Fury of a Woman's Porn

Watch hot sluts get slapped silly by enormous man tools!" "This babe wants to get torn in half by your titanic dong!" "Naughty teens get their boxes destroyed by overwhelmingly large and almost unwieldy penises that are so enormous that they can barely fit into the average subcompact!"

No, these aren't headlines from your local PTA newsletter. Rather, these are the kinds of messages I was greeted with last week when I tried to find some good porn to download. In this modern age of legal equality for the sexes, exemplified by the women's right not to ride sidesaddle or suffer through that inherently discriminatory practice of paid maternity leave, I feel entitled to dabble in the enjoyment of the pornographic arts.

I'd never really watched porn before, nor was I well-versed in which "jobs" and "shots" make for the best cinema. So, armed with some free time and cable Internet, I sallied forth into cyberspace with all the overconfidence of a novice, determined to locate a few video clips of porn that might appeal to me.

When my housemates asked me what I was doing locked in my bedroom all night, I kindly explained that I was performing research for my upcoming column, which, technically, was true. Maybe next week I'll write a column about masturbating or diamond heists. I love research.

Anyhow, it took only a few minutes of surfing and grimacing before I realized that the Internet is a scary place, and it's even scarier when you click on links that include words like "wet," "shoot" and "granny" in the same phrase. And as easy-going and slightly deviant as I am, I was too disturbed by the overt misogyny and literal and symbolic violence against women that dominate mainstream heterosexual porn to even enjoy the humor of fake orgasms.

I don't believe, as some other feminists do, that pornography is in and of itself exploitative of women. To say so robs us of sexual agency and denies us the right to get off from 45-minute movies that feature two high school drop-outs with names like Hugh Jainus having sex in a natural history museum for some reason. By boycotting the medium entirely, these protesters ignore our libidinal desires and grant men exclusive access to an enjoyable form of entertainment.

If executed correctly, porn has the potential to politically empower women by illustrating that we, just like the men who run our corporations and get elected to our Congress, like to get booty. As long as some men stubbornly deny the existence of the female orgasm, we have the right-no, the obligation!-to get rammed and licked on our own terms-and to film it, no less. Just imagine if Susan B. Anthony had appeared in "Sexy Suffragette Pool Party III." I bet they'd still be making those silver dollars.

I concede, though, that it's annoying that almost all porn involves women being assaulted in some way by a really big penis. There's nothing empowering about a cock slap.

Though most adult film is produced and consumed by men, some pornography is created for women and by women, and this subgenre is on the rise. Kinda like FUBU, but instead of wearing terry cloth track suits, you watch two consenting adults get it on at the DMV or whatever.

In yet another bold display of my research skills, I rented one of these female-directed films. It was the tale of a lonely woman living in a countryside cabin who is swept off her feet by a younger man who has come to her house under the pretense of performing yard work. Long story short, they end up knocking boots in the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and I think even the pantry. If I had a pantry, I'd definitely have sex in it.

But in addition to helping our protagonist come, the male lead also makes her tea when she has a sore throat, fixes a broken pilot light and even performs that elusive duty of cunnilingus before they do the deed. There were no slaps, no ripped vaginas, no balls sucked dry. Just some good, old-fashioned affection, tenderness and intercourse. It was pleasant.

Unfortunately, this movie was what the industry calls "non-explicit," and was too tame even for my nubile eyes. Somewhere there undoubtedly exists a happy porn medium that is both hard-core and not offensive to anyone who's read a word of Luce Irigaray.

But finding it will take more research. Lots and lots of research. Maybe I can get a grant.

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