In A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World's Largest Experiment Reveals About Human Desire, released last month, neuroscientists Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam analyzed a billion web searches, a million Web sites, a million erotic videos, a million erotic stories, millions of personal ads, and tens of thousands of digitized romance novels when they set out to investigate what people search for when they're looking for sexy stuff online. Among the conclusions in their new book: Men and women search for erotic and pornographic material online pretty much equally, but women are much less -- about 98 percent less -- likely to pay for it.
I caught up with Sssh.com founder Angie R., one of Ogas and Gaddam's sources for data on what women want and what they are willing to pay for, to find out more about how her female- and couples-centric membership website is bucking the trends by catering to -- and listening to -- women.
Some of the analytics from Sssh.com were cited in the book A Billion Wicked Thoughts. Now that you have all this data from your own sites, can you share some perspective on what women are looking for and willing to pay for when it comes to erotica, erotic art, and porn?
You know, I look at my site's stats all the time and we very actively ask our members what they're looking for, so there's not a lot that surprises me. When we ask our members what they want to see when they're viewing sexual content on Sssh, the number one response is tenderness and romance. Number two is female-focused foreplay. And number three is cunnilingus. They want attractive people and a full romantic storyline, not just random sex devoid of context. Environment is important to women, so we try to take that into consideration and find great locations for our movies, you know, the kind of places you'd fantasize about having amazing, romantic sex. Women also want to see fairly high production values in the movies: We want our fantasies to be fantastic.
I knew, when we started this site, what women didn't want: Very few women want to see cum shots, you know, the traditional porn money shots, and our analytics and member surveys back that assertion up. Women pretty unanimously do not want to see facial cum shots. Sorry guys. But I was surprised by some of what they did want. Some women said they wanted us to have more close ups, and more anal sex, which surprised me, and the search results on our site back those survey answers up. They also wanted us to focus more on the man's expression during sex, not just the woman's. They wanted to see both the woman and the man experiencing pleasure together, and it was something I hadn't really thought about before.
It's valuable to be able to see those stats about what people are searching for, and to solicit information from the members to find out what they're looking for rather than always taking shots in the dark.
Yes, and one of my biggest challenges personally has been not to flood Sssh with what I want. When we talk about what are we going to shoot this week and what our articles going to be, we try to take everybody we cater to into consideration. It's really hard sometimes to step out of that box of what we want to see and make sure we're providing what our members want to see, which is sometimes very different.
How did the idea for Sssh.com come about?
One of the reasons that I even started to think about doing this was I watched this show where a woman said she was brought up being taught that masturbation is dirty and bad. When she masturbated, she would masturbate through a sheet, because in her mind she wasn't actually touching herself through that barrier. But then, afterwards, she was riddled with guilt about it. I thought that was one of the saddest stories I have ever heard. It was really upsetting to me that in this day and age anyone would believe that their own pleasure was bad for them, or dangerous or dirty, or shameful, or whatever. I wanted women to know that that's just not the case, and to create a community for them and provide content for them to counteract those kinds of messages in our society. I wanted to create a place where women could come to find what they were looking for, and to feel good about having found it.
What are the most popular sections of your site?
The movies are the most popular, then the tutorials, then stories and articles are head to head after that. Going in I expected the stories to be #1, but I guess if you give women a storyline and attractive actors, they love the video, too. I think women are actually as visually-oriented as men, but it's all in the presentation. Most sites, and most adult filmmakers, have male consumers in mind rather than female consumers, and I think they're missing the target. The members' feedback and interaction really makes Sssh and shows us where to shift our focus.
I do see a lot of how-tos and video tutorials on the site. What do you find are the big questions women have about how to get what they want when it comes to sex?
Anal sex! Women definitely have a lot of questions about anal sex. It's still one of those taboo topics, and, paradoxically, in our survey anal sex is on the top the "what don't you want to see" list and yet, farther down in the survey, it's also what they want to see more of. We get more questions about anal sex than any other topic, which was a surprise to me, so now we have lots of articles, though not many movies yet, dealing with anal sex.
