“Boys just ruin it”: Exploring the popularity of lesbian pornography among straight women

Abstract

While scholars have examined female viewership of pornography, the phenomenon of heterosexual women watching lesbian pornography has received little attention. Drawing on statistical data from pornographic websites, articles of straight women who watch lesbian porn, and analysis of ten pornographic videos in the Lesbian category, this paper identifies five key themes behind the phenomenon: Focusing on women’s pleasure; relatability; lack of degradation; authenticity; fantasy and experimentation. I maintain that the consumption of lesbian pornography allows straight women to explore and articulate their desires, constructing their sexual subjectivity and expanding the possibilities for female pleasure and agency. I show how pornography consumption can challenge cultural narratives about female sexuality and pleasure, contributing to a more fluid understanding of sexual identities and desires.

Introduction

Since 2013, Pornhub Insights, Pornhub’s statistics blog, has published a Year in Review, an annual summary of users’ data. By 2019, this summary suggested that roughly one-third of the users entering Pornhub daily ¹ are women (Pornhub Insights, 2019). While the specifics of how this data is gathered remain somewhat unclear, the figure is significant and indicative of a broader trend; regardless of whether women make up thirty percent of viewership or less, their engagement with pornography is becoming increasingly apparent. However, while the body of literature on women as consumers of pornography is expanding (for example, Attwood et al., 2021; Chadwick et al., 2018; Ciclitira, 2004; McCutcheon and Bishop, 2015; Meehan, 2021; Neville, 2015; Paasonen, 2021), they remain underexplored. ²

This study focuses on the phenomenon of straight women who watch lesbian pornography, a topic that has received limited scholarly attention (primarily addressed in Meehan, 2021). To do so, it will explore the dynamics of straight women’s preferences for lesbian porn, while examining the distinct features of mainstream lesbian pornography as a category that both reflects and subverts sexual norms.

In 2014, Pornhub Insights introduced a gender category, thus bringing women’s preferences into the spotlight. These statistics reveal many women’s apparent preference for the Lesbian category ³ , alongside the popularity of woman-on-woman sexual practices (scissoring, tribbing) (Pornhub Insights, 2015, 2016, 2017; 2018a; 2018b, 2019, 2021, 2022). Due to the high volume of women users, it is difficult to attribute the popularity of the Lesbian category merely to lesbian or bisexual viewers (Meehan, 2021). This understanding, taken together with testimonies by straight viewers, ⁴ forms the point of departure for the research presented in this paper.

Although videos categorized as “lesbian” on popular pornographic websites such as Pornhub primarily feature female performers, they have been a subject of criticism by anti-pornography feminists. This critique understands pornography as a space of violence, coercion, and degradation for women, reflecting, producing, and reproducing gender hierarchy and narrow patriarchal sexual scripts (Dines, 2010; MacKinnon, 1989). Such critiques are based on the perception that mainstream lesbian porn reflects men’s fantasies of girl-on-girl interaction rather than “authentic” lesbian sexuality (Packard and Schraibman, 1993; Webber, 2013), regarding it as an extension of heterosexual porn (Swedberg, 1989).

Despite this critique, some straight women have reported regularly consuming this pornographic content and even using it as a guiding tool for their male partners due to its focus on women’s pleasure, non-penetrative sexual practices, intimacy, and extended “foreplay” (for example: Dickson, 2015; Gonsalves, 2019; Women’s Health Editors, 2021, 2021; Zielinski, 2015). These intriguing attestations warrant further investigation into the complex and often contradictory ways pornographic content and its consumption can impact our understanding of sexuality.

The discourse surrounding women’s engagement with pornography in general is marked by elemental complexity and as mentioned, contradictions. Women may interact with such material both for arousal and to gain knowledge about sexual practices (Daskalopoulou and Zanette, 2020) while, alongside these motivations, they may also experience feelings of embarrassment or distress surrounding their viewership (Litsou, 2024). Such complexity also manifests in women’s diverse preferences of pornographic content. Some seek material that aligns with their familiar experiences and participants with whom they can identify (Attwood, 2005), while others seek pornography that will allow them to “toy with ideas” (Ibid., p. 177) and explore options that go beyond the atmosphere and acts present in their private lives (Chadwick et al., 2018; McCutcheon and Bishop, 2015; Meehan, 2021; Neville, 2015).

