It’s no shock that men go for lesbian porn. There are industries devoted to satisfying this fantasy. "Lesbians? That's a real turn-on...I still love thinking about it," says Dave, IT Admin from Washington D.C. Reverse the situation and men might be surprised how eager women are for some man-on-man action. Perhaps this is a good time to consider a new niche in the old market.

“I think if most men knew the extent of how many—and in what context—females fantasize about male/male sex and relationships, they'd be staggered by the overwhelming numbers!” says Alli S., 22, candid writer on the topic from Houston, Texas. “To me, that's astounding; a thing can be so popular and widespread, yet still thought of as ‘other.’”

 “Oh yeah, I know I'm not alone in this,” says Arielle, 23, outspoken blog publisher for blogs like goesbeyondlove.blogspot.com. “My main reason for loving gay man porn is the out-and-out dominance. With two men, they're naturally on this equal footing—no cultural baggage of feminism or oppression or anything like that—so they can go at it and fuck.”

Arielle and Alli’s view that women, straight or gay, want to see men go at it isn’t a new phenomenon—and it isn’t limited to the XXX films behind the black curtains of the local rental store. Women have craved and created written and pictorial imagery of male coupling for a while. Ever heard of yaoi or slash fiction?

Yaoi, or Boy’s Love, began in 1970s Japan as a subgenre of Japanese comics. The stories focus on erotic relationships between male protagonists written by women for women. In an article published on Xtra.com, website of Canada’s widely circulated GLBT publication Xtra, Lisa "Hideto" Lai said: “Yaoi is about men who are idealized by women for women.”

When yaoi gained Western-world popularity, female American artists embraced female-oriented male/male comics too—nicknamed ‘GLoBL’ comics. American yaoi publishers, Yaoi Press, artists like Tina Anderson, and country-wide conventions helped spread the love of Boy’s Love.

Then there’s the world of slash—another subgenre of popular culture. Slash writers, usually women, take mainstream films or television shows and create intimate relationships between the straight male characters.

Kirk/Spock are believed to be the first pairing and source of the title ‘slash’.

Slash fans have not limited themselves to science fiction. Writers have a generous appetite for slash potential and Web hits for ‘slash fiction’ are well above the thousands. Anyone is up for grabs, from the male characters of CSI: Miami to real-life celebrities.

The slash community gives women a place to explore the possibility of characters they ‘know’ fall for each other, and with the right chemistry, explore each other.

“You’re never going to see those pairings on the actual shows,” says Mel, 27, slash enthusiast.  “Not on primetime TV, not anytime in the next decade. Unless a male character is going to discover he’s 100 percent homosexual, you’ll never see him in a romantic or sexual plotline with another male character, at least in the U.S. We’re not comfortable with the concept of male bisexuality, bi-curiousness, or even the idea that an overall straight man can find one particular man he’s attracted to. So if you want to see it happen, you have to make it happen yourself.  In mainstream TV, we have this huge blind spot in human relationships, where a whole segment of possibilities are negated before they can even begin.” 

“That’s not the primary motivator for me in reading and writing slash. I write it because it’s hot. Sex of any kind can be erotic, and sometimes the thought of two particular male characters gets me off.  If I think about why I’m prone to write slash, it’s because I know the show itself will never scratch that itch.”

“I am an avid reader and a compulsive writer, both original slash fiction and slash fan-fiction,” says Alli. “Slash pairings are appealing to me because of the balance that can be achieved. There is a sense of understanding and identification… only a man can think like another man, and the depth of that intimacy and understanding, in my opinion, is vital to a relationship.”

“The point remains that yes, most slash authors are female,” adds Alli. “I know some women who share my beliefs about [same-sex sexual balance] and I know some women whose reasons [for writing] do not go beyond simply, ‘it's hot.’”

Slash has grown since conception. In fact, it has even done the unthinkable—
crossed over from Internet fan fiction to mainstream airtime. It’s been featured in the storylines of the shows it parodies. 

“Take a look at any one fandom—the TV show Supernatural, for instance,” Alli continues. “There are literally thousandsupon thousandsof women the world over who read and write slash pairings from just that one TV show. To me, that's astounding.”

Daphne, fellow slash fan, reveals the persuasive power women of slash had on the official writing for Supernatural. “The writers/executives of Supernatural, they use slash on their show. They change characters in response to slash fan reaction…They mention slash on the show and they actually had a fangirl character writing slash on screen.”

“Because of slash,” says Daphne, “I’m now curious about [gay] porn. I never would have if it wasn’t for slash.

Mel makes her connection between slash and gay pornography clear. “I occasionally subscribe to ‘amateur’ boy-boy websites along the lines of Corbin Fisher.  I don’t think I ever sought out gay porn before I got involved in the slash community, but when I’d run across it, it definitely did something for me.  It just wasn’t until after I spent time with other women who liked gay porn that I felt less weird or guilty about liking it.”

“I like watching two or more pretty people getting each other off, regardless of the plumbing,” she continues. “I don’t even care if they come, they just have to be genuine in the way they’re expressing themselves…It’s far easier to find [qualities I like] in gay porn and after a while I just gave up really looking for it in straight porn.”

