Great news for dudes and society’s potential of accepting the idea their sexuality may also exist on a spectrum! A new study from Dr. Martin J. Downing dives the into porn-watching habits of 821 gay, straight, and bisexual men reveals some unexpected behavior. Namely, despite the annoying perpetuation of homophobic rhetoric — like “bromance,” why — surrounding the culture, 21 percent of the heterosexual men surveyed say they’ve watched same-sex male porn in the past six months.
This is progress! This is (hopefully) the death of beer-fueled, bro-on-bro hugs cut abrupt by a “no homo” disclaimer! Conventional wisdom and acceptance of women’s sexual fluidity has only gained steam since Angelina Jolie started being open about her sexuality eons ago — perhaps making Miley Cryus coming out as pansexual pretty anticlimactic (and, frankly, not super surprising). It only seems fair that hetero men should enjoy the same freedom to dig whomever they dig.
Because self-identifying gay dudes do. The same study found 55 percent of gay male participants have watched heterosexual porn recently. Researchers call this “identity discrepant porn-viewing,” according to Vocativ. I call this “cool. Watch whatever porn you want without letting that inform your sense of sexuality or self unless that’s what you want.”
We should have seen this coming, TBH. Pornhub’s 2014 metrics found lesbian porn most popular among women using their site. Of course there’s plenty of details the analysis doesn’t get into — the nuances of sexuality, and gender identity, to name a few — that could tell us a lot more. We also have no idea what percentage of Pornhub’s female viewers are mostly gay, mostly straight, or somewhere in the middle. But! It’s still something, and worth noting lesbian porn ranked 6th most-viewed category for men. Iiinteresting.
Dr. Downing’s research, however, has its own dark spots. We don’t know how often, or in what kind of time increments, these study participants consume porn. Quite easily, the culprit for these results — namely the 21 percent of heterosexual men found to watch gay porn — could plain be because straight dudes watch the most quantity of and most varied porn of the bunch.
Then again, an appreciation of literally anything in life does not necessitate said appreciation to define a person’s identity. These findings totally align straight men with queer men and women across the sexuality spectrum, which rules. It’s refreshing to have the figures out in the open. And, plus, dicks can be pretty great. We get it.
Original by Beca Grimm
