensitise and rob the fun of sexual intercourse. Repeated acts without a story plot become monotonous and boring. People may lose interest in sex. Exposure to porn may stoke dormant sexual interests and make them crave for fulfilment of those desires, as illustrated in the case history.

Watching porn once in a while, for titillation, may not be harmful. In fact, it adds to the thrill of stimulation. But becoming dependent on it for stimulation is harmful. It leads to compulsive behaviour and requires treatment.

Research by Dr Zillmann and Bryant on prolonged consumption of nonviolent pornography, of their subjects, after many weeks exposure, reported less satisfaction with their partner’s sexual performance, affection, and physical appearance.

Pornography is fantasy in the place of reality. In a nutshell human beings cannot get nourishment from porn but only from real relationships.

The reasons why women watch porn are:
Women like to watch other women.
Female form is more erotically pleasing than the male.
Lesbian videos are the most watched because the focus is more on women’s pleasure.
Women like what is both familiar and seen as “taboo” in their communities.
Women want to watch porn that taps into their own fantasies rather than men’s
Hence they watch alone.

Additional statistics about women porn users
Women keeping their cyber activities secret 70 per cent
Women struggling with pornography addiction 17 per cent
Percentage of visitors to adult websites who are women one in three
Women accessing adult websites each month 9.4 million

Why do people watch pornography?
Men evolved a sexual psychology that makes sex with new women exciting, both to imagine and to engage in, and this made men especially responsive to visual signals.

It feels good to be in a state of sexual excitement. Sometimes they use it to be entertained, or to be distracted from work or other activities. Some use sex to regulate their mood, to feel better, even if it is only for a brief period of time.

Voyeuristic pleasure
Mirror neurons in the brain are powerfully activated by pornography.
When a man watches another man having sexual intercourse with a woman, the observer’s mirror neurons spring into action. It is as if they themselves are participating. The vicarious thrill of watching sex, it turns out, is not so vicarious after all.

The reasons why men watch porn are:
For most men, at some point in their lives, pornography has held a strong appeal
Were driven to use porn to escape loneliness
Pornography answers natural human curiosity
Objectifies sex. Strikes a visceral emotional chord
They perceive “emotional power” being wielded by women over men. It satisfies fantasies of authority
Eroticising male supremacy
Pornography answers men’s fetishistic need for visual proof of phallic potency