WOMEN ARE
ATTRACTED
TO THE
IDEA OF
GAY MEN
HAVING SEX
1 IN 5
ACCORDING TO A 2014
UNIVERSITY OF
MONTREAL SURVEY.Guy-on-guy action can
also offer a break from all the
complicated, clashing ideas
about gender politics. There
are no damsels in distress or
presumptions that men have
to be the aggressors, women
the delicate flowers. In a series
of interviews with straight
female uni students who watch
gay male porn, Leila Rupp, a
sexuality researcher at the
University of California at
Santa Barbara, says that the
students told her they like it
“because they feel like the
power is equal between the
partners”. In straight porn,
they said they don’t like the
“traditional” dynamic of “men
having power over women”.
Carrie, 22, a popular
Larry Stylinson writer at
Archive of Our Own, says,
“It’s just better when it’s two
hot guys. It’s more equal.”
Not to discount the racy rush
that comes with imagining
illicit oral sex between two
world-famous pop stars. “I
really like the whole forbidden
love trope,” she adds. In one
of Carrie’s tales (she asked us
not to reveal her real name
because the One Direction
fan base sometimes lashes
out at Larry ’shippers online,
accusing them of sparking
fights within the band), Louis
goes down on Harry while
now-former One Direction
member Zayn Malik watches.
“‘I’m close, so close,’ Harry
breathed,” she writes in one
story. “It couldn’t have been
more than a couple of bobs
of Louis’ head before Harry
moaned, eyebrows knitting
together and lips parting as
he came.” Uh, did that feel
tingly for anyone else?
For some women, reading
about two guys getting their
freak on is a chance to explore
their own not-entirely-straight
leanings – whether it is an
attraction to other women orcuriosity about anal. Tina, a
married 33-year-old slash fan,
says her jam is the Johnlock
’ship, Benedict Cumberbatch’s
TV incarnation of Sherlock
Holmes and his partner John
Watson. It’s a “kinky little
escape” from her routine sex
life, “something different from
the missionary I’m so used to
having.” Indeed, says Tan, “A
lot of women who are living
a very straight life – they’re
married with kids or they’re
young single girls – are also
yearning for queerness. Our
society pushes us away from
that, but gay erotica, gay fan
fiction gives women an outlet.”
In some cases, fantasising
about gay sex can even be a
sign of a woman feeling what
Hardy describes as “sexually
trans”. As in, identifying as
one gender emotionally and
psychologically but another
sexually. Hardy, for one, says
she feels like a woman on
the streets and a man in the
sheets. “I am more attracted
to very masculine guys who
are attracted to guys because
I love that energy and I want
to be part of that. And when
I’m with a guy, I want to be a
guy sharing that energy.”
Girls liking boys who
like boys could be yet another
sign that we’re living in a
brave new world of sexuality,
gender and sexual attraction,
where there is more blurring
of the labels male and female,
gay and straight. In the past,
a girl who was turned on by
two guys “might feel isolated,
weird, even sick”, says Ritch
Savin-Williams, a professor
of developmental psychology
and the director of the Sex
and Gender Lab at Cornell
University. But now she and
others like her “can find each
other online and not feel like
they’re crazy or the only ones
in the world like them”.
GETTY IMAGES Michelle Ruiz #
love & lust
women last year on pornhub.
com, a site that boasts more
than 38 million visits a day,
was “gay (male)”.
“It’s becoming normal
for women to want to see two
boys kiss,” says Cecilia Tan,
editor of Circlet Press, an erotic
publishing house, and a writer
of M/M erotica including the
Harry Potter-inspired series
The Prince’s Boy. “Gay sex
fuels the magic that’s in theseworlds,” explains Tan, who
identifies as bisexual. “It is
totally hot for me.”
This can be confusing for
people who don’t find it hot.
Why is reading about and/or
watching two gay guys – who,
by definition, aren’t interested
in ladies – such a turn-on?
For some, it’s as simple
as the appeal of raw man meat.
“There is something about
masculinity pushing against
masculinity that draws me
in,” says Janet Hardy, a sex
educator and author of Girlfag:
A Life Told in Sex and Musicals,
who’s attracted to and has
had relationships – some of
which were sexual – with gay
men. But for many women,
the appeal goes deeper, says
Hardy: “It’s about seeing two
strong men who are totally
vulnerable with each other
and the sweetness of finding
affection inside that strength.”COSMOPOLITAN November 2015 133