Every day, hundreds of millions of people watch pornography, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Yet porn is full of stereotypes about gender and sexuality. From the “MILF” to the “Slutty Schoolgirl,” women are often portrayed as submissive, while men are depicted as driven by an insatiable libido.
That not everyone finds these portrayals equally appealing became clear in the research we conducted during Lowlands Science 2024. In particular, young feminist women reported feeling shame when watching porn.
PORN-TYPES researcher Lotte Mikkers wrote an article about this research outcome for socialevraagstukken.nl. The original article (in Dutch) can be found here. Below is an English translation.
Author: Lotte Mikkers
Date: December 17, 2024 (original publication on Sociale Vraagstukken)
Photo: Maurits Kortenbout
“Embarrassing, right?” says a young woman with a mix of humor and discomfort during an interview at Lowlands, which was part of a project I worked on as a researcher. “In everyday life, I’m very feminist, but I still watch the most traditional porn when it comes to male–female dynamics.”
She’s not alone: many young women who consider themselves feminists experience discomfort, shame, and even guilt about their erotic preferences, as shown by the Lowlands research.
At Lowlands, I carried out a simple but thought-provoking study with a team from Erasmus University: we asked eighty festival-goers, slightly more than half of them women, about their erotic preferences using pornographic titles. One of the five popular genres was the traditional pornographic repertoire, featuring a dominant man and a submissive woman.
What stood out? The group that found this appealing consisted almost entirely of women. “I know it’s not really okay,” one female participant confessed. “But if I’m honest, it turns me on.”
“Why do these images feel so attractive, even when they contradict our values?”
That comment came up more often and touches on a broader point. This preference shows how deeply cultural scripts shape our desires. Feminist ideals – like equality and autonomy – seem at odds with hierarchical fantasies in which power itself is eroticized.
In the interviews, this discomfort not only triggered shame, but also questions: Why do these images feel so attractive, even when they contradict our values? And how much of our desire is truly our own?
One possible explanation for the tension between feminist ideals and erotic fantasies lies in sexual scripts. According to Sexual Script Theory (Gagnon & Simon, 1973), our sexual desires don’t develop in a vacuum. They are shaped by cultural narratives and social expectations that tell us what is attractive, normal, or desirable. These scripts not only offer guidelines for how people should behave, but also form expectations and fantasies about sexuality.
In Black Sexual Politics (1990), sociologist Patricia Hill Collins shows how pornography reflects existing power structures in society. It emphasizes and reinforces social hierarchies by sexualizing power and linking desire to dominance and submission.
Research shows that these scripts are shaped not only by culture, but also transmitted and reinforced through media, upbringing, and social interactions (Tholander et al., 2022). Think of fairy tales in which princesses passively wait for a heroic rescuer, often a prince – subtle hierarchies that later reappear in romantic and sexual scenarios.
These scripts are so pervasive that they often remain invisible, yet they still determine what we experience as erotic (Gagnon & Simon, 1973).That may explain why many female participants in the study said their fantasies didn’t match their self-image.
This also came up in the conversations at Lowlands. “I really do value equality,” a young woman said, almost apologetically. “But it feels like my sexual fantasies just don’t align with that.”
That discomfort is telling: it shows that shame is not only a personal struggle, but also a consequence of social norms that women unknowingly internalize.
“It’s precisely in the discomfort that we have the chance to re-examine how desires are formed.”
Moreover, these scripts are rarely questioned. The discomfort around sexuality and porn preferences means they are not discussed openly, which in turn allows them to be continually reinforced.
The lack of reflection – and therefore critical examination – ensures that they not only persist, but also become deeply rooted in ourselves and our desires.
The tension between fantasy and ideals reveals something fundamental: desire is never purely individual, but always intertwined with the world that shapes us. As intersectional feminist and cultural critic Audre Lorde writes in Sister Outsider(1984), freedom does not lie in denying influences, but in critically understanding them.
Just as the personal preferences of Lowlands participants tell us something about desire, the “Year in Review” by porn streaming platform Pornhub offers a broader perspective on the role of cultural norms in what we find attractive. It clearly shows that porn functions as a mirror of societal trends (Pornhub, 2023).
Take recent years: search terms like “robot” and “AI” have risen explosively, reflecting our growing technological fixation, even in the bedroom. Aging is also visible in the rising popularity of terms like “GILF” (Grandmother I’d Like to Fuck), which in 2023 increased by no less than 168 percent.
Perhaps the key is not to resolve this paradox, but to acknowledge it. Fantasy and ideals don’t have to be perfectly aligned. It’s precisely in the discomfort, in that collision, that we have the opportunity to re-examine who we are and how our desires are shaped. Because, however awkward, that tension invites reflection.
Want to learn more about the research we conducted at Lowlands 2024? Watch this lecture night organized by the team together with Studium Generale at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Various team members explain their studies and why examining stereotypes in pornography matters so much for understanding how erotic preferences, thoughts and behaviors are shaped by society!
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