Zara Stone, from Forbes online, reached out to us to discuss virtual reality production, the possible effects this new technology could have on the adult industry and if I thought VR has a place within the "porn for women" genre. The full interview can be read at Forbes.com

1. Why would women find VR porn (as it currently is) appealing/unappealing?

Although some women might enjoy VR porn in it’s current state, our member polling indicates that for the majority it is not of much significant interest.  Most current VR porn is POV (point of view) with the male viewer watching and interacting with female performers masturbating, performing oral sex on them, etc.  When you think about it, that doesn’t lend itself well to male performers interacting with women!

In our experience, the majority of our members tend to enjoy watching a movie with couples having passionate sex, often times with a bit of a storyline.  VR in its current range of possibilities does not resonate with that viewing experience.

Sssh.com is exploring ways to integrate the VR experience, but as the genre is very different than traditional porn and live sex cams which extend organically to virtual reality, we are looking for ways in which this fits naturally into adult entertainment for women and couples. So only time will tell if VR will have a home on Sssh

2. What differs porn for women from “traditional” male porn?

Well, it depends a lot on who is making the porn, but generally speaking, in porn for women there’s a lot more emphasis on mutual pleasure and enjoyment.  We show sex in a positive light, that’s filled with intimacy, passion and fun. We try to work with real couples, which enables us to capture a chemistry and connection that you just don’t see in traditional porn.

Our female characters are strong, and the women we portray are in charge of their own sexuality.  Plus it’s shot from a female perspective, with great care given to the narrative and aesthetics.

While in a lot of ‘traditional’ porn, there’s really no thought of the woman’s pleasure or enjoyment; they’re basically recipients of intercourse, more so than equal participants in it.

I also want to be clear I don’t think it’s fair to suggest all ‘traditional’ porn is the same, or that male directors can’t make porn a woman would want to watch. It’s just a generalization, and the term “porn for women” is kind of a convenient shorthand. Naturally, women’s tastes in porn are as varied and diverse as men’s, so there’s no magic formula here, just general trends and tendencies.

3. With VR porn becoming mostly the domain of 'traditional' porn or kink porn, is there a concern that VR porn for women, mostly made by indie studios, will become second tier/harder to find?

It’s too early to tell which studios will experiment with producing VR porn for women for all of the reasons I listed in question #1.  Whereas the “Live Sex Cam” male-oriented niche will certainly do very well with VR live shows, it remains to be seen how this can be integrated into shooting porn for women.

4. Has your audience asked for VR at all or discussed it? Why do you think that is?

No one has asked to date.  I suspect that many of our members have heard the buzz about VR porn, but it has not rung anyone’s bell enough to request we start producing it.

In our experience at Sssh.com, women have a vast diversity of sexual tastes and kinks, but perhaps strapping on a headset to watch naked men dancing for them and masturbating is not one of them?

5. Out of the VR porn available (Badoink, etc) what do you think they're doing well/ what can they improve upon and why?

Early adopter sites like Badoink are doing a great job at creating pre-recorded Point Of View movies in which viewers are entertained by women performing for them, but the next big wave is going to be in the live VR show realm in which viewers interact real-time with actresses.  This will present many challenges for companies to ramp up to this as, for the most part, live sex VR sessions will need to be filmed in a studio environment (unlike the current “cam girls” industry where performers can broadcast from anywhere in the world on their laptop).  However, introducing the live, interactive element will completely cross the bridge from the previous failed attempt at 3D porn (and 3D movies in general) by providing direct interaction between the viewer and performer.

6. Do you believe there is any VR porn 'made for women' available right now?

I am not aware of any that is being specifically produced “for women” at this point, but assume that my fellow female porn producers and directors are also looking at this with similar questions.

7. Is all porn objectifying (we talked on this briefly) - how do you address this?

I think depictions of all kind, be they pornographic, part of mainstream entertainment, or used in advertising, tend to objectify people. Plus, we always hear about objectification as a problem facing women, but are men any less objectified by porn? In a lot of porn, all you see of the man involved is his penis; how full a representation of his persona is his disembodied penis, realistically? The thing is, nobody ever asks “are men being objectified here?” That’s a question reserved for us delicate flowers from the ‘weaker sex,’ apparently.

I guess my answer is sure, all porn objectifies people – followed by a bunch of my own questions in response, starting with what’s the alternative? How do we capture the full essence of two or more people in a 30-minute pornographic vignette, the real purpose of which is to tantalize and arouse the viewer? Is that even possible, or desirable, or should people maybe just lighten the hell up a little when it comes to the whole question of “objectification” and not treat everything they watch like it’s the subject of an academic symposium?

With that said, if the people your working with are there by choice, if they are enjoying themselves and are a part of the creative process, I think some porn can be more empowering than objectifying to the participants.

8. What is your definition of Sex Positive?

Like so many other terms people throw around when discussing porn, or sex, or anything which makes a lot of people uncomfortable to talk about, I’m not so sure “sex positive” means exactly the same thing to any two people.

To me, whatever the dictionary definition might be, being ‘sex positive’ just means thinking of sex as a good thing and not a source of shame, or a moral failing. I also think there should be acceptance of the ‘other’ within sex positivity, including gender, sexual preferences and body image, a recognition that just because you don’t like or approve of something personally, it doesn’t mean people who do like it have something wrong with them. In other words, I don’t want to find myself using the term in a way which suggests I think there’s one “right way” to have or depict sex, because I don’t believe that to be true.

What I mean by this is when I’m creating a sex positive movie, I want there to be an absence of degradation and shame, because this reflects how I think about sex. At the same time, for some people, shame and degradation are actually part of what they want from sex, part of their ‘personal kink,’ so to speak. Does this make them “sex negative,” or does thinking of them as such really mean you’re not so much sex positive as you are judgmental?