I scream, you scream, we all scream for pornography. Whether it is on the Internet, in a novel, a piece of fan fiction or in your imagination pornography is a way to help us get sexually aroused and relieve our tensions – wink wink, nudge nudge.
This is not an article about whether pornography is good or bad, nor whether it is oppressive or empowering. In truth, it is all of the above, as anything can be.
But as a bisexual woman that thoroughly enjoys the nasty and sweet stories that pornography has to offer, there is one thing that I cannot stand: scissoring.
Scissoring is a position of tribadism (or tribbing) that describes a woman rubbing her vulva against her partner’s body to stimulate herself, especially the clitoris. Scissoring as a position describes when two women rub their vulvas against each other’s.
The first time I saw it was on the Internet labelled under “lesbian for women” (which is almost never adequate for women). As a young teenager first watching this, I was confused.
How exactly could a couple of women orgasm from this lip-to-lip contact? Sure, it may feel nice, but no nicer than a flat hand, I expected.
Sex is a passionate and pleasurable thing, so why would two women face away from each other? In the scissoring position, how could the couple stimulate other erogenous zones or even kiss each other? Why the focus on the one most obvious sexual piece of the female body?
So why is scissoring a thing?
It is a very simple answer: the pornography industry is male-dominated by demanders and suppliers who aggressively push a heteronormative idea of sex.
Heteronormative? You may be thinking. But you are talking about lesbian porn! But ‘lesbian porn’ is not for lesbians. It is an obsession with a hegemonic ideal of sexy women ‘experimenting’ on each other, and with phallic symbols from various dildos and dongs to a man entering the scene.
Of course, this may sometimes be the case in reality and that is perfectly fine! But it is the entire theme of freely accessible pornography on the Internet. (Please note: There is no such thing as free pornography. The ‘free’ videos that you may watch on RedTube or XNXX are stolen). Lesbian labelled pornography is widely created for the ‘male gaze’ – as in the stereotypical masculine perspective.
It makes me laugh to think of the two possible founding moments of the scissoring positions. The writers of the pornography industry (1) are so unaware of the female body that they think the vulva is the only erotic female zone and therefore are limited with their partners and probably are a disappointing lover, (2) are so wrapped around the idea of heteronormative sex, that they cannot imagine the natural ways in which women do have sex with each other.
Unfortunately, there is a third possible scenario: The writers simply do not care and think Why should the women matter when they are only for the ‘male gaze’?
So why am I telling you this? To ruin your dream of two women scissoring, of course.
It rarely happens. I am sure there are women out there who might like it, but I have not heard of a single one.
While I am at it, gaping takes hours (they cut the filming), most women’s orgasms are fake, including squirting. By taking pornography as your guide to sex, you could be going down with many misconceptions.
Here is my proposal: Involve women in the upper levels of the pornography industry. Share your positions. Encourage their inputs. Heighten the level of ethical standards on worker treatment.
You will get much more accurate and sexy collection of pornographies, and many more viewers of the ‘female gaze’.
Gender equality in the pornography = more orgasms and better sex for all.