For some, gay porn has obvious advantages. Women are presented with a wider variety of attractive, sexualized men—bears, twinks, musclemen—the orgasms are real, and there’s the element of the unexplored: the voyeuristic glimpse of unrestrained hardcore gay sex.

Not all slash fangirls lust for the gay porn that’s available. “Though, I don'twatch gay porn, says Alli, “I read it and write it effusively, because the characters and their bonds can be built and understood so much better that way than by watching YouPorn clips of a leather daddy and a nelly bottom go at it.”

Claire Cavanah, co-founder of Babeland, a female-friendly, sex-positive boutique in NYC and Seattle, says floor staff have not noticed women rushing the doors of Babeland to snag the newest gay film, though she recognizes the appeal of gay porn. “The presence of male anatomy in gay male porn may be more appealing to women and the chemistry and passion/enthusiasm and consensuality between participants is also enticing to a female audience. Also gay male porn stars were, until recently, far and away better looking than straight male stars.”

Claire mentions the change from male-dominated porno consumerism to women calling the shots. “Now that women are the fastest growing part of the porn-viewing market, producers have caught on and are casting guys based not only on their endowment, but on their faces and bodies, too.”

Rochelle, adult e-commerce toy and DVD retailer, has criticisms about aspects of heterosexual porn.“I feel the pressure to keep up with fast, fake sex…I think men feel this as well. It’s not about what you feel in the mind anymore; it’s all about the big O money shot.
I find that the women interested in gay porn, like myself, find it a taboo and sexy at the same time…The back side of this is that women still don’t have all their desires met.”

She points to a lack of communication between women whose turn-ons are seemingly outside of the box. “Men talk to each other about what they get off to; women still feel the need to hide what get them off from each other.”

This is slowly changing. Captain’s Surrender and False Colors are m/m romance novels selling well in the literary market. They are written by a married mother of two, Alex Beecroft. There are many other best-selling female authors pursuing this line of inspiration.

Blogs with gay porn for straight girls content have also popped up.

Subsequently, a growing number female executives and directors realized that if they build it, women will come. Women in charge are exploring what arouses their female clientele and filming it.

“I would love to support the porn industry in catering to my tastes more than it currently does,” states Arielle. “I hope that some lesbians will start making gay male porn because I think they'd make it just the way I want it.  I just wish there were a lot more diversity in porn.”

Tristan Taormino, Belladonna, Candida Royalle, Diana Devoe, and Anna Span are among the bevy of women who make female-oriented pornography. Female gaze camera shots, smoking hot men—not just size-worthy—and a sense of humor are just some of the elements women bring to the reels. Pioneers for sure, but the audiences are still left wanting female-focused gay porn.

Science has also recently attempted to pinpoint what sexual imagery turns women on. Dr. Meredith Chivers, professor of sexual research, has been studying female desire. Her results may be obvious to slash girls, but mark a turning point in the scientific community. Her most recent work dealt with showing video clips of men and women in diverse sexual and nonsexual situations and measured their physical and mental arousal.

The research indicated that women liked the clips of women with women, men with men, and men with women, it didn’t seem to matter. Dr. Chivers was quoted by a New York Times article saying, “Women physically don’t seem to differentiate between genders in their sex responses, at least heterosexual women don’t,” she said. “For heterosexual women, gender didn’t matter. They responded to the level of activity.”

Renee Messick, Sex Educator and Sales Associate at Good Vibrations, San Francisco’s staple sexual education and goods store, offers her observations about gay porn’s allure.  “I have worked at Good Vibrations for over a year and I do notice a slight increase or gravitation toward gay porn; mostly this includes purchases of gay erotica books by women.”

“Some women do ask for gay porn and share a reason or comment about their choice,” she says. “They have told me they find the men better looking than the men that typically star in ‘straight’ porn. Other women are curious to see how gay men do things they are interested in trying such as fellatio or anal sex.”

As to why women may prefer gay porn versus straight she says, “Beyondbetter-looking men and learning some tips and tricks from gay porn, which are great and valid reasons, I think a lot of it comes from how men are sexualized in gay porn versus straight porn. In gay porn, you have at least one man, maybe several, exploring each other erotically and explicitly. For some, this can be very hot in itself. The men in gay porn get to be the sexual focus. Their entire body is eroticized and attention is paid to every contour rather than just a large penis (though that can definitely play a role)! In straight porn, the focus is on the female body, and for some this can be distracting. These women are typically enhanced in various ways, with very large breasts and very small waists, artificial hair and nails, often times their genitals are even modified for a more streamlined appearance. If you don't resemble the female porn star, it could possibly be more difficult to get lost in a fantasy.”

Within the exhaustive sex industry, possibilities for fresh material remain. Nevertheless, some girls continue to keep their desires a secret. “I can be a little hesitant in telling girls in my life about my taste for gay porn,” says Arielle, “but I usually test the waters first. So far, it's been received for the most part with, ‘Oh yeah! Me too!  What is that about? How crazy.” Daphne shares Arielle’s uncertainty, “I don’t think it's weird, especially because there are many ‘fangirls,’ but I don't tell all my friends either.” Perhaps with time, the “other” will become as readily available for women as lesbian porn has been for men.