Once upon a time, a straight-identified co-worker told me that he only feels closure with a porn scene if a guy delivers the money shot. Female orgasm? Completely disinterested. But seeing a dude cum? That’s the stuff!
I told him his desire to see a guy cum sounded pretty gay and, well, he reluctantly agreed. But did my co-worker have secret bi desires or was I just being a prick? The answer to both is yes and no.
Amy Andre from The Bilerico Project wrote a sexcellent article this week describing the recent success of James Deen (pictured right), an unconventionally twinkish young star whose made a big, girthy name for himself in male-female porn. Andre basically asks, “Who is responsible for Deen’s success? Female porn buyers who like Deen’s look or males who feel the same?”
The entire article is worth reading because it gets to the heart of why straight guys wanna see dicks in male-female porn. But here’s one of Andre’s big takeaways:
How about we take this to the next level?
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Male porn performers look the way they do because porn is usually made with a male audience in mind… if straight men truly didn’t want to be distracted by seeing a man in a film (either because they don’t find men attractive, or because, uh-oh, they do, and can’t handle their own attraction to guys!), straight men wouldn’t watch any porn with men in it…
This doesn’t mean that the straight-identified men watching male-female porn are “secretly” bi… straight-identified men… want to identify with [guys in heater porn]—and imagine themselves attracting such beautiful women—or… erotically enjoy looking at him—the way they enjoy looking at the women he’s with.
…A man can be as straight as an arrow, in terms of consistency of using the term “straight” to identify himself, and still enjoy watching another man sexually.
Whenever I comment on women being hot, straight guy friends will ask me, “Wait… you still find women attractive?” And I respond, “Yeah, I’m gay. I’m not blind.” And it seems straight-identified men, when they allow themselves to admit it, find men physically attractive too. The human body is innately sexy and it seems that a majority of guys feel that they vicariously score whenever a fellow dude scores in the sack too.
I’m not entirely sure how women feel about all this, but they seem every bit as sexual as men in many of the same ways—it’s probably just that they’re less prone to admit it.
Image via Enter Belldonna (NSFW)
AFruit4Thought
Salon (http://www.salon.com/2011/05/02/sex_internet/singleton/) interviewed the authors of “A Billion Wicked Thoughts.” One of the things the researchers found was that straight men spend a lot of their time looking at penises when they’re watching straight porn.
Like the author at Bilerico said, if straight guys didn’t want penises in their porn, porn marketers would take them out and produce something else.
Kat
I always thought that male performers in straight porn were pretty fug as to avoid its consumers from having homo moments. But Deen certainly breaks that mold, he’s not bad to look at and The Babysitter changed my whole view of straight porn tbh. And he does bdsm shit too. He’s very… versatile.
alex
All straight guys are curious. Just look at all the sex ads on craigslist or any other outlet and it all says the same thing like, straight guy looking for bj or sex with other straight guy…bla bla…
IF YOU’RE A MAN AND LIKE SEX WITH A MAN YOU ARE NOT STRAIGHT!!!!!
STOP LYING TO YOURSELF!!!!!
Kyle
You mean “self-loathing bisexual men”? Yes.
@alex: 110% correct.
dvlaries
I just watched a clip of Deen (with a girl named Chase Evans) in which he’s wearing a light beard. This guy has got some nice stuff, alright. I’m surprised if no gay outfit hasn’t coaxed him into a least a couple of solo rounds.
Shannon1981
Ok, I don’t *get* bisexuality. I really don’t.I am a lesbian. I like WOMEN. However, that includes trans women, and I also like gay male porn. Also, trans men like Buck Angel turn me on. So, where does this leave me? Dudes and dudettes, gender is fluid. Live with it.
scribe31
mostly gay male here… almost never watch gay porn. The dudes don’t look like me or the men that I enjoy having sex with. I like blue-collar type guys, with hair, and normal weight, no pucked eye brows. I find that mostly in str8 porn (sort of, str8 porn dudes are starting to look a little femme). Watching the women in the scenes doesn’t make me str8.
kityglitr
@Shannon1981: I’m so sorry that you don’t “get” my sexuality. Oh wait, I could not care less! What I am attracted to in a sexual or romantic partner is my business, not yours. But believe you me, bisexuality EXISTS. And I’m not talking about on a spectrum or anything like that. I’m a woman who has had sexual and romantic relationships with both men and women. I’ve had sexual relationships with transgendered people, and I may have even had sex w/ a gay man, I’m not sure if he knows he is or not. The point is, it’s not for you to get. It’s for me to LIVE.
I remember being in college and coming out to my straight friends and family. They accepted me and loved me. When I realized I wasn’t actually a lesbian but a bisexual woman (the horror! I like penises too!) I received more hate and vitriol from my gay “friends” than from anyone else. Of course, I realize those people weren’t really my friends, and I moved on. But whenever I see a comment like yours it HURTS. Just know that. We exist, we are real, we have feelings too. I could sit down and write that I don’t get people who are only attracted to one sex or gender, because I find the human body in all it’s myriad forms beautiful, but I don’t do that because I respect your point of view.
