Why not end the old year with a bang or 30? In the last New York Times Sunday Styles of 2006, an article by Sharon Waxman, ”"The Graying of Naughty", reported that “mature-women” porn has been getting bigger (heh heh) in the last few years. The article featured a 50 year old woman who decided to enter the business because, as she said, “I love sex,” and she thought it would be fun. Plus, the idea of earning money from doing something she enjoyed appealed to her. (Even today, porn is the only industry in which women outearn men.)

There are some great pro-women, sex-positive aspects in the “mature-woman” porn genre. First, it seems to feature fewer surgically altered women. Second, it portrays middle-aged women as the attractive, sexual human beings they are, i.e. - the idea that people want to have sex with someone over the age 25 is downright normal. Sure, sometimes it is played up fetishistically, but what “mainstream” movie or TV show doesn’t do the same thing, particularly in its strange lust for teen girls? At least these women are well above the legal age of consent. Third, many women themselves are behind the action, writing, directing, and financing these films. This is personified in Bonnie Kali, 48, who is generally credited as the creator of the genre. Kali used her own personal dating experiences to create stories and movies. I am all for more women’s voices, experiences, and views to go along with our tits, asses, and crotches when it comes to porn, and for that matter, any other entertainment medium.

However, the Times article glossed over most of these important aspects. In asking why the genre suddenly grew so popular, the stock answers given centered around what men want. One explanation producers gave is that consumers:

are young men fulfilling boyhood fantasies of teacher lust or yearning for the attractive mothers of their friends. Some... may be tired of what one producer... has called, in a recent AVN article, “the young, helpless teen thing…” David Jospeh, 38… the president of Platinum X, said, “It’s totally an erotic thing people are attracted to. There’s a huge market out there for older women. I’m trying to understand it myself.”

Fine. I’m way over the young helpless teen thing, too. And therein lies the problem with the article’s theories on mature porn: it only takes into consideration male viewers. Worse, the article seems to believe that all male porn consumers are young. Witness this fine line: “The biggest change is in the sexual desirability of women old enough to be the viewer’s mother.” Nope, I guess that leaves out middle-aged and older male consumers, in addition to women viewers of all ages. We clearly have nothing to do with this change, not that any evidence beyond broad generalizations and generic speculations presented by the article.

It is not that hard to understand the phenomena, however, when one considers the larger popluation. Over a decade ago, studies found that at least 40% of people consuming porn are female. While I also have no solid statistics to back this up, I suspect that that number has only increased, or at the very least, not decreased. (I could be wrong, of course.) I’m willing to go out on a limb here and suggest that it is this diverse range of consumers who are fueling the increase in popularity of older, regular-looking women appearing in film and print.

People are demanding something beyond 19 year old women with watermelon-sized breasts. Sure, there are plenty of warts within the porn industry, but I appreciate that they are somewhat responsive to the wider range of interests of their audiences. And profits show how much those audiences reward efforts to please them. Perhaps Hollywood and other media might learn a thing or two from their dirty dog cousins.

Suzanne also blogs at Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants