Gentlemen--straight gentlemen, that is--if you want to know how most women feel when they watch the porn you like, just take a peek at some gay porn.
For our sexual desire research, we always tried to watch or read erotica alongside its target audience. We wanted to discuss the precise moments that provoked a response. So that's how I found myself watching a gay porn video featuring two Mormon twinks and a vindictive non-Mormon DILF while sitting on a sofa between two excited gay guys.
My very first reaction to gay porn: Geez Louise, do they have to be so graphic? Why do they need a close-up?
I immediately experienced a flashback to comments we had heard from countless women about straight porn. Indeed, as the night went on, I uttered many of the same complaints: It's so clinical! There's no connection between the actors! And most often: Yuk! Did they really need to show that??
One main goal of our book was to identify all of the hard-wired sexual cues in the brains of women and men. Just as our brains come hard-wired with five different taste cues—salty, sour, sweet, savory, bitter (some researchers add metallic and fat), our brains also come hard-wired with a finite set of sexual cues. However, though male and female brains share the same taste cues, our brains come loaded with entirely different sets of sexual cues. It's as if the male brain has salty and sour cues, and the female brain has bitter and sweet cues. If we each tasted the sexual equivalent of peanut brittle, a man would report a salty flavor while a woman would report its sweetness.
Watching gay porn was an early stage of investigating whether gay and straight brains come equipped with different cues. (Answer: no, gay and straight brains are virtually identical, with two and a half important exceptions we describe in our book.) Overall, gay guys watch, experience, and hoard the same kinds of porn the same way straight guys do. It's just that gay cues target male bodies whereas straight cues target female bodies.
After we identified all the sexual cues of the male brain, I once again returned to watching gay porn alongside my gay research associates for a "pilot test" of some of our hypotheses about male cues. Specifically, we wanted to see if there was erotica that gay and straight men could both enjoy because it contained overlapping gay and straight sexual cues.
We predicted three particular genres would appeal to both gay and straight men:
1. Gangbang porn (multiple men and one woman)
Outcome: Gay men most definitely can enjoy watching a group of attractive, well-hung men ravish a young lady, especially European gangbang porn where there is greater comfort with male bodies coming into contact with each other.
2. Gender Transformation Comics (a man changed into a woman against his will)
Outcome: This genre only appeals to a specific subset of straight men (ones who likely possess active submission circuitry), but also can appeal to gay men who may enjoy it by focusing on the idea that "It's really a MAN in there who's being forced to have sex with another man."
3. Cuckold Porn (a wife cheats on her husband while the husband watches)
Outcome: This had the weakest overlapping arousal. If the cuckolded husband is masturbating while the wife is ravished—and the ravisher is attractive—this worked with the gay men.
So if you've been scratching your head wondering if there's some porn you can watch with your gay buddies, well--now you finally have some options. Of course, if you don't want to get quite that intimate with your gay amigos but still want to watch something together, here's a few more mainstream possibilities...
Three TV Shows that Gay and Straight Guys Can Form Manly Bonds Over
Guy appeal: blood-drenched Ultimate Fighting Championship, ancient Roman style.
Straight appeal: orgies, sexual exploitation of slaves, MILFs, and lots of straight sex.
Gay appeal: innumerable hunks in loin clothes grappling and bathing, gay sex.
Guy appeal: violence between vampires, werewolves, and supernatural beasties.
Straight appeal: hot chicks, plenty of straight sex scenes.
Gay appeal: hot guys, plenty of gay sex scenes.
Guy appeal: gripping drama, political intrigue, violence.
Gay appeal: homoerotic scenes of men in prison, naked guys in the shower.
ADDENDUM
Perhaps you're one of the minority of gay men who are aroused by stories, emotions, and the nuances of relationships. This pertains to the "half a difference" between gay and straight brains, and we'll be discussing it in a future post. But we'd predict that you're not a top, that you're either a bottom, flexible, or uncomfortable with labels. And that you still like Spartacus and True Blood.
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