Beatrix Morel
A friend of mine once drunkenly told me that he couldn’t get off to girl-girl porn because he “needed something to relate to”. Makes sense, I guess.
Aaron Q
This is an old conversation in my book; what surprises me is no one ever seems to mention mirror neurons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/mirror-neurons.html
It’s a little thing in our brain that fires when we see someone doing something that makes us feel like /we/ did that thing; it’s been observed in people who watch sporting events and soap operas and seem to be totally absorbed/emotionally involved with the show, apparently making us feel like that was OUR touchdown or heatwrenching breakup. Why wouldn’t the same apply to pornography? And obviously if you’re going to be in empathetic rapport it’s going to be easier to do so with the one who looks more like you. (And when it comes to most – not all, but the vast majority of mainstream = straight porn, the women are barely human anyway, it’s difficult to empathize with an object.)
Shannon1981
@kityglitr: I never said it didn’t exist! Sorry if it came off that way. When I said I do not *get* it, I mean I simply do not understand it, anymore than you understand being a lesbian(no matter what you say, you don’t, because you aren’t one).
jason
You should never confuse one’s voyeurism preferences with one’s sexual orientation. They are two different concepts with two different definitions. This is why I get so angry when people try to draw conclusions about sexual orientation using porn as a methodology. Porn should be kept well away from any studies on human sexuality.
Keep in mind that, just because you want to watch a particular sex act, it doesn’t mean you want to participate in that sex act. People have different reasons for wanting to watch something. You might watch something because you admire its beauty.
For instance, I might spend hours looking at the beautiful Black Hills in South Dakota but that doesn’t mean I want to bareback Mount Rushmore.
Shannon1981
@kityglitr:
I wasn’t trying to hurt you. The point is, we do not get what we do not fully understand. I am not transsexual, so *getting* transexxualism is something I will never do. Nor will I ever *get bisexuality, gay men, or anything else that I am not. Apologies, it was a supportive comment that came off poorly.
scribe31
@Shannon1981: buck angel turns me on too, and it makes me feel very weird. lol.
jason
One of the reasons that straight-identifying men enjoy watching men in porn is obvious: camaraderie. It’s a form of male bonding where you don’t actually have to go to the trouble of meeting a man socially and forming social bonds with him. You do it through your television screen instead. Straight-identifying men often enjoy bonding together even moreso than they enjoy having sex with women.
Male bonding is a form of love that is often disparaged by gay men because gay men will never experience it. They’re jealous of it. They’re jealous of the fact that straight-identifying men can bond through gang-bangs where the object is to please a woman all at once while bonding together as men without actually wanting to fuck each other.
As for those who poo poo my notion, bully to you. You are hopeless train wrecks with a very limited understanding of human sexuality. Your information is gleaned from the dreadful gay male scene, a narrow scene if ever there was one.
Shannon1981
@scribe31: LOLI just keep telling myself its because he has a beautiful pussy.
Aiden
I like Deen, you can tell that he actually cares about getting his partners off and that’s sort f rare in both gay and straight porn.
jason
Oh, please, Louise, get a grip….on cheese. Do you seriously think James Deen is there to get the woman off? He is there to get himself off. And to pick up the paycheck that comes with it.
James Deen is also known to make porn movies for Kink, an organization based in San Francisco which frequently produces violent porn that shows women being slapped, pinched and smacked repeatedly to the point of redness and bruising. If you think that’s sexy, you need your heads read.
Of course, don’t forget that the women who do porn are also disgusting creatures. They are sell-outs to the sleazy straight guy fantasy. These women engage in lesbian activitiy for the benefit of men, not for the benefit of their orientaton. Porn women appeal to sexist and homophobic men.
lars
@scribe31:
buck angel is gross
Mel Gibson
Jason, men in porn to straight men are a non-entity. They are a prop. Like a stripper pole for a stripper. There is no “bonding” going on. Maybe to bisexual men, not straight men.
Mel Gibson
Straight men, who are not closeted gay or bisexual yet call themselves straight out of self-loathing, have big problems with MMF sex and MMF sex scenes.
scribe31
@lars: Like i said I am a mostly gay dude, but there is just something about mr. buck angel. They did a story on him on the playboy channel while I was hanging out with my dad over the holiday. I had to explain to my dad who he was. Then dropped the fact that I thought he was interesting and I was attracted to him. Now my dad has had issues with the gay thing and me in the past, but he has made a lot of progress. Telling him I was into Mr. Angel sort of turned his world upside down all over again. lol. My dad,”you’re a top. right? so what would you do with it?” me,”anything he wanted.” lol.
scribe31
@jason: gang-bangs specially in porn are not about dudes trying to please women! (normally the opposite)… I do agree about partly about str8 men and bonding though. I work in a shop and the dudes from time to time go out to strip bars and hang out. Sometimes I go out with them and most of the time it isn’t really about seeing naked women but being with each other.
Ken S
I’m as much a fan of gay pride as the next sodomite, and as an English major I take a lot of comfort in linguistic labels to help make sense of my world. But when it comes to human sexuality, more and more the evidence is convincing me that no one is more qualified to tell you what your sexuality is than you are, and the same goes for everybody else.
Undoubtedly there are guys out there who identify as exclusively “straight” despite having occasional or frequent homo thoughts and feelings, and maybe even physical acts, and who cling to that straight identity for the social approval that they feel it brings. But are any of us entitled to brand other complex, multifaceted people according to our own reductionist concepts? I have a friend who for all intents and purposes is straight. He isn’t homophobic at heart, though I occasionally scold him for the whole “that’s so gay” quip. He’s only ever had romantic relationships with women- but he’s fooled around with other guys more than once (me and my boyfriend included) and he doesn’t hide that from his girlfriends (though he hasn’t told his current one that the bf and I are on that list). He doesn’t really relate to the label “bi-curious” (one time is curiosity, a second time suggests you satisfied your curiosity and liked it), nor “bi” because he isn’t interested in a serious relationship with another guy. He’ll laugh and consent to “heteroflexible” depending on the company he’s in- as in “I’m straight but shit happens.” And he comes to mind every time I hear people saying very officiously, very authoritatively, that “any ‘straight’ guy who fucks around with another guys is just a self-loathing gay in denial,” because as quick as they would be to pass some kind of judgment on him based on that bit of anecdotal information, I know him and they don’t.
I spent a good spell parroting the militant rhetoric that if you aren’t 100% unwaveringly straight then you’re gay- but that was an unsophisticated prejudice of my youth, when I wanted everything neatly categorized. Maturity learns to accept ambiguity, and there ain’t much more ambiguous than people.
Ken S
A good book on the subject that I’m reading right now, incidentally, is “Male to Male, Sexual Feelings Across Identity Boundaries” by a Dr. Tajirian, I think it is.
jason
Mel Gibson,
I don’t believe that men in straight porn are simply a prop for male viewers. I think they represent a combination of camaraderie and identity. Straight-identifying men want to bond with men they identify with. It’s a common theme in straight men’s lives.
amanda
all men are gay
HA!!!!!!
Kat
Ken S, I love your comment so much that I want to print it out and frame it on my wall.
Jeff
I’ve asked straight men what they like about straight porn and they’ve told me how they like to put themselves in the man’s place and imagine that they are having sex with the woman in the porn.
Ken-Heteroflexible is just another term for being bisexual. If someone is heterosexual or straight they are not going to have sex with the same gender, fantasies about the same gender, or anything like you wrote about.
You do not have to want a relationship with both genders or fall in love with both genders to be bisexual.
michael
As a watcher of straight porn, these blue movies are much more concentrated on the guys package. It’s crap when guys want to say the project themselves via the man in the porn. Do any gay guys do this or are we whacking off because what we were seeing turns us on???
michael
Btw, u tell any straight guy he couldn’t beat off to men in his porn and the last thing he will be thinking is projection. He’s gonna be bummed he will never be able to see a hard stiff package exploding all over the place after getting blown. It’s a pity men shouldn’t be held up to their site called orientation since if a guy wants to profess how men don’t turn him in at all then he should have no right in whacking off to it.
steve sydney
Porn is all about fantasy.. watching a woman with a toy or even another woman wouldn’t be much of a fantasy unless you could join in.. that’s what they need a man there..
The thing that confuses me are the guys who enjoy group wank sessions or have a 3some with another girl AND guy. If you’re 100% straight why would you want to be a room with another erection hanging around?
jason
steve,
Many straight identifying men enjoy being with other men. It’s called sexual camaraderie. Some call it homo-sensuality.
Of course, I wouldn’t expect many gay men to know about sexual camaraderie. Most gay men spend their entire social lives saying hello to men’s crotches rather than getting to know them as comrades. When a man’s interactions with another man are entirely crotch-centric, the camaraderie aspect is greatly diminished.
LandStander
This reminds me of a Ron White stand up. He was making a joke about talking to a straight male friend of his and said
“We are all at least a little bit gay, and I can prove it to you. Do you like watching porn?”
“Well, yes”
“And do you only watch porn with two women in it?”
“No, I like to watch a man and a woman making love”
“And do you like the man to have a small, half flacid penis?”
“No, I like big hard throbbing co….”
corvidae
“But did my co-worker have secret bi desires or was I just being a prick? The answer to both is yes and no.” This made me lol.
As a bi guy, I can kind of emphasize with straight men, it’s nice to see a man you’d be able to connect with having sex, sort of an idealised version of you, or a guy you could get along with.
Unfortunately hot, less aggressive men are the men other men want to be friends with, and most men would like to be attractive with a bigger cock.
Mystery solved? Agree/disagree as a reply.
ADC143
Dumb article. It’s probably ENVY that makes straight men appreciate the money shot.