The male gaze: Why men love lesbian porn

The male gaze is defined in cinema and literature as viewing women as objects of man’s pleasure.

This term was created by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey in 1975 when media, particularly film, focused on a woman’s body with erotic intent, specifically designed to excite men.

The male gaze is then considered a higher form of porn where art is used as an excuse to display women’s bodies with the objective of tickling men’s erotic pleasures.

In the lower hemisphere of male gaze– i.e. straight-up porn with no artistic pretense– the most pleasurable thing for men to watch is lesbian porn.

Forget blow jobs and gangbangs, when it comes to male gaze, there’s nothing like lesbian porn that excites straight men the most.

Pornhub’s data map of male gaze

In 2016, Pornhub created a map delineating states and their most searched porn subject. What is not surprising is how most states revealed that lesbian porn is listed at the top.

“Oh sure, in a few quirky states, cartoons are the most popular,” wrote Olga Khazan for The Atlantic.

“Others have ethnic preferences or mother figures they’d like to, uh, well you know,” Khazan said.

Still, leading by a wide margin was the searches for the majority of the states for lesbian porn. Which bring us to the question: why do men love lesbian porn above all?

Deconstructing men’s love for lesbian porn

A few years ago a movie (whose title we can’t remember anymore) summed the reason in just a couple of words: It has two women.

That’s all there is to understand why men have a thing for lesbian porn. With regard to the male gaze, all they will ever see in the scene are two naked women.

Contrary to popular belief that two women making out or making love is what drives men’s libido crazy, it’s really because there’s no wasted space occupied by other men in that scene, be it a still picture or a moving one.

It doesn’t even matter if lesbian porn doesn’t carry actual lesbian characters; two naked women in bed is enough for them.

The visual stimuli of doubling up

According to Ogi Ogas, a neuroscientist and co-author of A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World’s Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire, there is nothing more desirable than seeing two women.

Or to put it simply, two naked women are better than one.

It also doesn’t matter that if the two women are actual lesbians and that men have no chance of getting in on the action. What matters is that their male gaze is satisfied by what they’re seeing.

“It’s amusing that you offer up the fact that lesbians will never be interested in men as a possible reason why men should not be aroused by them,” Ogas said.

“Sexual fantasy obeys its own set of rules that have nothing to do with propriety, common sense, or even the physical laws of the universe,” the good doctor said.

Meaning, lesbian porn isn’t about being part of the scene but sexual fantasies come into play. That is, it’s all in their heads. Makes sense, doesn’t it?