As indicated, a notable ambivalence emerges within women’s experiences of pornography consumption. Even women who knowingly employ it as a tool to foster communication and intimacy with their partners might, at the same time, perceive it as leading to the exertion of pressure to engage in unwanted sexual acts (Litsou et al., 2024). This is but one example of the intrinsic ways patriarchal attitudes and power dynamics are evident in women’s experience of sexually explicit materials (Parvez, 2006), navigating between the potential for subjectivity, autonomy, and agency (for example: Ciclitira, 2004; Daskalopoulou and Zanette, 2020; Rednour and Strano, 2015; Ziv, 2015), and that of subjugation, coercion, and disempowerment (for example: Evans, 2006; Levy, 2006; Wan Yahya et al., 2010). This ambivalence is, at times, clearly evident in women’s experience of pornography (Benjamin and Tlusten, 2010; Meehan, 2021) and plays a crucial role in their interactions with it: where do they look for porn, what kind of porn they look for, and how they engage with it (Chadwick et al., 2018).

This study investigates the reasons behind the consumption of mainstream lesbian pornography by straight women, exploring the concepts of pleasure and sexual subjectivity in relation to the perceived discrepancies between their sexual preferences and the content of such pornography, alongside the tensions and complexities in how women experience and negotiate their positions as porn viewers. The choice of analyzing mainstream lesbian porn videos, as opposed to the alternative, feminist, and queer ones ⁵ , is based on several factors. First, many of these videos are available on more than one specific website, making them a widely accessible source of sexual content for many viewers. Second, the social taboo surrounding same-sex attraction may lead some women to feel more comfortable consuming lesbian porn in the relatively anonymous space of mainstream websites rather than overtly queer or feminist ones that require registration and payment.

Furthermore, some of the texts analyzed explicitly reference the genre of “lesbian porn” as featuring depictions of sexual activity between two women, not necessarily produced by lesbians or for them (Dickson, 2015; Pearson, 2015). The content was sampled from Pornhub, following the data provided on Pornhub Insights (Pornhub Insights, 2015, 2016, 2017; 2018a; 2018b, 2019, 2021, 2022), establishing a high plausibility that some straight women turn to it in search of lesbian porn.

Building upon this contextual framework, the study aims to delve deeper into the extent to which mainstream lesbian pornography aligns with the preferences of its straight female audience and whether it meets their expectations. By examining how straight female viewers of lesbian pornography negotiate their sexual subjectivity in relation to their consumption of this type of content, the research seeks to uncover the nuanced dynamics at play. Specifically, the study explores whether women’s sexual preferences influence their decision to watch mainstream lesbian porn videos and how they manage the potential discrepancies between their heterosexual identity and the lesbian content of the videos. Through this analysis, the study also examines the ways in which mainstream lesbian pornography aligns with or transgresses broader cultural narratives about female sexuality and gender roles.

Methodology

In the mid-2010s, a notable increase in discussions about the phenomenon of straight women watching lesbian porn appeared in various online magazines and blogs. One of the earliest publications to contribute to this topic was a Buzzfeed and Pornhub collaboration titled “What Women Want” (“What Women Want - Pornhub Insights,” 2014), providing information on women’s browsing data, including most popular categories and top search terms, demonstrating a significant preference for lesbian porn and frequent searches for lesbian sexual acts. While not directly addressing women’s sexual orientation, this article was later cited in writings focused on straight women who watch lesbian porn (for example: Lindsay, 2016; Pearson, 2015), along with the gender-based analyses of Pornhub’s previously mentioned Year in Review (Dickson, 2015; Swanson, 2019). It is unclear whether these analyses sparked the surge in writing or were merely a precursor, but the period between 2014 and 2021 saw an increased focus on this subject.

Following this surge, and in hopes of better understanding the phenomena these texts discuss, I conducted a thematic analysis of publications concerning the popularity of lesbian porn among straight women. Fifteen articles were chosen from top Google search results combining the key phrases: “Straight Women” and “Lesbian Porn.” The articles were published between 2014 and 2021 on various websites and online magazines, mainly focusing on health, sexuality, and popular culture. The sample reflects top results over several years, as the texts were gathered from 2015 to 2022.

The texts were written by women who identify as straight and prefer lesbian porn (Dickson, 2015; Hart, 2015; Rivas, 2021), by writers who interviewed ⁶ such women (Lindsay, 2016; Pearson, 2015; Power, 2016; Reece, 2020; Sharma, 2017; Stokes, 2017; Weiss, 2016), or based on information gathered from experts on topics of sexuality and gender (Gonsalves, 2019; Hills, 2015; Lauriello, 2019; Swanson, 2019; Women’s Health Editors, 2021; Zielinski, 2015).

Following the thematic analysis and mapping of the themes, I selected ten videos from Pornhub’s Lesbian category, examining the extent to which they reflect the themes identified. To see whether the videos meet the viewers’ expectations, I constructed a guide composed of questions following the emphases offered by the writers and interviewees, along with input from academic literature in porn and sexuality studies. The videos were selected from the “most viewed” results of the Lesbian category on Pornhub - the first video on the first ten pages. This method was chosen to ensure that the sample was randomly gathered from a pool of easily accessible videos, somewhat reflecting the options that are effortlessly available to users.

Analyzing mainstream lesbian porn through the lens of viewer expectations

Mapping the texts

Five prominent themes were identified within the analyzed texts, allowing a closer look at how “lesbian porn” is perceived by the straight women who choose to watch it. While not necessarily reflecting the “true nature” of the pool of videos under this category, it enables a better understanding of how straight women who prefer this category view it. Notably, these themes were consistently reiterated across all the texts, conveying a similar perception of what the Lesbian category offers to women viewers.

It’s common to see handjobs and blowjobs but not as common to see fingering or cunnilingus. As a woman, I prefer to see female pleasure because I can imagine myself in that situation. Lesbian porn ticks that box (Power, 2016).

The first theme found in all of the texts I analyzed was - focusing on women’s pleasure. The writers or interviewees usually addressed the subject by noting the inclination of heteronormative porn to show primarily women performing oral sex on their male partners, while lesbian porn typically involves one or more of the participants receiving cunnilingus.

The analysis suggests that many women turn to the lesbian category after initially engaging with mainstream heterosexual porn due to its perceived advantages over the latter’s significant shortcomings. A recurring motif in the texts is that heterosexual pornography often positions women primarily as instruments for male pleasure, with female pleasure depicted as an afterthought. Dissatisfaction with mainstream heterosexual pornography is not limited to straight consumers of lesbian porn. Research shows that some women who consume same-sex pornography, whether lesbian or gay, report similar motivations, indicating a broader pattern of seeking alternative content that better represents authentic pleasure, irrespective of sexual orientation (Marks, 1996; McCutcheon and Bishop, 2015; Meehan, 2021; Neville, 2015).

At times, the writers attributed the focus on women’s pleasure to the centrality of acts acknowledged as generating pleasure, such as, foreplay (Reece, 2020; Rivas, 2021), stimulation of body parts other the vagina (Dickson, 2015; Pearson, 2015; Sharma, 2017), and non-penetrative acts (Gonsalves, 2019; Reece, 2020; Stokes, 2017; Women’s Health Editors, 2021). The authors and interviewees found lesbian porn to combine a focus on women’s pleasure with elements of sensuality and tenderness (Power, 2016; Reece, 2020; Rivas, 2021; Sharma, 2017; Stokes, 2017), gentleness (Power, 2016; Reece, 2020), and “niceness” (Reece, 2020). Finally, some writers have associated the genre with greater intimacy (Pearson, 2015; Stokes, 2017).

It becomes apparent that focusing on women’s pleasure, for the authors and interviewees, means a fundamental change in the pornographic script. The acts depicted differ, as does the duration from the scene’s onset to the initiation of an act aimed at facilitating orgasm and the time elapsed from stimulation to the presentation of pleasure. These factors further influence the perceived authenticity of the porno, with content deemed more authentic being more pleasing.

Karen had recently watched a video that hit all of her sweet spots: two women who didn’t have “perky, fake boobs,” but instead looked real, like they could be moms (Pearson, 2015).

The second theme, found in roughly half of the texts analyzed, is relatability. The writers and interviewees discussed Lesbian porn’s relatability, mainly regarding participants’ appearance. The women perceived the participants’ appearance as “less fake” (with “fake” usually referring to surgically enhanced breasts and bleached hair), not very skinny, and generally put, looking more “like me.”

While some viewers may not see bodies similar to theirs among the participants, they still find that they “move similarly” (Stokes, 2017) and are similarly pleased. Further, some of the viewers found that “lesbian porn tends to feature a wider range of body types than heterosexual porn, which makes it way easier to relate to the performers and the action they’re enjoying” (Lauriello, 2019). The women were able to find, for example, “wan, dark-haired, sarcastic-looking women who looked like they hadn’t been to the gym a day in their lives” (Dickson, 2015) or “like they could be moms” (Pearson, 2015), which greatly impacted their experience and contributed to the films desirability.

Relatability as a theme in women’s engagement with pornography appears in other research as well, albeit with varying interpretations. Pravez (2006) discusses relatability in terms of women’s ability to empathize with the actresses and imagine themselves in the scenarios. In contrast, Neville (2015) notes that some women opt for gay male porn, precisely to avoid bodily comparisons with female performers, choosing instead a path that circumvents issues of body image altogether.

Basically, it is extremely hard for me to find anything that is a man and woman and isn’t extremely degrading and/or violent to the women involved (Lindsay, 2016).

Another theme, found in roughly half of the texts, referred to the belief that lesbian porn is less degrading. This sentiment mirrors findings from studies on women’s viewership of non-heterosexual porn, where some women prefer gay male porn for its perceived equality and lack of objectification (McCutcheon and Bishop, 2015). Interestingly, the interpretation of the term varied among the sources. The description of degradation included references to the inclusion of violence, aggressiveness, and overtly gendered power relations. In contrast, the women considered videos found under the Lesbian category more sensual and expected them to feature visible or verbal consent.

The texts underline various aspects, including equality and mutuality (Gonsalves, 2019; Hills, 2015; Zielinski, 2015), the absence of aggression and threat (Gonsalves, 2019; Lindsay, 2016; Sharma, 2017; Weiss, 2016), and the presence of tenderness (Lindsay, 2016; Reece, 2020; Sharma, 2017). The viewers perceived the sexual acts in these videos as less aggressive or violent and, therefore, more desirable, as opposed to the “extreme” acts found in heterosexual pornography, such as anal-gaping, double penetration, and throat fucking. Overall, the primary considerations in the perception of degradation or lack thereof were the sexual acts portrayed, and the degree of consent and pleasure displayed.

Furthermore, single-gender content, whether lesbian or gay male pornography, is interpreted differently in terms of power dynamics. Women may perceive lesbian content as potentially free from the power imbalances seen in heterosexual encounters, while some view aggressive acts between men in gay male pornography as less problematic due to the absence of gendered dynamics (Neville, 2015).

If heterosexual porn provided more of what these women were looking for -- foreplay, oral sex and women who seem to be actually orgasming rather than just shrieking theatrically -- they might be more interested, they all said (Pearson, 2015).

A fourth theme found in the texts was authenticity. The text focused on what brings the women pleasure – and how they display it. Authenticity mainly revolved around orgasms, what acts prompted them, and whether the viewers were able to believe such acts led to orgasm. Further, the writers and interviewees scrutinized how the participants manifested their pleasure, suggesting some gestures and sounds are not credible – given how long the women have been pleasured or the kind of stimulation they received.

Although some of the writers question the credibility of mainstream lesbian porn (Dickson, 2015; Hills, 2015; Stokes, 2017), many of the texts generally recognized it as enjoyable due to the perceived authenticity of the pleasure displayed and the women’s ability to identify with the participants’ pleasure and imagine themselves in their place.

The viewers perceived lesbian porn as offering “a sensual, climatic scene” that provides “an opportunity for women of all sexualities to see their own pleasure being sought” (Reece, 2020). This appreciation for perceived authenticity resonates findings from McCutcheon and Bishop’s study, where participants emphasized the importance of genuine enjoyment in pornography. Their research revealed that viewers could appreciate various body types and sexual practices beyond their personal preferences, as long as the performers appeared to be genuinely enjoying themselves (2015, p. 82). This stands in contrast to how heterosexual porn is perceived in the texts analyzed for this paper, specifically as featuring “a lot of women screaming repetitively” (Power, 2016), displaying “that all-too-common immediate orgasm” (Swanson, 2019) as they are “pulling ridiculous orgasm faces” (Stokes, 2017).

Just because you watch lesbian porn doesn’t mean you’re sexually into ladies. Sure, some women might be, and that’s perfectly fine. But you can also just be in it for the fantasy (Lauriello, 2019).

If you do feel curious about exploring, then by all means, explore! But just liking lesbian porn doesn’t inherently make you lesbian or bi (Gonsalves, 2019).

The last theme found in the texts was lesbian porn as enabling fantasy and experimentation. Framing the appeal of lesbian porn as a form of fantasy reassured the readers: your enjoyment of lesbian porn does not make you a lesbian. The writers attested to their straightness (“I’m as straight as a ruler,” Hart, 2015) and repeatedly emphasized that enjoying watching lesbian sexual encounters does not necessarily mean one wishes to participate in them in real life. Additionally, some articles bring up the possibility that the consumption of lesbian pornography is a potentially low risk means of exploring one’s sexuality without necessarily identifying as non-heterosexual. As Shanae Adams, a “sex therapist and educator” interviewed for one of the articles, says: “porn is meant to ‘titillate rather than emulate’” (Rivas, 2021). This theme is not reflected in the content of the videos. As the analysis is limited to visual and audio elements (not involving further exploration of the viewers’ intentions or fantasies) evaluating this theme is beyond the scope of this current project.

The themes recognized informed the examination of each video to see if it complied with the expectations of women who turn to lesbian porn. In order to do so, I have established a guide for analyzing the videos sampled. The guide relies mainly on the elaborations provided in the articles, for example, viewers finding violence and power relations in pornographic videos degrading. In one specific instance, when the articles did not include a satisfactory elaboration, I turned to academic texts that dealt with questions brought up by the writers or their interviewees. The guide consists of the following questions:

1. Focusing on women’s pleasure. Was clitoral stimulation included in the video? Did it open with “foreplay”? How many orgasms did the participants present, if any? Did all the participants display markers of enjoyment?

2. Relatability. Albeit a subjective criterion, the texts included some specifications allowing to locate relatable characteristics in the videos. Do all participants answer to narrow beauty models dominant in pornography, such as dyed hair and surgically enhanced breasts? Are the participants skinny? White? Young?

3. Degradation. To examine whether the video contains degrading qualities as referred to in the texts, I have checked for the presence of violence not explicitly mentioned in the title ⁷ (such as slapping, spanking, and hair-pulling). Videos incorporating power relations (teacher/student, boss/worker, stepmother/daughter, and other such examples) were included in the sample, to see whether such relations dictate the nature of the sexual encounter (that is, the person in power is dominant throughout the encounter, the only one pleasured, and addresses the other participant in a humiliating manner).

4. Authenticity. The concept of “authenticity,” as identified in the texts, strongly resonates with Crutcher’s (2015) paper titled “The Politics of Authentic Female Pleasure in Pornography.” Crutcher’s research yielded specific criteria women employed to establish whether the depicted pleasure in pornographic content passes as authentic or genuine. This includes factors such as the duration of time viewers expected between witnessing a sexual act intended to promote pleasure and the actual pleasure expressed – a concept Crutcher terms “normative timeline” (Crutcher, 2015: 325). Drawing from Crutcher’s criteria and integrating them with key findings from the thematic analysis, I examine the following points: Does the sexual script adhere either to requests made by participants or to characteristics brought up in the texts, such as allowing the participants to take some time before being penetrated or taking part in oral sex? Does the performance of arousal conform to this “normative timeline”?

Analysis of the videos

The only theme that showed full correspondence between the content of the videos and the expectations was “focusing on women’s pleasure.” All but one of the participants were both on the giving and the receiving end of cunnilingus, and out of them – all reached an orgasm. If penetration took place, it was not the main event but involved the insertion of one or two fingers along with clitoral stimulation (in: “Best Friends,” “Tiffany Watson”). There was only one video that did not include some “foreplay” – talking, kissing, cuddling – a video compiled of scenes taken from a full version, very notably starting from the middle of the act (“Oily Lesbian”).

Regarding the second theme, “relatability,” the results show a more significant gap between expectations and reality. Most participants were in their 20s or 30s, other than the three participants in a video that fetishizes older women: “50-year Birthday,” from the “Grandmothers” channel. A vast majority were White (one Black, one Asian, and one Latinx participant – each in a different video), and it is possible to describe almost all participants as skinny. However, some divergence from what Crutcher calls the “stereotypical porn aesthetic” can be identified. Only two performers were (unnaturally) blonde, while the rest had black or brown hair. Only two performers had surgically enhanced breasts ⁸ or conspicuously fake tan. More than half of the performers did not shave their pubic hair, and only three had long nails.

Whether or not the expectation for the videos to be “less degrading” was answered is harder to determine. The majority of the videos included some dirty talk and other acts that are possible to understand as humiliating, such as being instructed to “clean your mess” (“Tiffany Watson”), light spanking, and choking. However, other than one video presenting a scene where a woman is preventing her “stepsister” from entering the house, forcing her to urinate herself (“Keisha Grey Gets SOAKED”) – the films wrap acts of aggressiveness in humor or soft, loving gestures. Even when the character forces her “stepsister” to urinate herself, the rest of the film shows her making amends and compensating her for what she has done. None of the films presented clear power relations. Therefore, while it is possible to understand many of the acts as degrading, a deeper look that considers their context suggests this is not their role in the film.

The films largely met the expectation of authenticity. Orgasms were only present following clitoral stimulation and took at least a few minutes to achieve. Two of the videos presented performers who ejaculate when they orgasm (“Keisha Grey Gets SOAKED,” “Tiffany Watson”), and their ejaculation served as further “proof” of the authenticity of their pleasure. Most of the films included specific requests that the partners always respected, among them to continue what they were doing, move faster or slower, and change positions.

The analysis of these Lesbian pornographic videos indicated that, for the most part, the elements that the women were looking for were present. The theme of “focusing on women’s pleasure” was fully met, and due to a divergence from the stereotypical porn aesthetic and orgasms achieved through clitoral stimulation, the content was also more relatable and authentic. Although viewers could consider some of the acts as degrading, a closer examination suggests their role extends beyond that. Therefore, we can argue that even mainstream Lesbian porn provides a possibility for “sexualities that are not male defined… [which] may assist in liberating all women from androcentric models of sexuality” (Morrison and Tallack, 2005: 7).

Following the analysis: Exploring mainstream lesbian Porn’s appeal to straight women

This analysis, based on the themes discussed above, provides a glance into the mainstream Lesbian category, enabling us to outline a possible explanation for its popularity among straight women. Alternative lesbian porn, made by queer women and intended for them, is usually “set within an identifiable sexual culture whose codes, values, and styles they invoke” and at times “grows out of cultural contexts and reflects political concerns” (Ziv, 2015, 9). Further, it is designed to “create a new and more cohesive community, focused on [lesbians’] commonality of sexuality and aware of [lesbians’] variety of differences” (Packard and Schraibman, 1993, 327). The analysis suggests that this is not the agenda of the mainstream category. Nevertheless, while the videos in the mainstream category may not explicitly aim to subvert heteronormativity, the results suggest that they do so in more nuanced ways.

The corpus evaluated demonstrates an unequivocal focus on female pleasure. With the exception of one instance, all videos depict all participants achieving orgasm, evincing a sensitivity to each other’s desires, displaying realistic and convincing expressions of pleasure, and refraining from gratuitous acts of degradation. The participants were also slightly more diverse looking and did not wholly correspond to the “stereotypical porn aesthetic.”

Based on these conclusions, it appears that mainstream lesbian porn’s appeal to women largely depends on women’s pleasure and the absence of degrading content. These findings are consistent with previous studies indicating that women actively engage with pornography while attempting to avoid its potential risks, which are more prevalent in mainstream heterosexual pornography. Women use strategies such as watching animated pornography, fast-forwarding certain scenes, or listening to porn with their eyes closed (Chadwick et al., 2018). The analysis of the videos suggests that mainstream lesbian porn may provide a satisfactory option for straight women seeking enjoyable pornographic content. As a result, turning to lesbian porn becomes an additional strategy for navigating and finding content that aligns with their values and interests.

Sexual fluidity, erotic plasticity, and a new sexual subjectivity

Since watching porn is not a mundane leisure activity but fills a sexual purpose – it is essential to address the fact that straight women are supposedly not aroused by other women. If this is indeed the case, what then enables them to turn to lesbian porn and enjoy it so much as to consume it regularly? Or, as EJ Dickson, writer of one of the articles previously analyzed, puts it: “Do hetero ladies jilling off to gay porn harbor secret gay feelings, or is there another, more complex dynamic at play here?” (Dickson, 2015)

While nine of the texts emphasize that turning to and enjoying lesbian porn does not necessarily indicate crossing the presumed boundaries of heterosexuality (Gonsalves, 2019; Hills, 2015; Lauriello, 2019; Lindsay, 2016; Reece, 2020; Rivas, 2021; Stokes, 2017; Swanson, 2019; Women’s Health Editors, 2021), four of the texts (Gonsalves, 2019; Lauriello, 2019; Swanson, 2019; Women’s Health Editors, 2021) further propose that women may be more sexually fluid or have greater erotic plasticity than man. These possibilities, as understood by the authors, allow women to enjoy content that may not align with their actual sexual experiences but still reflects varying degrees of personal sexual interest.

This notion utilizes Lisa Diamond’s conceptualization of sexual fluidity and Roy F. Baumeister’s concept of erotic plasticity. Diamond’s work challenges the traditional assumption that sexual orientation develops early and remains stable, arguing that this model, based on studies conducted exclusively on men, does not accurately reflect women’s experiences. She argues that women can experience desires for either men or women under certain circumstances, regardless of their overall sexual orientation (Diamond, 2008).

