Women Who Love To Watch Gay Male Porn!

I first learned of the phenomenon of women who love to watch gay male porn through couples who entered my office where the women were married to men who had sex with men. For these women it was arousing and erotic to watch two men having sex in porn and even watching her husband with another man.

At first I didn't understand this phenomenon until I put it into context of how straight men love to watch two women and even watch their wives have sex with other women. Then it made sense.

At Gay Affirmative Trainings for professional therapists and students of a class I teach at Wayne State University on gay and lesbian studies I would show film clips of various movies and television shows portraying gay and lesbian relationship and sexuality. The women in my class all knew of the shows and would reveal they enjoyed watching the two men having sex during the shows. One show in particular which was arousing for them was "Queer as Folk".

But the most shocking to me was learning that some lesbians enjoyed and were aroused by watching gay male porn too. At first I thought it was a joke. How could this be? Why would a group of women who are self-identified as lesbians--inherently meaning that they are sexually and romantically attracted to other women--be turned on by man-on-man porn?

In an article called, "Hot Man On Man Action (And the Lesbians Who Love Watching It), by Elizabeth F. Stewart in the magazine In the Family she wrote several reasons why lesbians enjoyed gay male porn. Though her survey is unscientific it should not be overlooked.

Here are some of the reasons Stewart cites that some lesbians enjoy gay porn. I would say these are the same reasons straight women like gay male porn as well:

1. The lack of storyline with emotional content in gay male
   porn.
2. It is a myth that all women--lesbian or
   straight--want a storyline and emotional
   content
   in porn.
3. Lesbians dislike heterosexual porn. They feel the
   women-on-women sex scenes are made for heterosexual men (and they are!) for their titillation and it doesn't seem authentic between the two women. In fact to many it seems fake!
4. In gay male porn the men cannot fake arousal and what the
   viewer sees is real.
5. Gay male sex is "nastier," more "down and dirty," and "forbidden" one women interviewed was quoted as saying in the article.

Another reason I have found women enjoy gay male porn is the balance of power between the two men. In other words, in straight porn, the male is dominant and the woman is submissive simply there to arouse the man. And as found in the survey, the women's arousal seems fake.

However in gay male porn both men enjoy the sexual interaction and the power exchange is balanced and equalized.

Yet another reason is cited in the article by therapist Marny Hall reports in the article is that lesbians "have sexual fantasies that involve penises". She states that

"lesbians report high levels of childhood sexual abuse. Identification with the
abuser (predominantly men) achieved by means of porn-enhanced, non-threatening
fantasies can go a long way toward healing old wounds. There are all kinds of
ways abuse can be recycled--unconscious and conscious assumption of top or
bottom role for purposes of master/healing, [and/or] reenactment of pleasurable
aspects of abuse in new, safe contexts."

This is in line with what I have found amongst straight men who enjoy sex with other men. They are doing the exact same thing as the lesbians addressed by Marny Hall.

I think the blogger comments here speak to how labels are used and only hurt by boxing people in.