A library of fantasies: Re-imagining sex through feminist audio pornography

How can we re-imagine sex from a feminist perspective? And how do we challenge culturally established norms for sexual interaction? These questions arise from claims that the increasing ‘pornification’ of society (Nikunen, Paasonen, and Saarenmaa, 2007) installs sexual norms that promote female subordination (Srinivasan, 2022), deprivation of female sexual agency (Lischinsky, 2018), and dehumanizing objectification of female bodies (Brownmiller, 1975). Feminist porn has emerged as an alternative to mainstream porn (Mondin, 2014) by producing pornographic material that counters and challenges the male gaze and hegemonic norms of mainstream pornography (Maina, 2014, Penley et al., 2013, Taormino, 2013; Young, 2014). In keeping with the notion of feminist porn as a work in progress, we understand gender equality in sexual encounters in pornography as utopic; something we strive towards but maybe never reach (Cooper, 2014). Utopianism can be understood as the desire, hope and quest for better ways of living through reforming the current social arrangements (Levitas, 2013), in other words striving for social change.In this paper, we explore how a producer of audio pornography for women, Erotic Stories (a pseudonym), re-imagines pornography to challenge the sexual norms in mainstream pornography. With Erotic Stories, the founders explicitly sought to challenge the dominant male norms in the porn industry by moving away from the male gaze and producing pornography with a focus on female lust, consensual sex, and romance. With our study, we provide a utopian perspective on feminist porn and shed light on an example of a progressive effort to challenge sexual norms (Cooper, 2014) with the ultimate hope to inspire efforts for pushing more toward gender equality.