That newcomer, says author Catharine Lumby, is likely to be a woman aged under 35 who lives in the suburbs, votes for a progressive party like the Greens, is in a monogamous relationship with a man and earns slightly more than average.

The book puts to bed a number of myths about who's doing pornography in Australia and what they are watching, looking at, reading and clicking on.

These include the belief that "no sane woman" would look at pornography unless she was forced to by a male partner, Lumby says.

"One of the myths (about pornography) suggests that women aren't consumers but we have very clear evidence that there's a growing proportion of porn consumers who are women,' she says.

"The statistics are so high now that that (that myth) doesn't seem correct."

The book is the result of a three-year study by Lumby and fellow academics Alan McKee and Katherine Albury, who describe it as "the first piece of serious research" carried out on pornography in Australia.

It looks at current trends in pornography consumption and production based on a survey of more than 1,000 Australians.

Lumby says men continue to outnumber women as consumers of pornography - by about four to one - and many women still consider pornography to be wrong.

However, her study and a 2003 report on Sex in Australia suggest that the difference is narrowing.

"Certainly there is evidence in our survey, and the 2003 ... survey indicates, that in the age groups under 40 we are seeing a greater proportion of women consuming X-rated material," she says.

Of the pornography consumers interviewed for The Porn Report, 17 per cent were women and 82 per cent were male (this compared to 90 per cent men in a 1996 survey). Some people did not answer the question.

Fifty-four per cent of consumers were aged 19-35, 77 per cent were heterosexual and 55 per cent were in a monogamous relationship.

Lumby says research indicates that women who consume pornography favour watching DVDs on a laptop in the privacy of their home and also like to watch porn with a partner.

Curiously, the new female porn consumer is more likely than her male counterpart to want to see idealised body types featured in pornography.

"There's strong evidence that for a lot of male consumers it's looking at 'real' looking women that turns them on," Lumby says.

"Interestingly, more women preferred 'fantasy porn', which is the glossy, Penthouse style porn, in which women are more likely to have fake breasts and toned bodies and the men are more likely to be the handsome hunk."

However, women who consume pornography share a "strong aversion" to pornography showing violence, abuse or rape.

"It's definitely fair to say from our survey and when we looked at all the other literature that there's a strong movement against violence or sexual violence," Lumby says.

Women also appear to be taking a lead from socialite Paris Hilton and embracing their inner porn star with DIY porn.

A growing number of women are using the internet to post images and videos of themselves performing sex acts, Lumby says.

She says there are two big drivers for this new interest in pornography by women: feminism and the internet.

The traditional feminist line said that all porn was bad and exploited women. But the new generation of Gen X feminists embraced an aggressive form of sexuality characterised by so-called "raunch culture" and the "Riot Grrrl" movement, an underground feminist punk movement founded in the early 1990s.

This shift championed female sexuality, bringing it into the mainstream and saying it was okay for women to indulge in a taste for porn - as long as it was on their own terms.

Technology has also opened up a new world of pornographic possibility for women, says Lumby.

"It's very clear that what's driven this is technology," she says.

"Technology has made viewing much more domesticated - you can be watching a DVD on your laptop so you can have some privacy.

"And the internet gives people access... it's allowed women, if they are interested, to do it in a comfortable setting, whereas before they had to go into some adult bookshop or a greasy cinema. Understandably a lot of women were repelled by that sort of environment."

The internet also gave women control, which may explain the popularity of DIY, she says.

"A lot of women appearing in pornography are not doing it for commercial gain, they're doing it because they're exhibitionists.

"They make material either by themselves or with partners and put it up on the internet, and there's been a huge growth in that."

Women have also influenced the sort of pornography being produced and used by men, she says.

"What we've seen since the 80s both on a commercial and amateur basis more women are involved in porn production... and those women have had a big ... impact on the ethics and the way pornography is made."

She says women have probably also had a hand in the mainstream backlash against violent and coercive pornography.

"I suspect that this is because of education by feminists and public health professionals and other people concerned about violence against women," she says.

More ...

College Women Think Porn is Acceptable

China Daily, 12/21/07 - A few decades ago it would have made their mothers or grandmothers blush but pornography is now more acceptable for tertiary aged women, researchers said.

They found that nearly half of female students in six colleges across the United States who took part in their study said viewing pornography was an acceptable way to express their sexuality.

The researchers from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah suggest that the easy availability of pornography on the Internet and changing social attitudes have led to a generational shift in which pornography seems to be less taboo.

"Even in the absence of personal use, it seems young women's attitudes are being influenced by the proliferation of pornography," said Jason Carroll, an associate professor at the university who headed the research team.

"These women are part of a rising generation that is deeming pornography as more acceptable and more mainstream," he added in a statement.

Carroll and his team studied the attitudes of 813 college students who ranged in age from 18 to 26 and their parents in the study that will be published in the Journal of Adolescent Research.

