Beyond the male pleasure principle. Women’s strategies for navigating the pornographic universe – an example of lesbian and amateur pornography

Abstract

The article undertakes an analysis of individual strategies of online pornography consumption among young women (20–25 years old) in the context of feminist discourses on sexuality and gender. The study, based on 10 qualitative interviews, identifies key determinants of pornographic category choice, with a particular focus on lesbian and amateur pornography. The results indicate that the women participating in the study prefer both of them because of the present focus on female pleasure, authenticity, possibility of identification and lack of phallocentric narratives characteristic of mainstream pornography. The analysis also reveals the ambivalent attitude of female users towards pornography, combining a critique of its patriarchal structures with a desire for sexual expression. The article is part of a broader debate on pornography as a tool of oppression or sexual liberation, initiated by Western feminists in the 1970s, offering an understanding and critical perspective. For the preparation of the text, the GPT Chat was used at the stage of searching for scientific texts relating to the issue in question.