Here's Why Women Are Watching Gay Male Porn
By:
Guess what? Women watch porn too.
Pornhub's data blog says that 25 percent of U.S. visitors to the site last year were women, and 26 percent of global visitors were women.
An analysis of 10 years of Pornhub data conducted by The Cut found something interesting about women's porn watching habits; women like to watch gay male porn. A whopping 37 percent of viewers of gay male porn are women over 45. Pornhub data also shows that the term "gay men" is one of the top searches for women every year.
So why do women want to watch gay male porn?
A common theme is that women feel heterosexual porn is not realistic or appealing from the female perspective. ATTN: talked to a 27-year-old woman from California, who asked that we didn't publisher her name. She said that heterosexual porn uses unrealistic caricatures of women that aren't appealing.
"I think the women in it are too distracting," she said. "They really focus on looking at the girls, and the noises they make are too distracting." She said she's talked about watching porn with friends, and some of the women she knows have experimented with gay male porn as well.
"I do think it's common," she said. "The reasons they say are that they can see what it's like when men handle each other."
A thread posted in r/AskWomen on Reddit in 2013 explored why women like gay male porn.
Reddit - reddit.com
The user kissacupcake commented that heterosexual porn is "usually terrible" and the "sex doesn't look like it's good for the girl." She also said that a lot of heterosexual porn focuses on domination that isn't consensual.
Reddit - reddit.com
Another user said that heterosexual porn focuses too much on women, so she watches gay male porn. However, she said male gay porn catered to the male gaze.
"Gay porn is made for gay men, and some is okay, but there is a lot of bad to sort through to find anything I like," the user wrote.
Reddit - reddit.com
User evancalous wrote that as a bisexual woman she feels that heterosexual porn focuses more on stereotypical porn body parts than on casting people she finds attractive overall. She also wrote that women in porn are constantly "overacting, or they look "dead in the eyes" or like "they're being tortured."
Reddit - reddit.com
Women feel conflicted about the portrayal of women in porn.
Of the the women who responded to a 2015 Marie Claire survey, 56-percent said porn "turns me on, but I'm concerned about how the industry treats women and/or I feel it perpetuates negative stereotypes."
In an article published on June 6, USA Today talked to three female porn directors who want to make porn more feminist.
Erika Lust—a porn director who was also featured in the Netflix documentary "Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On"—said that she tries to create a comfortable environment for women on her set, and she wants to give a realistic portrayal of sex that respects women and their sexuality.
In her short film, "Feminist and Submissive," Lust had the porn actors talk about their upcoming scene on camera, in order to let the viewers know that the scenes were consensual. "I felt it was super-important to show my audience [the performer's] full consent, as well as a long discussion of the intricacies and personal kinks of her fetishism," Lust told USA Today.
An Australian porn director who refers to herself as Ms. Naughty said that she wants her films to focus on the whole person, not just body parts.
"I find the most interesting porn involves seeing people's faces rather than their genitals, so we focus on faces and hands, and then genitals if we are able to get the shot," she said. "I don't insist performers are 'open to the camera' because those positions often aren't comfortable and don't produce as much pleasure."
