Here's why so many straight-leaning women love gay porn
It can be confusing when your porn preference doesn’t line up with your real world attractions. When it comes to porn, thousands of women choose to watch lesbian or gay male porn over straight porn. But why is that? There are a number of reasons that point towards the success of both categories among straight women and we’re here to explore them both.
For the purposes of saving time and my word count, when I say “straight” women from here on out, I mean straight leaning, straight dominant, mostly on the straight side of the spectrum of sexual attraction, everyone is a beautiful rainbow kind of straight.
Straight women + lesbian porn
There are a many reasons straight women gravitate towards lesbian porn, and the research is there to prove it. When Buzzfeed and Pornhub teamed up to conduct a study, they found that women are 132% more likely to search for lesbian porn than men. Cosmopolitan Magazine also surveyed 4,000 readers and found that 84% of straight women admitted to watching lesbian porn and 20.3% preferred it as their go-to option.
“The statistic thrown around now is that 1 in 3 adult users of porn are female,” sex therapist Kimberly Resnick Anderson told in a Huffpost article. “Though there is no way to say what percentage of that 1 in 3 are straight women looking for lesbian porn, the numbers are too high for it to be just gay women. Straight women are looking at lesbian porn.”
So if now that we know it is statistically proven, what is it about lesbian porn that attracts women of all kinds? Porn is often more about exploring fantasy rather than real life preferences, and while there is a lot of female empowering porn out there, those aren’t necessarily the titles we stumble upon when we are first exploring.
Lesbian porn is often more sensual, soft and foreplay based, whereas straight porn often portrays situations that are centred on the heterosexual male’s pleasure. They can also be degrading or violent towards the woman, which can really take us out of the groove. In lesbian porn, the focus is usually more romantic and female focused. Sex therapist Megan Fleming Ph.D says, “In lesbian porn, there really is a focus on oral sex and clitoral stimulation as the main event”, which can be difficult to find in straight porn (unless you’re looking on Bellesa, obviously).
Many women also love lesbian porn because they are watching two familiar bodies. They have a sense of how the scene would feel, because their bodies are designed similarly. When the majority of the scene is focused on female stimulation rather than a thirty minute blow job, it’s a lot easier to become immersed in the scene.
Straight women + gay male porn
Ladies aren’t just searching for lesbian porn, but male gay porn as well. In fact, it is a category that over the years has begun to be developed by women for women. That same Pornhub study stated that the two most searched categories by women are“lesbian” and “gay (male)”.
Feminist porn director, Nica Noelle, who is one of the only leading women creating romantic gay male porn in the industry, explained in an interview with VICE why gay porn has such a large straight female following. “For one, many older, straight women may feel more comfortable watching gay porn because they don't have to worry about measuring up to a younger, more attractive, or more sexually skilled woman on screen”. This, in addition to the obvious reason: for those of us who enjoy watching hot men in our porn, what’s better than one hot man? Two hot men. Or five.
The stigma
There is still a stigma around women watching porn (one woman in an interview said she would never talk to her friends about porn watching habits), this in addition to the misunderstood differentiation between porn preference and real life desires. One reddit poster told her boyfriend about watching gay male porn, and he absolutely “freaked out and said it isn't normal for someone who is straight to watch gay porn.” And what do we hate most about this complete dolt criticizing his girlfriend’s porn habits? He watches lesbian porn.
Reddit came to the rescue with responses like, “There is no 'normal' when it comes to sexuality. But if there was 'normal,' then straight ladies consuming gay porn would definitely be, mathematically speaking." —HelpMyBabySleep, and "Girl, if you were the only one, then the Internet wouldn't be 80 percent Yaoi fan fiction." —Liara T Soni.
In order for women to feel better and more informed about their porn choices, we need to keep talking about it and dissipate this cloud of shame around women consuming the type of porn they like. Stay curious, stay vocal and keep on clicking!
