This is an interview by  Sofia Barrett-Ibarria that appeared in Vice online

I had been running adult websites since 1994, and from the start, I couldn’t help but notice there was hardly any adult content that catered to a female audience. I wanted to change that. Twenty years ago, someone told me (at an adult industry trade show), that there was no market for porn made for women.  Women were not visual, nor did they enjoy porn and they would never pay for it. They were wrong.

2019 is Sssh.com’s 20th anniversary.  We are the longest-running site geared towards women on the web. Our crowd-sourced award-winning films are inspired by the fantasies and desires shared by our members. Our provocative storylines will challenge your perceptions of explicit sexual content. From cutting edge VR, to narrative film - our ethically produced, sex-positive movies communicate true passion and mutual pleasure. We always strive to be equal parts intelligent, sexy, and entertaining.

In addition to its primary website, Sssh also produces Mindbrowse, an interactive online live talk show, and our educational Twitter-based chat program #SexTalkTuesday, which has had such guest moderators as Margaret Cho.

Adhering to the highest ethical standards, Sssh takes pride in treating all its employees, performers, customers and business associates with fairness, compassion, and respect. We also contribute to a variety of charitable causes that benefit communities all around the world.

Who is the site's target audience, and how do you approach marketing to this audience? Is there certain language or imagery that typically draws interest?

While the site’s original target audience was women, it has evolved to include couples – and anyone else who wants to see something a little different from the movies they typically see on other adult sites. I do believe there is an enormous untapped market for people who want an alternative and that’s what Sssh provides.

When I first started, I quickly discovered that people’s sexual preferences and fantasies varied tremendously, and I needed a way to get a better understanding of what my members were looking for. Asking them directly seemed to be the obvious solution. So, I started a survey which asked the women who came to the site what they wanted to see, and what their fantasies entailed. My members have helped me enormously as both a director and storyteller because I’m working from a crowdsourced roadmap of fantasies and desires.

The majority of porn focuses on the male perspective – what looks good and feels good according to men. Women are typically just there as a function of his pleasure. To me, this biased perspective is not a recipe for good sex. With Sssh.com, I want to depict my idea of good sex, which focuses on realism and mutual pleasure.

It’s empowering to depict women in charge of their own bodies and desires. There is a need for female-driven stories to balance the largely male-oriented fantasies that we currently see. There is a need for movies presented from a female perspective with an emphasis on female pleasure. It empowers us. It humanizes us. It tells our stories.

The Sssh.com website focus’ on that imagery and the fantasies that our members have submitted.  We are very interactive and approachable. We are a community with twenty years of historical data of women's desires - what women and couples are looking for. I think all of that along with the unique imagery, features, and award-winning movies help us stand out.

I've also spoken to a few critics of "porn for women" as a separate category of porn, who feel that some female-friendly sites sometimes use reductive "faux-feminist" marketing that presents a very narrow definition of women's sexuality. Is this something you've had to navigate as a company? How can women-focused sites avoid this?

There is such a misconception about the term “Porn for Women.”  Whether it’s the term itself, the content, or its use in marketing. I feel when people hear “Porn for Women” they think soft lighting, candles, and romantic music. Of course, it can include these things, but it can also represent so much more - like hardcore explicit sex, rough sex, BDSM, etc. Porn for women is whatever you want it to be.

The term also puts women in a box and It’s one I don’t particularly care for. You know – “women like these things, but not these other things.”  We’re pigeonholing people.  It’s a huge injustice to the diversity of our desires.

To me, the term is a marker, a road sign that lets people know we’re doing something different.  I have also been consciously trying to add in other phrases such as Indie Adult Site, Porn made by Women, Female Led, or Female-Focused. 

Unfortunately, “Porn for Women” has turned into a catchphrase and many mainstream companies are using it to capture that segment of the market. It’s very misleading and dishonest. It’s also business. To these companies, Porn for Women is nothing more than a keyword, a keyword everyone is free to use. Of course, it also brings you back to the question of what exactly is porn for women?

All we can do is represent our content honestly and leave it up to the consumer to decide if we have the movies/ethos they are seeking.

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