Last month, I wrote a story lamenting the sorry lack of quality porn for women. I am now here to tell you… I was wrong. Very wrong. Shamefully wrong. And I’m not too proud to admit it. Within days of the post going up, I was inundated with emails and tweets gently telling me just how wrong I was, and from those who know best: women in the trenches of the adult film industry, working tirelessly to create good porn for other women like me. And just like that, my frustrated lament became an earnest education. In the mail, I received–much to the amusement of my partner–a box of porn DVDs. They were sent by Jacky St. James, one of those women on the frontlines of female-oriented adult film production. I immediately curled up on the couch to watch a rom-com sex romp called The Friend Zone. And, well… it was good. Like, really good. It had legitimate production values. The acting ranged from just fine to truly impressive. The script was funnier than most mainstream rom-coms in theaters today (Hollywood producers, take note). And… what’s this? Is that a sex scene involving people who actually seem to care about one another? Is that woman being respected as she’s being pleasured? Is that a condom I see? The experience was, in a word, a revelation, satisfying in every desired way. After The Friend Zone, I dove in to the erotica of FrolicMe, featuring gorgeously rendered shots of men and women in the throes of passion, including one video of a woman, bathed in warm lighting, pleasuring herself beside the window of her tranquil country home. Maybe I’m the only woman in the world who was unaware content of such quality actually existed. Maybe I’m the only one who had spent many a frustrated nights on Pornhub, marveling at how far removed from woman-friendly something labeled “woman-friendly” could be. But I’m going to guess I’m not alone; that other women, too, have clicked their way through a barrage of cheap, degrading, not-in-the-least-bit-arousing porn videos, feeling not only sexually unfulfilled, but frustrated by an industry’s unconscionable inability to respect the sexual desires of women–not to mention men interested in sex with emotional resonance and actual passion. It was an education I needed to share, so I reached out to four of the women who led me to this sexual awakening, and probed […]