As a feminist, I have a love/hate relationship with porn. There are some hot amazing porn stars out there who own their sexuality and do porn because that’s what they love, but then there are the tragic stories of people like Linda Lovelace, who later denounced porn saying she was forced into it by an abusive ex and a drug filled industry.
Jenna Jameson is one of the few female porn stars who has able to hold her own in an abusively male dominant industry. She’s so successful, she was recently on Oprah, talking about what it’s like to be the world’s most famous porn star, mother and entrepreneur.
Why is Oprah taking on such a touchy subject as porn? First off, because she’s awesome, and second because it’s something a lot of her viewers watch.
According to a Violet Blue article on Oprah’s website:
In the first three months of 2007, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, approximately one in three visitors to adult entertainment Web sites was female; during the same period, nearly 13 million American women were checking out porn online at least once each month.
In her interview, Oprah talks honestly with Jenna Jameson about the reality of porn for women, both as stars and viewers of porn. Jameson states that women have favorite female porn stars too, and equates it to following Paris Hilton’s latest fashion in the tabloids.
Women are the fastest growing demographic for new porn watchers, and by making porn more mainstream, women can feel the sexual freedom that coming out as a porn watcher can give you. I hope that this freedom extends to the porn industry itself, and that porn stars are able to stand up for their personal rights as porn becomes less taboo.
Here’s the half-hour Oprah interview, in four parts:
