Why do so many lesbians like watching gay male porn?

There is a phenomenon in the lesbian community that many of us experience but few of us can explain: we are very, very turned on by two dudes banging. Perhaps because I grew up in an immigrant household where internet privileges were sparse at best – or perhaps because privacy was even  harder to come by – I did not grow up watching porn. Porn and masturbation did not factor into my life until much later, likely due to the fear of one of my parents bursting into my room unannounced at any moment in time because god forbid anyone have a closed door. Having not discovered my sexuality until later in life, after moving into my own space with ample room and time for masturbatory experiences, I was surprised to discover just how fired up I get seeing some dude I’d shove out of my way on the street to get a better look at my first wife’s booty going at it. What gives?

Some part of me has always been a little curious about this part of myself, and it has made my sexual-identification journey a tad confusing. So I did a little research to get to the bottom of it. As it turns out, there are a multitude of possible reasons why many women, sexual orientation aside, find male-on-male pornography enjoyable to watch. 

Male gay Porn Seems More Consensual Than Heteronormative Porn

In her book Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys, sexuality researcher Lucy Neville published a surprising finding from her studies: a third of the people watching Pornhub’s gay male porn are women.

It’s possible that women are unable to enjoy heteronormative porn because the power dynamics often don’t appear to be equal. It can be easy to get carried away with thinking about the actors as themselves, and their personal stories, instead of suspending disbelief and enjoying the portrayal of them as characters in an adult film. This seems plausible to me for a couple of reasons. 

I’ve yet to see or hear of a porno made for an audience of women (except Fifty Shades, Magic Mike, and The Young and the Restless, duh). As a result, part of me feels uncomfortable watching these girls perform wild sex acts and acrobatics that to my knowledge aren’t possible for the average woman to perform. 

Furthermore, perhaps it’s just bad acting, but most heteronormative and lesbian porn features women who are very unconvincing in acting out an important part of the female sexual experience – desire – and often appear to be faking excitement, if not totally overdoing it. In gay porn, for one reason or another, both partners appear to be equally desiring of each other and consenting to their situation in the adult film industry.

Male Gay Porn Is More Versatile

In the same study, Neville explains that versatility is another big draw for gay male porn:

“What women liked most about male-male porn is versatility, and with heterosexual porn you are going to get penetrated eventually, and that’s dull,” she added. “A lot of ways it can play out with men is more exciting, more experimentation, more open to negotiation.”

This makes sense as well since in homosexual relationships, there has to be more discussion and usually a lot more creativity around how you are going to bring pleasure to the other person since the ‘penis in vagina’ model is not usually available to gays and lesbians alike. Of course, strap-on-penis-in-vagina is available to cis lezzies, and penis-in-vagina would be available for a girl-girl couple, and that includes a trans lesbian who hasn't had bottom surgery as well as boy-boy couples that include a trans man. In these scenarios, although penetration is still the focus, the situation and role-playing ie. subversion of traditional / traditionally ‘accepted’ social norms could be more alluring to the viewer.

I’ve wondered about lesbian porn in relation to this point and wonder if it’s just (again) unconvincing acting, but in my opinion, lesbian porn is kind of boring to watch. Plus, at least in gay porn you can see physical evidence that the dudes are actually turned on. There are a few choice lesbian sex scenes from Hollywood that I have mentally bookmarked – I’m sure I’m not alone in this – in which, while they don’t show everything, the implication of more is enough to get the imagination going, and the accurate portrayal of desire is better than anything you can find on Pornhub.

A Majority of Women Fantasize About Being Men While Watching Gay Male Porn

While it’s not an overwhelming majority, 55 percent of women, according to Neville, imagine themselves as men while watching gay porn. 

“They found it quite liberating, the idea that you could pretend or imagine yourself as a man or someone who is gender-fluid,” Neville explained. “Personally, I’ve always done that, too, but I thought I was a bit of a weirdo. It was interesting to find that half the sample had done that.”

This observation of temporary gender-fluidity is fascinating to me. As a woman who identifies as a woman but who often assumes the more masculine role in her relationships, I wonder what this gender-fluidity says about female sexuality. Could it come from a place of fantasizing about sexual dominance or dominance in general, having grown up being expected to assume a submissive position of power? Or does it say something about gender-fluidity in general? If we can imagine ourselves as men even fleetingly to get off, to what degree are we socialized into thinking of ourselves as “girls” and “boys”? When we snap back to reality outside the fantasy, why does it matter what labels we characterize ourselves under? Can’t all things just be a spectrum of feminine and masculine energy that we tap into in some circumstances and not in others?

Masculinity Is Sexy

Listen, just because you’re a lesbian doesn’t mean you don’t find masculinity sexy. Many lesbians are attracted to masculine-presenting lesbians, and while some masculine-presenting females might not like that look for their partners, they still find it sexy or else they wouldn’t present that way! They feel sexy in that energy! Because there are things equally sexy about feminine and masculine energy.

There’s been a lot of talk about “toxic  masculinity” these days, and with the world as it is right now, it seems increasingly easy to write off all masculinity out of sheer frustration. But I think this is a disservice to the equilibrium. Now that the stock of feminine qualities and femininity is on the rise, it’s my conviction that masculinity should not be cut off at the knees but stand strong alongside it. How does this relate to gay porn? Gay porn is all masculinity, but it’s also femininity. You have a top and a bottom, both partners consenting enthusiastically, seemingly equal parts strong, sensitive, and effeminate, attuned to their partners’ needs. That’s how sex should always be. 

Sources
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/when-no-one-looking-many-women-are-watching-gay-porn-n894266
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-lesbians-who-love-male-gay-porn