Complementing Diamond’s concept, Baumeister’s idea of erotic plasticity includes overall sex drive, desired partner characteristics, preferred sexual practices, and the consistency between attitudes and behaviors. Baumeister suggests that high erotic plasticity is more prevalent among women, making their sexuality more subject to situational, social, or cultural influences (Baumeister, 2000). This adaptability can account for straight women’s ability to enjoy lesbian pornographic content, which often focuses on women’s pleasure, and if it incorporates violence or coercion, it does so less frequently or in different contexts than heteronormative content.

In their book, Explicit Utopias: Rewriting the Sexual in Women’s Pornography (2015), Ziv discusses cross-identification, referring to “an identification that crosses boundaries of gender and sexuality” (71). This concept is explored in the context of the quest to constitute women as sexual subjects in the face of the challenges posed by their traditional construction as objects of desire rather than autonomous sexual subjects, and the restrictions on their autonomy and agency in matters of desire and pleasure (15). Understanding this historical backdrop is crucial for reshaping perceptions of women’s sexual agency and relevant for both queer women who turn to gay male pornography and straight women consuming lesbian porn.

Ziv’s work provides insight into the way cross-identification “works as a phantasmatic strategy that enables women to recode their sexuality and thus gain symbolic access to sexual subjectivity” (72); cross-identification between lesbians and gay men, perceiving gay male sexuality are therefore “a site of fantasy or an implicit or acknowledged model” for queer women (Ibid.) It is important to note that while for lesbians, and lesbian sex culture more broadly, gay male sexuality has served as a kind of “cultural intertext” (84), straight women consuming mainstream lesbian pornography may do so for other purposes. Yet, we can draw parallels and find similarities between gay and straight women who turn to pornography that supposedly does not reflect their own sexual behaviors.

Straight women who wrote about watching lesbian porn in recent years explain that their preference for this type of pornography hinges on its more egalitarian and less degrading qualities. This preference is similar to the motives discussed by lesbians who turn to gay male porn, finding it “less overtly sexist” (Ziv, 84). A further motive for the consumption of gay porn by lesbians was its lack of “pesky heterosexual assumptions or sex role stereotypes” (Ibid., 86), a factor that similarly resonates with the experiences of straight women who turn to lesbian porn. As mentioned in some of the articles analyzed, there is an expectation that in these spaces, both partners will experience a satisfactory level of pleasure, in contrast to heterosexual porn, which often plays on power imbalances between men and women (Hart, 2015; Pearson, 2015; Stokes, 2017; Weiss, 2016; Women’s Health Editors, 2021).

Another feature that lesbians who turn to gay male porn and straight women who turn to lesbian porn have in common is the search for “sexual literacy” (Ziv, 89) within sexual cultures that do not align with their sexual identities. Compared with the rich gay male sexual culture, lesbian sexual culture may lack “images to represent and words to articulate what it is that we desire and do” (Creet, 1991, 31 in Ziv, 2015, 89). However, when it comes to focusing on female pleasure, lesbian sexuality presents diverse techniques and practices uniquely suited to facilitating female pleasure, which could enhance heterosexual sexual scripts.

The engagement of straight women with lesbian pornography challenges conventional notions of sexual orientation and attraction. This phenomenon underscores the potential for fluidity and adaptability in human desire and pleasure. It reflects a shared pursuit of more equitable, less degrading portrayals of sexual encounters and a quest for “sexual literacy” within sexual cultures that may not fully align with one’s sexual identity. These experiences illuminate the multifaceted nature of sexual identification, calling for a more inclusive and flexible perspective on sexuality.

Sexual orientation and sexuality

Michael R. Kauth’s “Sexual Orientation and Identity” (2006) calls for a re-evaluation of our understanding of sexual orientation, challenging the notion that sexual behavior alone defines it. He proposes a more multifaceted framework, highlighting diverse factors shaping sexual identity, including biology, psychology, economics, and sociocultural influences, underscoring the role of societal stigma, the desire for acceptance, and the interplay of attractions (154).

Kauth illustrates this complexity through examples of “ex-gays” and those discovering same-sex attractions after heterosexual marriages, raising questions about the fluid boundaries of sexual identity. Kath Albury’s study (2015) further explores this by showing that individuals may strongly identify with multiple categories, such as heterosexual, queer, or bisexual, based on political, cultural, and sexual affiliations.

