BEN WAS LYING in bed with girlfriend when she suggested they watch porn together. It was something they’d done before, but on this particular night, their viewing took a surprising turn. After searching through a few videos, they came across an orgy scene with people of different genders, and everyone getting down with everyone else. It was Ben’s first exposure to queer porn.
Ben identifies as straight, and the orgy video was a lot more fluid than the porn he was used to watching. He was surprised to find that he didn’t hate it.
“In the past, I always assumed I’d be kind of grossed out by seeing a guy give another guy a blow job, right?” Ben admits. “But I was watching with my girlfriend and I could see she was really into it, and that was a turn on.”
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Ben isn’t alone as a straight man who has learned about his and his partner’s desires from queer porn. And sex experts agree that exploring queer porn can have major benefits, no matter your gender or sexual orientation. For straight, cisgender guys in particular, it may help illuminate aspects of female pleasure and counteract harmful hang-ups about body image and masculinity.
But, okay, we know what you might be thinking. Doesn’t watching queer porn mean you’re, well, probably queer? The short answer is no, says sex researcher Dr. Wandesha Jenkins Hall, who has a Ph.D. in public health education. Sex acts (whether you’re doing them IRL or watching them in porn) do not determine people’s sexuality; people themselves do.
“We need to untangle that knot that we have in our thinking,” she explains. “For example, enjoying anal penetration doesn’t mean you are gay. Many gay men enjoy blowjobs, and so do many straight men.” Likewise, enjoying queer porn doesn’t automatically mean you’re queer. “When you watch porn with a guy pretending to be a plumber, you don’t think you’re a plumber, do you?” Jenkins Hall adds.
There’s something of a double standard going on when it comes to how we think about different genders’ porn habits. Straight women watching lesbian porn has been well researched, and there tends to be less assumption from society that a straight woman who does this must be queer. But there’s still a misconception that a man watching queer porn must be queer himself.
Outdated yet persistent ideas about masculinity can lead to men being more nervous than other genders to explore their sexual desires. There is, sadly, still more taboo around men being bisexual, for example, compared to women. This perhaps means that men don’t feel as able to approach sex in a curious way; instead, it can feel safer to stay in the heteronormative box that society expects them to inhabit.
But Jenkins Hall explains that queer porn has a lot going for it, regardless of your gender or sexual orientation. “Queer porn tends to be more sensual as well as more consensual,” she says. “The sex, and the orgasms, are often more realistic. You can learn new ways to explore pleasure and bodies. And you’re likely to see a broader variety of body types, too.”
Despite the fact that fewer than one in five women report being able to orgasm from penetration alone, a recent study showed that almost 50% of people surveyed don’t think stimulation of the clitoris ‘counts’ as sex, and 40% also felt that cunnilingus isn’t really sex. A lot of mainstream porn focuses on penetration (perhaps with a blow job leading up to it), but being too focused on penetration can really limit the ways we connect with a partner and experience pleasure.
Ben says watching queer porn has made him “feel more relaxed about sex now.” “There’s less pressure to ‘perform,’ and it’s more about trying things out,” he says. “It’s fun. I think we forget sometimes that sex is meant to be fun.”
Thinking back to that queer orgy video, he remembers there were lots of sex toys involved. “After that, we started to incorporate more toys in the bedroom,” he says. “I think it’s fair to say my partner is pretty happy with this development.”
Mahx Capacity, founder of the queer porn companyAorta Films, loves that queer porn “operates with an expansive, exploratory view of what sex can be.”
“Can’t get hard? Feeling low energy but still want to get it on? No sexual interest in bodies, but have a raging shoe fetish? Queer porn shows that there’s no ‘right’ way to fuck,” Mahx says. “As long as it’s between enthusiastically consenting adults, it’s on the table.”
Harlan identifies as straight, but watches queer porn as a way of exploring different sexual acts and dynamics. In particular, he enjoys watching pegging videos, and says this led naturally to him watching more queer porn. “The first queer porn I remember really enjoying was a video with an exciting sexual dynamic between a top and bottom,” he explains. “Like the pegging videos, there was a power play going on that really got me off.”
Harlan usually takes a more dominant role in the bedroom, but was interested in mixing things up and exploring his submissive side. Watching queer porn helped him become more comfortable with this. “I think watching queer porn has reduced some of the stigma I felt about playing in a submissive role. I’ve now started to explore this kind of thing more with my partner and feel more open to playing in a switch dynamic. I still get turned on by being in control, but why not enjoy both?”
Dr. Mark McCormack, a professor of social studies at the University of Roehampton, has studied how consumption of different types of porn can affect men’s sexual identities and satisfaction. Instead of focusing on the so-called negative aspects of porn (like the majority of porn research does), McCormack’s work looked into how porn could have beneficial outcomes.
McCormack found that porn could help people to come to a better understanding of their sexual desires and interests, and that they were able to carry these findings over into their relationships. “Exploring different kinds of porn gave people a way to think about their desires in private, in a way that feels safe,” McCormack explains. “Something interesting about porn in general is that it gives the viewer a lot of options … there’s a fluidity to where the viewer chooses to place themselves in any given scene.”
And not only can watching queer porn help you become more relaxed about sex, and maybe learn a few new things about bodies and pleasure, there’s even evidence to suggest it can make you more empathetic. One study found that seeing homosexual porn directly related to an increase in support for same sex marriage. McCormack explains that in the past, especially before internet porn, a homophobic person could easily avoid seeing images of gay sex. But now, the whole kaleidoscope of human sexuality is only ever a click away—and this can only be a good thing. “A lot of homophobia comes from a disgust that is founded in ignorance,” he says. “Oftentimes, when a person encounters queer sex, it isn’t what they expected, and that can cause them to reassess their prejudices.”
Ben, who’s a Millennial, remembers the days “when porn was a magazine you found in the woods.” “Maybe because of that, there’s still a lot of stigma for men to be exploring this, at least for men my age,” he says. “I wish it was something we could talk about more.”
Abby Moss is a London-based freelance journalist specializing in sex and relationships.
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