Another one of the really popular features on the site is the "Ask a Man" panel. It's the only testosterone-heavy section on the site, but people love it. The panel is four guys, one each in his 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, and our members throw them questions like you wouldn't believe. It's interesting to see the variety in answers as the men get older, and also to see how a man views the questions. Just because women have lots of questions doesn't mean they're insecure, it's just that we have a lot of curiosity and not a lot of great forums for asking those questions and getting honest answers. I'm really glad women have found a place to go with those questions.
Over the last few years I've been reporting about the rise of sex-positive and feminist pornography, much of it made by women, and also about ongoing anti-porn efforts, much of it also from a feminist perspective. As a woman in the industry, and as somebody working to cater to both female audiences and couples, what would you say to feminist critics of pornography in defense of the work you do and the sites you run?
I'd say, "To each her own." I want to provide a safe place for women to explore sex, for those who want it. If you don't want it, don't join Sssh.com and don't go searching for sexual content online, and by the same token don't condemn others who do. Really, to each her own: That's the way I see it. We haven't had too much backlash regarding Sssh.com, and I do think there's an acknowledgment that what we're doing is healthy and positive and a little bit different from some of what's out there. To people who are anti-porn: If you've got questions or concerns about the industry, then please ask! Let's have a conversation. There's certainly a lot to talk about there. But a lot of what I hear is this "porn causes divorce" stuff. Well, then, why don't you make it something you do together? If I had huge concerns for my marriage about my husband watching porn, I'd want to make it something we do together. I mean, we've actually had couples join the site saying their sex therapist recommended it! We got an email from one of those couples the other day, after they had signed up for a trial membership. The husband emailed me and he said, "You have done more for my marriage, sexually, in the last 12 hours than any sex therapist has ever been able to do" and they upgraded to a full-year membership. I don't know what it was -- maybe watching the movies together, or watching some of the tutorials -- but something did it for them.
Since much of the content at Sssh.com is behind a paywall and subscriptions run about $20 a month, I'm curious to hear your perspective: What does it take to inspire women to make that leap, from surfing for free stuff to actually shelling out for the erotic content they want, and how have you tried to build your site to cater to those ends?
I think a lot of it is in the presentation, how you present content to women. When the adult sites send their reviewers to review Sssh, we ask them to send a woman whenever possible, because when we get male reviewers who are used to looking at adult sites they just don't understand it. They don't understand the main menu, or they'll complain about how everything is split up. They'll say things like, "Why is there so much text? Who wants to read this much? Why aren't all the movies in one place?" I do think men and women really are different. Men are very visual, and I wont say that women aren't, because our movies are very popular, but it's all in the presentation. We're catering to women and couples here, there's romance, there's a reason for the sex happening. It's not just arbitrary sex like you'll see on a lot of other sites.
Why aren't there more sites like Sssh?
My husband runs the BDSM site Wasteland.com, and Sssh came out of conversations at industry events where we were attending for Wasteland, and I'd ask why no one had created a great adult site for women yet. Some people said that they had tried to launch women-oriented sites that failed, but then I noticed it was all men trying to create them, and I knew I could do it differently. The key element to bring members in is that it feels classy: The appearance and tone of the site is really important to our members. And the key element to keeping those members is providing a community for them and providing fresh content that fulfills what they're looking for. In my experience when women finally find a site that is really catering to their needs, their desires, their fantasies, and also providing them that sense of a safe community for sharing them, then they're willing to pay for that experience. If women aren't willing to pay for other sites, I'd suggest it's probably because those sites weren't designed with women in mind! But there are some interesting differences: At Wasteland, where about 80 percent of the members are men, they sign up for the full membership and pay their bills just like they'd pay their cable bill ,and it just becomes a monthly expense. Whereas at Sssh we have hundreds of women who join every week, cancel after the 2-day trial, and then sign up again. We have women who faithfully rejoin every week, but for whatever reason they aren't willing to commit to the longer-term membership. One woman has been with us for eight years and still does the trial membership every week! I guess women are just wired a little bit differently.
