Relationships5 min(s) read
Published 09:14 06 Jun 2026 GMT
It was 2015 when 50 Shades of Grey graced cinema screens, a cultural moment that suddenly opened a conversation among women about their desires and kinks, and Anna Richards spotted a huge gap in the adult film market.
While working in marketing, raising two teenage children, and celebrating being with her husband for over 20 years, Anna Richards noticed that her peers were not prioritising masturbation as a form of self-care and decided to do something about it.
Medium.png_0FHZOR?tr=cr-0.0.640.427,f-webp,q-70,w-1024)
Speaking to VT, Richards said: “50 Shades was kind of opening doors where people were actually starting to talk about erotic sex and take it more into a sort of a mainstream conversation.”
However, aside from Jilly Cooper novels, which, overlooking their 2026 revival(s), were targeted at a much more mature audience with more time on their hands, there was very little erotica aimed at women.
Richards said: “At the time, porn sites were feeding us this sort of degrading imagery. It wasn't sexy, it wasn't erotic, it was just purely for that kind of male quick vision, and everyone came to associate that imagery with pornography.
“More than anything, to me it showed that women were being too objectified, and why is it we're kind of being missed out of that conversation? Why is porn so focused on the male gaze?”
As Richards defines porn as “anything that is sexually arousing”, she set out to build a new platform made “by women for women,” and FrolicMe was born.
The pornography Richards produces is concept-driven, meaning it focuses more on the natural chemistry between the models and a loose dynamic, such as a sexually repressed wife and a hot gardener.
Without a script or strict directions, the actors are in more control of the scene, making it look more natural and less like ticking off a list of sexual acts, creating more intimacy and allowing foreplay to be the focus, which, as I’m sure most women will agree, is usually the best but most rushed part.
This approach to adult filmmaking is refreshing because “it is not for a porn audience, it’s for an audience that is curious about the joys of sex.”
Richards even claims: “Our sexiest [heterosexual] scene is a non-penetrative sex scene, and I have to say it was incredible, but when you took that off the table for it not happening, but everything else could happen.”
Another way FrolicMe offers something completely different to mainstream porn websites is the variety of media it allows people to explore erotica in.
While there are nearly 600 films on the site, there are also hundreds of written sex stories and audio erotica clips. Every week, a new film, audio, and story is released.
Collating all erotic media in one place was extremely important for Richards as she believes that “the nuances of what makes something sexy is in the brain”.
Explaining the importance of written erotica and audio porn, Richards said: “What I wanted to capture was that what turns you on is so much about the storytelling, as opposed to just sex itself, it heightens every other sense too.”
Another distinguishing element of pornography produced by FrolicMe is the proud use of sex toys, lube, and condoms.
Richards chose “not to shy away from” using products that may not be considered sexy in the heat of the moment, but certainly enhance the experience because she wants the content to serve as realistic inspiration for couples or those self-pleasuring.
Speaking of self-pleasure, Richards views masturbation as a form of self-care and believes that not enough women are prioritising it as a means of unwinding.
Richards told VT: “To have something that can take your mind out of the life you’re in and focus on something sexy and erotic gets you in the mood to give yourself some me time”.
To the founder of FrolicMe, masturbation is a crucial part of self-care because “women’s minds are so focused on so many other matters, children, work, cleaning, and general stress”.
So, finding just 10 to 15 minutes for yourself using an erotic video described by Richards as a “chemical-free libido and mood booster” allows women to unwind and focus on themselves.
When she first started FrolicMe, Richards thought that trying to sell a product in an industry over-saturated with free content that’s readily available was going to be a real challenge, but consumer desire for quality proved her wrong pretty quickly.
Richards, like most women, believes that mainstream porn “Is more of a turn off than a turn on” and most women “Don’t want to support a platform showcasing they don’t believe in”.
The £60 ($80) a year subscription fee is necessary for FrolicMe in order to “pay actors properly, production costs, and protect from nasty pop-ups.”
Ultimately, by offering a safe, ethical alternative to the mainstream male gaze, FrolicMe is proving that investing in quality erotica is really an investment in one's own well-being.
By shifting the narrative from taboo to essential wellness, Richards hopes more women will finally start penciling in some well-deserved "me time" onto their daily to-do lists.
