Women on Porn
At a time when women are more vocal than ever about our lives, there's one last taboo.
We need to talk about porn.
‘Briskly confronting...porn is an inescapable part of the environment we all share and should be talked about honestly… this book is an important start.’
THE SUNDAY TIMES
'Celebrates women's sexuality but also unflinchingly reveals the truth of how women are perceived - and used - in society by men.'
A STYLIST best non-fiction pick for 2024
When we think about porn today, we still mostly think about men. Men as the producers and the consumers. Women as the product. Most women aren't talking to each other about what they do and don't do with porn - not really. And when we do talk about it, we are divided into unhelpful binaries: for or against? Liberation or coercion? Too sexual or not sexual enough? But in a world where porn sites get more traffic than Netflix, Amazon plus Twitter combined, and one of the leading sites claims a third of its users are women, isn't it time to change that?
In this book, interviews with 100 women result in an extraordinary and powerful conversation on pornography. How they first encountered it. How they consume it. How it has affected their sex lives. What they like and what they don't. And what it means for their relationships.
Eye-opening, provocative and deeply moving, this book navigates the polarised public debates, to open an intimate window into porn and the sexual lives of women today.
Dr. Fiona Vera-Gray is one of the UK's leading feminist academics working on sexual violence and she has a decade's experience in the frontline anti-violence against women movement. Currently a Reader at the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University, Fiona was formerly at Durham University and has been a regular media commentator on pornography, sexual violence, sexual harassment, and rape prevention. She is the author of two academic books on street harassment.
In March 2021, Fiona published the largest ever study on the content of mainstream online pornography, gaining significant media coverage including BBC, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, New York Times, TalkRadio, Vanity Fair, RadioNZ and Women's Hour. She has been commissioned to write for The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The Independent, and has appeared in documentaries about porn and its impact.