Individuals’ awareness of their sexual fluidity varies. Lisa Diamond’s research (2008) reveals that some women identify as heterosexual despite same-sex attractions because these feelings are “not strong enough” to justify a different label or because they expect to end up with men (63). This underscores the complexity of sexual orientation, transcending binary categorizations.

Gayle Rubin’s “Thinking Sex” (2021) supports this complexity by discussing erotic variation across dimensions like the age of partners and sexual practices. While the texts analysed here do not explicitly reference preferences independent of gender, they highlight the potential for deriving pleasure from diverse practices irrespective of participants’ gender.

Understanding this complexity is significant for understanding why some straight women enjoy lesbian porn. Sexual orientation fluidity allows for attractions outside traditional labels. Some individuals may identify as heterosexual but still have same-sex attractions not strong enough, in their eyes, to change their self-defined identity. This flexibility allows for exploration within pornographic spectatorship while maintaining their heterosexual label.

Navigating the limitations and possibilities of the mainstream lesbian porn category

It is especially important to explore how women perceive and engage with porn, as their significance as consumers is increasingly recognized. Discussions of female porn consumption occur in both popular media and academic scholarship, sparking debates that reveal the layered nature of women’s engagement with pornography.

Academic discourse spans a spectrum of perspectives, notably in the “feminist sex wars,” which began taking shape in the late 1970s. Anti-pornography feminists like Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin argue that pornography perpetuates women’s subordination to men by eroticizing this hierarchy. They extend their critique to single-gendered sexual encounters, suggesting that these portrayals affirm rather than undermine traditional sexual norms (MacKinnon, 1989).

Contrasting these views, some feminist and queer perspectives emphasize the positive potential within the pornographic domain (for example: (Lipton, 2012; Queen, 2015; Swedberg, 1989). Packard and Schraibman (1993) argue that such pornography, created by and for lesbians, can liberate women’s sexuality from patriarchal influence and serve as a powerful tool for empowerment, education, and communication about sexuality within the lesbian community (303). They stress that this material excludes content made by men or tailored to a male audience, highlighting the distinction between authentic lesbian productions and pseudo-lesbian content that caters to “the imagined sexual taste of the mainstream male” (Swedberg, 1989, 604).

This critique, reflecting queer viewers’ reception of lesbian content, is at odds with the fact that, as the present study indicates, individuals seeking pornography free from sexism and misogyny may turn to mainstream women-only content. Nevertheless, it forms a significant framework for understanding it. Moreover, straight viewers may perceive some of the very characteristics criticized as advantageous. I would surmise that straight women’s distance from LGBTQ + culture enables them to enjoy the content found under the Lesbian category as a sexual “men-free zone” without other attachments to culture-specific expectations. Further, as women who are not part of a sexual minority subculture, lesbian content geared towards queer women might be too foreign for them to enjoy.

Conclusion

Despite the significant number of women who consume pornography, they continue to be inadequately acknowledged both within the industry and in academic research. However, with the emergence of “Women Friendly” and “Made for Women” categories on mainstream pornographic websites and feminist and queer websites offering content tailored to women, an increasing number of scholars explore women’s preferences, experiences, and perspectives in relation to pornography. This scholarship includes investigating women’s involvement as producers of pornographic content and as consumers.

However, the demand for content specifically geared towards women still outweighs the supply, leaving many women with limited choices that fail to cater to their interests and needs. Under these conditions, women make informed choices regarding the kind of porn that comes closest to meeting their interests, with many concluding that the answer lies within the Lesbian category.

As discussed, women actively engage with pornography, examining specific factors such as the authenticity of pleasure and preferring content with which they can identify (Parvez, 2006). They may also turn to same-sex pornography that features only men (McCutcheon and Bishop, 2015; Neville, 2015) or turn to lesbian porn, even when such choices raise questions for them (Meehan, 2021). This complexity underscores their active pursuit of pleasure within available options (Chadwick et al., 2018; Pravez, 2006). The mainstream Lesbian category’s unique combination of heteronormative elements, such as the portrayal of women who lack overtly queer or masculine appearances, and their disruption, makes it appealing to straight women for the reasons specified in this study.

This study offers insight into the intricate nature of female sexuality and sheds light on how women navigate their sexual preferences in an androcentric society. The fact that some straight women seek out lesbian porn demonstrates the fluidity of sexuality and the potential for individuals to explore their desires unfettered by the supposed implications of their sexual identities. A thorough examination of women’s strategies to achieve sexual pleasure under the constraints of cultural norms can provide us with a deeper understanding of their sexual inclinations, desires, and subjectivities.