What do women really want from PORN?

Can we ever consume porn without guilt? Catriona Innes went on set to find out...

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My brain is at war with my body. It won’t allow me to experience what I want to experience, to feel what I want to feel. I want to fully absorb what I’m seeing, enjoy it, but I find something, something deep and untraceable, is telling me I shouldn’t, that it would be wrong.

A few feet in front of me, dusk’s golden light is illuminating two bodies entwined with each other. The air smells of lemons, the ingredients for fresh lemonade shoved aside as the women choose to devour each other instead. “Be in this moment, enjoy this, it’s sexy,” one voice inside me insists. But then there’s the other, turning me off by screeching, “You shouldn’t be finding this hot; how embarrassing, how shameful, don’t let anyone know how turned on you are...” The second voice is louder than the first, and one I know too well—one I’ve listened to far too often.

This evening’s circumstances are wholly different from when these thoughts normally crop up, however. Usually, the shame creeps in when I’m alone in my bedroom, just my laptop bearing witness. Right now, I’m in a villa nestled within the Spanish mountains, and I have company. Company that is far too busy to notice the blush snaking up my chest, the light sweat I’ve broken out into. They’re also much more used to this than I am—they’re professionals, and they have a job to do. The scene needs to be captured before the light fades.

Over the next 24 hours, I will watch three scenes being filmed, as three couples have very real sex, right in front of me. Why? I want to explore women’s relationship with porn, why we are so excluded from conversations surrounding it, and where this complex mix of desire swirled with shame and guilt comes from. Will spending months researching this world, meeting those who produce and star in it, help me uncover more? There was only one way to find out...