Unlike their daughters and two-thirds of male students, only 37 per cent of fathers thought pornography was acceptable. Nearly 90 per cent of male students also reported viewing pornography in the past year, according to the findings.

"It is widely known that pornography is the most popular content on the Internet, but few studies have looked at the behavior and attitudes underlying Internet pornography use," he said.

The study also showed that unlike risky sexual behavior, binge drinking and using marijuana - behaviors that usually peak at the age of 22 - viewing pornography remained consistent from 18 to 26 years old.

Playgirl Magazine and Porn

BG News, 2/1/07 - A nude Burt Reynolds sparked the beginning of pornography in the 1970s.

This and consuming liberation through Playgirl magazine and pornography was the main topic that Chadwick Roberts, American culture studies doctorate student, spoke about at the Brown Bag Luncheon in the Women's Center yesterday afternoon.

Roberts shared his research for his dissertation about the beginning of Playgirl magazine and pornography in the 1970s.

"The idea is to study how the politics of pornographic images become different when published for women rather than men," Roberts said.

By using video clips, magazine issues, as well as powerpoint slides, Roberts gave the history of pornographic publications throughout the era.

In the early 1970s President Lyndon Johnson was appointed to study pornography, called the Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. Such a controversial issue brought up the conclusion that pornography is a healthy form of entertainment when kept out of reach of children.

It is believed that the study of obscenity and pornography along with the first male nude centerfold in Cosmopolitan magazine began the first women's pornographic publications.

In 1971 the first frontal nude photograph was published in Playboy, slightly before this was a similar release from Penthouse. Hustler magazine, another publication for men, soon after debuted.

Playgirl, an erotic magazine for women, was born in 1973. The publisher, Douglas Lambert, was a former nightclub owner that wanted to have a magazine for "free women," yet the majority of the readership is married with children. The early issues of Playgirl featured modest centerfolds along with lifestyle and social issues to attract the readers.

In 1972 actor Burt Reynolds was the first male nude centerfold in Cosmo. Male nudity was brought to the forefront of American pop culture by this event. In 1974, Playgirl decided to have a nude centerfold every month. Other celebrities that bared it all as centerfolds include Arnold Schwarzenegger and the 25th anniversary issue featured David Hasselhoff.

Roberts also shared information on smaller publications that have tried to make it throughout the 1970s. Magazines such as VIVA, Ms., California Girl, Foxylady and Venus were among the list of publications that took an attempt to satisfy women's needs.

"Learning about the offshoot magazines like VIVA and the others was very interesting," junior Melissa Faybik said.

Playgirl is the only publication that is still in circulation compared to the other pornographic magazines of the 1970s. The magazine has become more popular in the later decades and even features a section in every issue called "Show us your Playgirl," showing a photograph of regular readers and their Playgirl magazines.

Women Maximally Aroused by Porn in 743 Seconds

NewScientist, 10/2/06 - Women may have a reputation for demanding lengthy foreplay, but they become sexually aroused as quickly as men, according to a new study that used thermal imaging to measure increased blood flow to genital regions.

While watching pornography, both sexes reach peak arousal within 10 minutes, on average, researchers report.

Earlier attempts to record sexual arousal have involved invasive probes and electrodes, according to Tuuli Kukkonen, who helped conduct the study led by Irv Binik at McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Canada.

For women participating in previous studies, this sometimes meant the use of an uncomfortable probe similar to a tampon, inserted into the vagina.

Such invasive methods “made studying sexual arousal very difficult” and comparing sexual response between men and women even more challenging, says Kukkonen, as the measurement techniques differed between the sexes.

For this reason, Kukkonen and her colleagues used thermal imaging to record raised temperatures in subjects’ genital areas. The thermal imaging camera can measure temperature changes from a distance and relay the information to a computer for analysis.

More heat indicates greater blood flow to the genital area, a tell-tale sign of sexual arousal. Kukkonen says that modern thermal imaging technology is much more sophisticated than earlier versions, and can now accurately measure temperature changes of 0.001°C within a few square millimetres.

In the new study, 28 men and 30 women first watched a video of the Canadian countryside in a room on their own, so that researchers could establish each individual’s baseline temperatures.

Subjects were naked from the waist down and positioned themselves such that their genital area was exposed and readable by the thermal imaging device. The participants next watched another video with the same subject matter, or one featuring pornography, horror or comedic clips from the Best Bits of Mr Bean.

The computer only registered a spike in genital temperatures while subjects watched pornography, and not the other films. In those viewing porn, these temperatures increased by about 2°C, on average.

Moreover, men reached peak sexual arousal in 665 seconds – about 10 minutes – while women arrived at maximal arousal in 743 seconds. The difference between the times was not statistically significant, the researchers point out.

The findings, which were presented on 30 September at the Canadian Sex Research Forum conference in Ottawa, go against the common assumption that women take longer to become aroused, says Kukkonen.

She adds that the more accurate thermal imaging technology now available may hold promise as a diagnostic tool for sexual dysfunction in both sexes.

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