About Us
We are a group of women of different ages, lifestyles and backgrounds interested in film and exploring sensuality and, in the process, hopefully making your search for sensual film and other sensual resources just that much easier. Experts? No. Passionate? Yes!
This site was born on an afternoon some twenty years ago. Two girlfriends and I thought it would be fun to rent our first porn movie—we even planned to have lunch while we watched. Needless to say, we got more than we bargained for. At the time, I thought someone should write a guide to porn for women. Later, I realized while women may enjoy watching porn, its target audience is men. That is where I developed the idea of a guide to sensual film for women which could potentially grow into a guide for sensual resources of all kinds.
In order for a sensual film guide to appeal to a large group of women, I realized I would need a team of women that represented a variety of tastes. Again, the selection of film guides was not scientific—I selected five women from family and friends that I feel lucky to know or be related to in that they are talented, creative and completely different.
And so was born “Barefoot Aphrodite—A Woman’s Guide to Sensual Film.” Each month, two reviewers select a movie that they have found sensual to be reviewed. It is important to note that our reviews are based on whether the guide found the movie sensual or not—we may have enjoyed the movie on many other levels but just not found it sensual. Site visitors may rate the sensuality of the films as well.
Redefining the Sensual
“The return of the sensuous to sexuality, a pleasuring of the senses that contributes to desire.”
When we began selecting films for this site, one of the team members said she was unsure of what I meant by “sensual” and she wasn’t sure if her movie selection qualified. If you watch some of these movies hoping for a “hot” flick, you may be disappointed. But then again, you may not. In the end, it will depend on what “sensual” means to you. In the end, none of the movies may work for you and you will need to start your own list with your own definition of “sensual.”
If I were using a dictionary definition, this site would be dealing with the voluptuous rather than the sensual. According to one dictionary definition (1), “voluptuous implies the luxurious gratification of sensuous or sensual desires.” The same dictionary defines sensual and sensuous as synonyms but notes that sensual usually refers unfavorably to the enjoyments derived from the senses while sensuous refers favorably to the same.
My search for the right word for the content on this site came from the idea that what satisfied men sexually did not satisfy women sexually. In an initial search on the internet, I tried “erotic” but that will take you down the same road as a “sexual” search. And so I came to sensual, to the idea that what is lacking for many women in the sexual arena is a pleasuring of all the senses as well as the sexual organs, to the idea that touch and color and music and scents and gestures and other sensory excitements are necessary for many women to find sexual fulfillment, to feel desire.
And so, that is how I came to my own definition of “sensual” for this site: the return of the sensuous to sexuality, a pleasuring of the senses that contributes to desire. Many, if not all of these films, will have some sexual content, but the focus is on the sensuality of the film and whether the women selecting the films and critiquing them found them to put the sensuous back in the sexual, found a “luxurious gratification” of their desires.
So, please, dim the lights and join us and we hope you find a selection that pleasures your senses!