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Does porn match your fantasies?
By Dawn Michael — Written on Oct 07, 2021
Do women watch porn?
One of the world’s most popular free sites, Pornhub, which is visited by 156 million people every month, recently revealed that women make up a quarter of its global audience.
So yes, women watch porn, and not only that, but more women than ever are watching porn.
What is even more interesting is the kind of porn women are watching and how they are watching it.
Why do women like porn?
Women enjoy watching porn for many of the same reasons men watch do. They find it sexually exciting and use it as a means to help them fantasize during masturbation.
As a clinical sexologist who's spoken with hundreds of millennial woman, as well as women in their 40s and up, porn meets a diverse range of needs, particularly depending on age and relationship status. There is no one size fits all reason.
What kind of porn do women like?
Women tend to watch different types of porn than the genres preferred by men.
Much of porn is still made for a male audience, but this is changing as well, with more of a demand for better quality porn as well as more female-driven story plots.
Amanda de Cadenet, a contributing editor to Marie Claire, helped the magazine create a survey about the modern relationship between women and porn.
Among the various findings, she learned that 31% of women stated that they watch porn every week or so, while 10% say they watch porn daily.
Here's what the survey results revealed about the types of porn women like most:
Heterosexual porn: 63%
Lesbian porn: 44%
A variety of types of porn: 31%
Hard-core porn: 28%
Soft-core or "arty" porn: 26%
Gay male porn: 13%
Other: 13%
Another area where women are more apt to purchase video’s when they are in a relationship is in the sex education category which is making a comeback, produced by The Alexander Institute and various Youtube channels such as Sex Counseling.
Do women like watching porn alone or with a partner?
When asked the same question about watching with a partner, the results indicate that women watch less porn with a partner than they do by themselves, with 66% saying they never watch with a partner, 31% saying they watch with a partner occasionally, and only 3% saying they never watch together.
Asked if they also watch porn alone, the majority of women polled (88%) watch solo at least sometimes, with only 12% saying they only ever watch porn with a partner.
What is surprising given these results is how little pornography is geared towards a female audience.
I believe that in the years to come we will see an increase in female-produced porn, focusing on women’s fantasies as opposed to men’s fantasies.
The wide availability of access to pornography on the internet has changed the way many women view sex.
In some ways, this is positive, as it allows women to observe sexual situation they think they may want to try and explore further if they believe they do or do not want to act on those fantasies.
There can be negative impacts, however, when women see sexual practices they don't want to participate in and feel as though there's something wrong with them for not wanting to try, such as deep throating, being tied up and spanked, anal sex, and/or gangbangs.
There is a need for more and better sex education that bridges the gap between what is healthy and "normal" as compared to what is highly produced entertainment.
Another issue is that women may want to watch porn that taps into to their own fantasies rather than those that are common among men.
For example, a woman may enjoy watching a scene where the man takes his partner roughly and tells her what to do, but there is a lead up to it an understanding between the two of them (a connection), which differs from a porn video where it may show no relationship at all and the man ordering her to do certain sexual acts on him.
Women enjoy watching porn that can tap into her fantasies rather than his fantasies, as can be seen with the vast amount of sex toys that are available and made specifically for women.
It is clear from the record highs of sex toy sales to women that women are interested in sex and masturbation. They just need material that is made for them.
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Dr. Dawn Michael is an international certified clinical sexologist and relationship expert and co-owner of The Sexual Health and Wellness Center in Southern California. Her writing has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Huffington Post, Fox News and NBC News. You can reach her at The Happy Spouse and follow her on Twitter.