Despite the abundance of information about sexuality, we still have a lot of prejudices that can complicate intimate life. Sexologist and psychoanalyst Catherine Blanc analyzes one of these dissenting views every month.
“If women do not like porn films, it is not at all because they are characterized by a special bashfulness. Although we are influenced by centuries of ethical norms, according to which frank images and statements on the topics of sex are indecent and unacceptable. But the reluctance to watch such films is connected, rather, not with shame (we are not talking about those who have not yet had sexual experience), but with the peculiarity of the female view of sexuality and women’s ideas about their genitals. After all, they are not visible, they are hidden and always remain an area of uXNUMXbuXNUMXbmystery. Porn films, unlike erotic ones, eliminate this space of hints: everything is shown in detail, in a bright “surgical” light. Such shootings are more in line with the sexual fantasies of men, which is quite understandable by the way their genitals are arranged: you can see them, touch them.
However, typically female fantasy scenarios are also embodied in porn films: voyeurism, dominance, submission… Watching a porn film, a woman can identify herself with both characters, with a woman who submits to force, and with a man who penetrates and conquers.
Sometimes the excitement that women experience when watching a porn movie helps them to separate the sexual sphere from other relationships with a partner. After all, sometimes, attaching great importance to feelings, a woman is constrained in sex, embarrassed to enjoy bodily intimacy with her beloved and show the strength of her attraction. And what she sees on the screen echoes her sexual desires and liberates her. It makes no sense to compare different ways to achieve arousal and figure out which one is more effective. Men and women have their own characteristics. But if we are moving along different paths, this is by no means an obstacle to our meeting … “
Catherine Blanc is the author of Women’s Sexuality (La sexualité des femmes n’est pas celle des magazines. La martinière, 2004).