The New York Times reported Sunday that women of mature age are increasingly appearing in porn. The article
discusses the mid-life career change of 50-year-old De’Bella, who decided to
spice up her life working as an administrative assistant by appearing in porn
movies.
According to industry insiders, the mature-woman genre
represents “one of the fastest growing areas of video pornography.” In fact, it
will appear for the first time as a category at the prestigious AVN awards
ceremony next week in Las Vegas.
Multiple explanations for this trend are plausible.
Director Urbano Martin says the market for young, airbrushed
beautiful women is “oversaturated.” I can get behind that idea—looking at the
current stock of most adult movie stores, they could just as soon make one porn
movie and release it with a million different box covers and I doubt it would
make much difference. But the market seems to like its “variety,” narrowly
constricted though it may be.
Another hypothesis centers on the market demographics. According
to the article, the primary consumer base for this kind of content is young men
with MILF fantasies:
[The growing interest in mature-age content] has been fueled
in part by pop culture’s embrace of the sexy 40-something women of “Desperate
Housewives” and “Stacy’s Mom,” the 2003 hit song about a teenager’s mother who
“has got it going on.”
This just doesn’t ring true. For starters, the music video
for the Fountain of Wayne song referenced above (“Stacy’s Mom”) stars Rachel Hunter, a famous blonde, large-chested actress. The video does
not exactly celebrate your average middle-aged mom. Furthermore, the explosion
of demand for Botox treatments and wrinkle creams does not at all indicate that
pop culture is doing anything to “embrace” 40-something women. The Desperate
Housewife actresses are as plastic as they come—a far cry from the women like
De’Bella who appear in mature-age porn.
While it’s hard to discern the root of any trend, especially
one of a sexual nature, my guess is that the trend stems from a combination of
middle-aged baby boomers’ desire to see women a little closer to their age as
well as a growing cultural awareness of female sexuality.
On the latter point, the Times mentions in passing what may
be key to understanding this pattern:
The sexual confidence of older women…is fueling the supply
side as well as the demand
I doubt I’ll offend anyone’s sensibilities when I posit that
the beautiful, air-brushed 19-year-olds appearing in the vast majority of porn
do not represent female sexuality. They are entirely constructs of male
sexuality—they essentially serve as a pretty mirror onto which men can project
their sexuality and fantasies and see it reflected back at them in a novel
enough way to get men off. Women, in general, contribute little if any of their
authentic sexual nature into the movies (and arguably, teenage girls are far
from truly grasping their authentic sexual nature). This is a function of both
age as well as the overall structure and dynamic of the industry.
But times are changing. Female sexuality, for centuries
overlooked and repressed into obsolescence in the middle class, Western world,
is finally starting to be reclaimed and celebrated. (See second wave feminism,
third wave feminism, Good Vibrations, Toys in Babeland, Annie Sprinkle, Susie
Bright, Nina Hartley, etc.) And it is older (as in 25+) women leading the way.
They’re more comfortable in their bodies, less constrained by teenage
insecurities, more fed up with impossible standards of beauty, and more
inclined to figure out (and ask for) what they want.
Ultimately I see increased interest in mature-age porn as a good
thing. I consider any representation of authentic female pleasure and
female-directed action a positive contribution to the industry. At the same
time, I do not delude myself into thinking that this marks some sort of turning
point or that it represents a lasting trend. More likely, this trend will
follow the more or less bell-shaped popularity arch of most porn niches.
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