Ah, the great mysteries of the universe: the confounding behavior of the electron, the elusive blips of radiation left over from the Big Bang, the undiscovered deep sea creatures in the thermal vents of the world's oceans....and the tendency of women to prefer gay male pornography.
"What, Katie, did you just say?" you may ask. "Women like gay guy porn??" Yes, friends, this is true. I have been privy to this little-known phenomenon for years, but now science and statistics have given us definitive proof once and for all.
The site PornHub tracked user behavior according to gender and found that next to "lesbian porn," "gay porn" was the most prevalent type of xxx rated content viewed by females. Now THIS is something! First of all, the study doesn't sub divide into lesbian, straight, and bi women, so there's really no way of knowing who is watching what. But the fact that the top two most-watched porn by women are both--gasp--homosexual in content, as it were, is profoundly interesting.
In light of this information, I conducted a very scientific study of my own that was essentially me asking all of my women friends, gay, bi, and straight, what kind of porn they're into these days. Findings? The straight and bi-curious girls (who had never really experimented with girls before) told me that they love watching lesbian porn. The lesbians and bi girls who had dated/slept with girls, on the other hand, overwhelmingly hate lesbian porn and a lot of them said that they prefer gay male porn to straight porn or any other type.
You guys remember that scene from The Kids Are All Right when Julianne Moore's son confronts her and Annette Bening about the gay dude porn that he found in their bedroom? Julianne Moore answers with her own version of what I and every lesbian I know seems to think about lesbian porn: that it's a highly inauthentic load of crap with two straight girls who don't know what they're doing. She says something along the lines of, "though it may seem counterintuitive, lesbians like gay male porn because it's visual and erotic and feels real, unlike the lesbian porn that is out there." On a different-yet-related note, it's already been proven that straight women are turned on by literally everything, guys, girls, straight, gay (including monkey sex, as it were). No one has done a definitive arousal study on only lesbians, HOWEVER, this is only a portion of the answer.
I made a short documentary about lesbians and porn a few years ago which I am remaking as a feature-length film this year (get excited!) and in conducting these interviews, when I asked the women what they would like to see instead of the lesbian porn that's out there (after they roundly dismissed it), a huge percentage of them--nearly half--responded that they actually like gay guy porn (the others said straight porn or a mix of both).
My theory is this: women need authenticity in their porn in order for it to turn them on, and both gay and lesbian porn feel authentic to gay, bi, and straight women for different yet equally valid reasons. In the case of pornography, my guess is that "authenticity" is akin to "people appearing to have actual orgasms and feel good" as well as "the performers appear to be into what they are doing."
It breaks down like this:
1) Lesbians would like lesbian porn if it felt even remotely authentic to them; but it doesn't, so they hate it.
Self-explanatory.
2) Lesbian women like gay male porn because it's the exact opposite of lesbian porn in terms of authenticity, and is hot in a way that lesbians have trouble describing, but they still think it's hot. Guys can't fake erections, or ejaculation for that matter. Lesbians in mainstream porn moan for days when, for all intents and purposes, nothing really that phenomenal is happening to them. *Yawn* Maybe lesbians like projecting themselves into the guys onscreen and vicariously doing all this aggressive fucking? Sort of a complete inversion of the male gaze: women as controlling visual spectators, men as submissive performers. Maybe lesbians like watching guys be all hot and animalistic with each other? Maybe lesbians like seeing porn where the two performers are on equal ground from a gender perspective (so there's no objectification of women happening).
3) Straight girls like lesbian porn because it feels sexy and safe to them, while still feeling authentic. For one, I think it's safe to say that much of the world agrees that two girls together is hot. Really hot. And for someone who has maybe never actually had lesbian sex, the mainstream stuff that is out there might be pretty palatable for her--it's usually two femme girls kind of half-assedly licking and kissing each other (you never see finger-fucking or anything really resembling lesbian sex, something I could rant about for days). So maybe for a girl who hasn't experimented yet, this is a tantalizing first step into the world of women. A lot of girls who I talked to also watch it with their boyfriends--so they are both happy since he doesn't have to watch a guy and she is into the girl/girl thing anyway.
4) Bisexual girls like certain porn over others based on personal preference and experience. The bi girls I talked to who had done a lot of experimenting with women or had dated women tended to agree on the fact that lesbian porn is horseshit. But some still liked it. And some liked gay guy porn. And straight porn. I really don't want to enrage a bunch of bisexual women today--like I said I asked maybe fifteen bi girls total--but regardless of where they stand on the various types of porn, they all cited authenticity as their rationale for picking one over another.
5) I do not know why straight women would like gay male porn (my straight friends don't watch it), except that it's hot in ways women can't explain, and straight women are turned on by everything (as proven by science). My armchair guess would be that it's the same answer as the others: they can sense the authenticity in it and it turns them on.
Now I'll turn it over to the women I spoke with:
From a straight girl: "I wouldn't want to watch porn with my boyfriend. I feel like he'd be thinking too much about the woman or women and I'm pretty sure he'd refuse to watch gay porn. Alone, it isn't really my thing, but I think something softer would be better. Gay porn wouldn't do it. Straight porn creeps me out. I'd go with lesbian porn, but only if it seems legit. It's the sensuality not the banging that's a turn on."
From a bi girl: "I like lesbian porn, the female body is prettier, and women are just better at touching women. It's a slower progression and not the jack rabbit pounding. But I know the girls aren't gay because of their nails."
From a lesbian: "I like watching domination. Usually male/female, but there's an added level of taboo when a male is being feminized by another male."
From a straight girl: "I have no desire to ever watch gay male porn, because you can't relate to it as a woman, it's too aggressive or in your face. Lesbian porn is a turn on but it kind of feels like the PG-13 version of porn because it doesn't seem like sex. It feels like foreplay as opposed to intercourse, it's like a tease and it's sexy, but it's not as fulfilling."
From a lesbian: "I like [gay guy porn] because it's more forbidden. I think it's brave of them to follow their true feelings too, which adds an emotional element...it's also dangerous. Kinda like having sex when someone's home."
From a bi girl: "I am turned on by gay male porn and straight porn. I even like lesbian porn sometimes but I know it's not nearly as rough as lesbian sex can be."
From a lesbian: "As a lesbian/woman [gay male porn] is non-threatening; there isn't this feeling that someone is being forced to do this. Whereas watching straight porn, even though I prefer it to lesbian porn, I'm always looking at the woman going "she's a good actress. Letting him think she is enjoying it. And lesbian porn has men written all over it; it just seems like the actresses don't want to be doing what they are doing."
From a lesbian: "There's no passion in lesbian porn. It's like watching someone try to eat a pie with a toothpick or something. There's no progress being made and someone's gonne get their eye poked out (naaaaillls, heyyy). I just wanna see em take a real bite, stuff their face in, enjoy it! I prefer straight or gay male porn because there's a much higher chance I'll see someone actually enjoy themselves."
From a straight girl: "You're talking about lesbian porn that's geared towards men, right? Not like, real lesbian porn. Does that even exist?
Well! This is a lot to think about. What this tells me is that someone needs to do a more thorough breakdown of women's porn searches that doesn't just include gender. Sexuality, intent of use (with a boyfriend? on your own?) and other factors need to be considered before we can get an accurate breakdown of the age old question of what women want. So now that I've proven nothing and everything rather effectively, I'll turn it over to you ladies. What porn, if any, do you like and why? Is there decent lesbian porn out there on the interwebs? Do you like the gay guy stuff too? Speak on it, girl.
