You don’t have to be an established pornography researcher to know that conventional porn is more popular among men than women. Nor is it untrue to say that the consumption of conventional porn among female audiences in general is relatively low.

According to a Pew survey conducted in 2013, just 8% of women said that they watched porn on a regular basis. This compared to around 25% of men, which was still comparatively low by today’s standards.

Access to free online porn (and all new categories of free porn for women) have radically changed people’s attitudes to porn in general, or at least triggered a boom in the number of people watching it…mainly because it is now 100% free of charge to do so.

There are variations in some parts of the world and among certain demographics. Depending on where you are, there may be a little to no disparity at all between the number of men and women watching porn. Though on a global basis in general, porn consumption among female audience still trails behind that of their male counterparts.

But what’s interesting is how while all this is going on, more women than ever before are tuning to gay porn online.

Why Are Heterosexual Women Watching So Much Gay Porn?

It’s a curious phenomenon, but one that appears to be gaining momentum all the time. Research conducted on consumption rates and demographics has found that along with specialist female-friendly porn, gay porn is the second most popular category among female audiences.

This includes clips from both lesbian and gay men categories on popular porn sites, which aren’t nearly as popular among male audiences in general. And it’s worth noting at this point that the women who are tuning into these online channels do not generally identify as gay, or even bisexual.

In which case, why are heterosexual women consuming so much gay porn online? More importantly, what can it tell the world (and its misled male population) about what women really want?

A Question of Kindness

Understandably, most of those quizzed directly on the subject prefer to keep their identities under wraps. Nevertheless, the consensus among those who preferred gay porn is relatively straightforward:

Gay porn tends to be an altogether kinder experience, where the participants have more regard for one another and the whole thing is less ugly.

All of which makes sense when you consider what takes place in a conventional porn clip. Bulging neck veins, sweaty red faces, gagging, spitting and outright aggression – typically topped off with a woman who’s clearly pretending she’s enjoying herself. When in reality, the overwhelming majority of women would be terrified at the prospect of taking part in what’s happening on screen.

With gay porn, it’s more about mutual enjoyment – particularly with female-friendly lesbian porn. Women don’t watch porn to see muscle-clad men smashing the living daylights out of their victims. They watch it to see things happening they’d genuinely like to participate in, which tends to be more the case with gay porn than the conventional kind.