GIRLS WHO LIKE (GAY) BOYS

As a straight (but not narrow) woman, let me state categorically that I love gay porn. Not only do I love it, but I’m not shy about admitting it. I’ve admitted it to pretty much everyone I know.

Due to my free admission of admiration for guys doing the wild thing, people often look at me like I’m nuts. As in, “How could a straight woman possibly think THAT is hot?” The implied, “Ew,” is often in there too. But come on – no one ever asks straight men why they like to watch lesbians going at it.

The reasoning goes that if a single hot, sexy woman is a good thing, two of them is double the yummy goodness. And it’s just that simple as far as gay porn goes: if one sexy guy is hot to look at, two sexy guys is doubly hot.

Unfortunately, most of the hot, naked men (from now on I shall just use the acronym HNM) in gay porn can’t actually act. But since they’re soooo pretty and buff and have such lovely ass…ets, I’ll forgive them. I mean, seriously, I’m not watching it for the sterling plot developments or the Oscar-worthy performances. Nooo… I’m watching it to see lovely bits of male anatomy artfully arranged (or not – frankly, who cares? As long as it’s there!).

People have asked why I don’t just look at pictures of naked men – why does it have to be, you know, (whispering) homosexuals? Frankly, because just looking at a static picture is boring. Sure, I could look at pictures of HNM (and have!) but watching two HNM interact is much more interesting to me.

I have watched a decent amount of gay porn in my time (and frankly, if I never see Ryan Idol again it will be too soon), and just like in regular films, gay porn comes in terrible, good and excellent varieties. It also comes in varieties like “plotted”, “semi-plotted” and “no plot, just fucking”.

Amazingly, you can actually have a “no plot, just fucking” porn movie that is good, just as you can have a plotted one that is terrible, and every variation in between.

Obviously, it can depend on the mood of the viewer that day, but if I want to watch the “no plot” type, I still want it to be tolerable. I mean, sure, change the camera angle so one can see tab A and slot B better, but please, please, PLEASE, don’t change the lighting between shots.

When that happens, I do not go, “Oooh, I can see that guy’s penis from a new angle!!” Instead, what comes to mind is, “Those guys don’t actually have that much stamina, they stopped filming and changed things!” Forgive me, but if I’m watching two guys doing it, I want to know they did it all at once and didn’t stop for lunch in between!

And what’s with having sex in uncomfortable places? I saw a movie once where guys were doing it on a tractor. A tractor. Which had bits of metal, screws, etc. protruding everywhere. That did not make me think, “Oooh, HNM!” All I did was feel sympathy for the guy on the bottom. Why can’t they just have sex in a bed? On a couch? Heck, the back seat of a car? The GROUND?

You might want to ask me why I continue to watch if these aspects of porn irritate me. Well, looking for “flaws” is also kind of fun. As in, how can I prove that this wasn’t just one session of sex, but filmed over a period of time? As in, would someone really do X, Y or Z (like not having a sheet on the bed covering the mattress, or having the same plant in three supposedly different rooms)?

“Even a straight woman can be looked at like she’s some weirdo if she doesn’t follow the pack…”

But then one does get a well-made porn movie. One that keeps continuity despite a flimsy plot or stupid acting. And in a well-made porn movie you sometimes get absolute beauty. Just one guy’s hand travelling up another guy’s thigh can be beautiful if the lighting is right. Two sets of bodies, back to front, can be beautiful and skin can be luminous. As for the actual sex act? Whether “down and dirty” or slightly romantic (yes, you do get gay porn that is romantic), just watching the interaction, facial expressions, the actual genitalia, can be riveting.

Maybe it’s because I’m a woman and I’m not physically capable of half of the equation, but I find it completely fascinating. I WANT to see, I WANT to know, I WANT to understand. My reason is simple: Yes, watching two men together really IS “double the yummy goodness”, but it also lets me in; just a little bit. It lets me feel, if not like a participant, then like a treasured friend. Like I could understand if given the time.

A lot of straight men think gay men are very different from them; I disagree. Men are pretty much men no matter their sexual orientation. The only difference I can see is that gay men don’t hide their urges, the things they like, the things they want. They don’t “have to” participate in some kind of ’50s mating ritual just to get laid. They don’t even have to provide dinner and flowers (don’t get me wrong, dinner and flowers goes a long way with me) if they don’t want to.

I think a lot of straight men are simply jealous of that. They’re jealous that gay men can get laid whenever they like, that they don’t have to pretend to be monogamous to make someone happy.

I’m not knocking monogamy, not at all – everyone should be able to be who they are. Monogamous people will be just that. But for those who aren’t, they don’t have to be, and among their own community, no one will censure them for it.

At one stage when people would ask me why I liked gay porn, I would say that straight porn denigrates women, and in gay porn there aren’t any, so “no women were harmed in the making of this motion picture”.

I’ve since changed my mind: most of the straight porn I’ve seen actually seems to place the woman on a pedestal. In some you can’t even see the guys’ faces, but you can see the woman’s. She’s the focus, she’s the one being worshipped by the camera, the men are just incidental and interchangeable.

But not in gay porn. Men are what is important in gay porn. Men’s bodies, their reactions, their interactions, their sexual activities. No matter what activity they are actually performing in the movie, they are what is important. I’m not saying that men are the be-all and end-all of everything, of course, but if I’m watching a porn movie for fun or entertainment or because it makes me hot, I want to see something that interests me. And men do.

There is also an element of instinctive understanding and empathy for me when it comes to gay men. I consider myself something of an outsider: I like science fiction; I’m over 30 and not married; I don’t particularly WANT to get married; I’m not in any rush to have babies.

Even a straight woman can be looked at like she’s some weirdo if she doesn’t follow the pack, if she doesn’t maintain the status quo by getting married and breeding, if she’d rather stay home and watch Torchwood than hang out in bars. (I had you until that one, right?)

And when I see men who AREN’T ashamed, who show just who and what they are by engaging in pornographic acts in films, I admire them. It takes courage to do that, to put yourself out there like that. It takes more courage than most so-called “normal” people will ever know. And so in the end I can forgive the bad acting, the terrible set dressing, the lack of continuity in gay porn. Because just by being up there on the screen, the person has taken society on and said, “I will be who I am despite what society says.”

To stand up in the face of society’s misguided expectations is the ultimate act of courage. And I find courage incredibly sexy. I WANT gay men to be who they are; I don’t have fantasies of getting in the middle; I don’t want to convert t