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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   18990 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 5, 2025

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Do they? Last time I saw data on this I thought it said straight women didn't really consume gay porn.

My understanding — I think from an old pornhub survey? — is that women consume much more gay porn than men do, and also more lesbian porn as well. So gay men probably still consume more gay porn that straight women per capita, but there’s still a large female straight contingent. And this is in a medium where it’s inherently unfavourable to female titillation; the porn vs erotica thing remains salient.

I’m not convinced that women self-insert as the uke when looking at gay porn or BL, this doesn’t match my experience talking to fujos at all.

It might be true that women like two men getting hot and steamy with each other, but purely as an observer.

Fujoshi is an example but I rather doubt that it applies to Western hardcore stuff. The manga usually isn't (very) explicit; it's more about observing the emotional reactions you would want between two people you also find attractive, rather than self-inserting as the female in the fiction.

My understanding is that (until quite recently, maybe?) most straight women find bi guys a turnoff, so I wouldn't think they'd want to watch gay men either.

This gets complicated:

There is data out there, but it's pretty much trash quality. PornHub Insights (cw: no explicit images, but still a pornhub link) has some numbers, but they're filled with selection effect (who uses PH) after selection effect (who uses PH in non-incognito mode while pegging as a woman to google analytics?).

But there's clearly a sizable raw number, given the existence (and indeed prevalance) of fem-gaze-focused M/M in fandom and especially fanfiction spaces.

But a lot of women like the idea of gay or bi men, but don't actually want a bi guy in a relationship, either. I have absolutely met fujoshi that get the ick from guys who bottom, there's absolutely an expectation that bisexuals will be driven to cheat or are secretly gay and looking for a beard, concerns about disease or not-condoned infidelity, so on.

But that doesn't prevent them from liking it as an idea, or a comic, or whatever, and there's indeed a pretty wide variety of artists and especially writers that focus on that demographic.

And there are people for whom it's clearly a pretty strong kink.

fujoshi that get the ick from guys who bottom

Straight women get the ick from guys who enjoy the female/submissive role in a relationship and only enjoy romance fiction because they're self-inserting as the bottom (M/F or M/M, doesn't matter)? What a complete surprise, say it ain't so.

I would expect the 'bisexuals will be driven to cheat, etc.' concerns apply to both top and bottom, though for slightly different reasons for each (and believe it'd be a more salient concern with the bottoms simply due to how human instinct works)- for instance, tops driven to cheat more just because they're tops and have twice the opportunity.

especially fanfiction spaces.

Oof, how could I forget! I would think slash fiction is much bigger in the West.

Can you dig it out? I can think of several ways both of you can be right.

  • Looking at the proportion of women among gay porn consumers instead of the other way around.
  • Looking at all women instead of porn consuming women (might actually be right way to do it)
  • What do we mean by "straight"? / What is a woman? I heard several female detransitioners saying gay porn / the fantasy of being a gay boy with a gay lover being a gateway to transition.

I think one of the kernels was that women are surprising consumers of lesbian and solo female porn for similar reasons that men are surprising consumers of big dick porn. Focus on aspirational anatomy and the pleasure of the specific genitals the viewer has.

Gay porn is often also produced with an aim towards the (gay) male gaze - women like gay male romance novels and such (at least Japanese ones do) but it is quite different to actually viewing the railing as it where.

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