Women’s Drifting Eyeballs and Porn Tastes

Within the context of a global turn toward feminine taste cultures, this study sets out to examine how Hong Kong women are sensing and rating hard-core and alternative pornographies. Since Hong Kong (like many other cultures) lacks a flourishing porn industry and a confident tradition of feminist and queer-produced erotica, how are Hong Kong women rating maleoriented porn traditions and the newer taste cultures? In order to do research about this topic, I received a Direct Grant from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2012-13) to organize workshops in Hong Kong, Japan, and the United States. In these workshops, several segments of culturally diverse hard-core, female-friendly, and queer pornography were screened in classrooms and community spaces and were commented on informally and through in-depth discussions. For this chapter, I will mostly focus on the reactions of Hong Kong Chinese women who attended these workshops at the Chinese University of Hong Kong or at the community centers of the lesbian organizations G-Spot and Women’s Coalition of Hong Kong.