Since you mentioned Wasteland, let's talk about those extremes... There's quite a contrast between Sssh.com and Wasteland.com. On the one hand you have this light pink, soft, sensual, erotic site clearly catering to women as a safe space to explore their sexuality, and then on the other hand you have this dark, hardcore bondage and fetish site with women tied up, in cages, etc. and with women in both extremely submissive and extremely dominant roles. Can you talk to me about the space between those perspectives and how you came to be representing and catering to those extremes of what people are looking for when they're surfing for sexy stuff?
My husband runs Wasteland and I run Sssh, and for the most part we keep them separate, but I don't want to set it up as some kind of black-and-white contrast, either. Both sites are driven by their very different membership communities, but they actually have more in common than you might think and there's actually some crossover content. For one thing, at least 20 percent of the members at Wasteland are women. We've also had some popular BDSM content on Sssh, and that's important, too. People think of bondage and they tend to think of tying someone up and beating the heck out of them -- my husband sometimes calls other BDSM sites "flog and f*** sites" -- but it can also be more sensual and erotic, and bondage can actually build a lot of trust in a relationship if you go about it properly. I happen to think people should explore their fantasies and the fantasies of their partners, and if being held down or doing the holding down is part of those fantasies then, again, I say to each his or her own.
Speaking of fantasies, let's close by talking about the Sssh.com Fantasy Contest, running now through July 31. You're asking people to write down their fantasies as narrative stories, and the winners will actually see those fantasies made into movies on the website, and get a DVD copy for themselves.
It's a great contest because it's another opportunity to make sure our members are getting exactly what they want. We can see what fantasies we haven't touched on yet, and it helps create community: People in our chat rooms are talking about it. Just the act of writing down your fantasy can be pretty awesome and maybe can be a step toward talking to your partner about it. In our video content, we do try to come up with various ideas - from serious issues to comedy, based around the things that happen in real relationships. The plots are centered on things that truly happen, and even if it's about a frustrating relationship situation, the make up sex is always really great. So turning one of our member's fantasies into a movie for the site; it'd be an honor to make one of these for our members. It's a win-win situation. Sssh is about pushing a little on your boundaries, safely, and that's what fantasy can do. We've already got submissions coming in, and we can't wait to see the final results!
Thanks for the great chat! Is there anything else you want to add?
I have learned that we can't cater to everybody, even after 10 years, but we do want to have a broad range of subjects, situations, and levels of naughtiness so our members can feel comfortable and explore. One of the features that helps our members feel comfortable is that we rate stuff on Sssh. The tamer offerings might feature shirtless men, the next level are more like Cinemax, and the most daring show the whole kit and caboodle. There is a mild kink section, not as extreme as Wasteland -- it's more loving stuff -- and we have a bi-curious section since we've heard from a lot of members who said they're interested in seeing two women together. "Know Thyself" is a great section all about masturbation. I want women to be able to step out of their safety zone of the couples section and read about how other women masturbate, and I want them to push on that. We also talk about role playing, which is where the whole fantasy thing comes in, exploring aspects of themselves that they may not be comfortable with yet. By reading about or watching some of these areas that they may not know much about yet, women can get a feel for new things that they may want to try. Even in sex, nobody wants to look like an idiot or look silly! I want them to feel comfortable, so I'm not going to throw it at them unless they want to see it. That's why we have so many sections, and have the ratings. It makes us unique. If you only want to see shirtless guys running around and read romance novels, there's tons of stuff on Sssh for you, and if you want to go beyond, you can do that, too.
For the latest Sex & Relationships headlines, please subscribe to this column (below) and follow @Sexaminer on Twitter.
Comments