iPod Porn for Women?
When we started podcasting serialized versions of our films, it wasn’t because we hoped people would be watching Xana and Dax 69ing on the LIRR. No, we did it because podcasting is a good distribution system for making people familiar with Comstock Films, and because we think our films are well suited for serialization, and podcasting gives us a nice way to show people what makes our films different without giving away the store. We certainly didn’t have visions of people loading up our podcasts onto an iPod and enjoying them privately.
But I’ve now just realized that iPod porn is going to be huge, especially with women.
It might surprise you to know that there are legions of women, especially red-state women, that are downloading the most appallingly filthy stories onto their e-book appliances. Elora’s Cave has built a minor empire catering to these women, and the e-book format is perfect because it offers a safe, secure, and private way for these women to enjoy whatever it is they enjoy, without having the incriminating books lying around the house.
An e-book appliance can hold a wealth of filth, all private and password protected. New titles can be purchased in the privacy and security of one’s own home. No nosey neighbor, upset husband, or curious children finding their way into mommy’s private world of delicious perversity.
Of course video porn has a way to go before it will be able to reach these women. While perhaps not masterworks of the English language, the average novel at Elora’s Cave is about 1000 times better crafted than the average porno film – that’s partly because a writer has 100% control over her world, but I don’t think that’s the only reason these books are better made than most porn videos.
Adding to the control a writer has, a cursory glance around the various forums devoted to these novels, the authors who write them and the fans who eagerly devour them show there’s a lot more love between the people (mostly women) writing and distributing and the people (mostly women) reading.
Where the male dominated world of porn reeks of desperation and shame, this female dominated world, while no less filthy, is about a 1000 times more fun. (It reminds me of nothing more than the difference between the atmosphere at an average strip-club, which is usually almost unbearably morose, versus the atmosphere at a Chippendale’s revue.) Within this fun-loving atmosphere, women are reading, writing, and making good money off some of the most shockingly depraved things I’ve ever read.
And when someone starts offering these same women an equally fun-loving, well-crafted and private visual experience, they’ll make a mint.
March 12th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
Oh, yes, please. And can it be smart and D/s influenced too?
March 13th, 2006 at 3:42 am
I see two obstacles in reaching these women:
1) Reading nasty books has them rather spoiled. By that I mean they’ve become accustomed to enjoying their filth inside relatively well realized worlds, some of them quite fantastic (vampires, time travel, etc), with servicable (and sometimes better) characters, plots, dialog, etc. Many of these elements are simply not within reach of productions that must turn a profit in sales measured in the thousands of copies. A clever person is going to have to figure out how to create sufficiently contextualized sex inside of very narrow production parameters.
2) Perhaps more challenging, if the notes we get are any indication, many of these women have simply given up on the idea that they might enjoy sexually explicit visuals, because what they’ve seen has been so off-putting. It’s not the cunts and cocks they don’t like, it’s the shabbiness, shame, and desparation that pervades most video porn. With almost nothing as a counter example, many of these women simply conclude that they don’t like “porn” (meaning film/video) but enjoy “erotica” (meaning no less filthy writing).
Find a way to solve those two problems and I’ve no doubt there’s an eager market for well-crafted moving images of D/s play.
March 13th, 2006 at 7:33 am
Oh Tony Comstock, you are one smart, smart beaver.
I’ve no doubt you can find the magic loogie to hit both of those obstacles and your target audience in one fell climactic money-swoop.
April 13th, 2006 at 7:52 am
Very interesting to read your article. To give you a perspective from the inside, we have found around 15% of are customer base are female. We have not specifically aimed our product at the female audience, just tried to create a clean site that wasn’t offensive.
Due to the interest we have had from the female audience we now aim to launch more specific female orientated content.
Thanks
Randy