Rather, it’s that the majority of heterosexual porn is created by men, for men, and is therefore not reflective of female desire. In turn, these women resort to watching porn created for a demographic that’s been similarly marginalized, since gay men, too, have historically had their desires ignored and their representation in erotic texts co-opted. As a certified sex educator and queer man, I have to agree.Ĭonsidering Pornhub found that women represent more than one-third of the site’s gay male porn views (making it the second most popular category among the demographic behind “lesbian”), perhaps the issue here isn’t fetishization. Since nothing about the seconds-long video seemed abnormal, Wright believes the response to Kirah’s video was way too harsh. “Whereas a fetish, as a noun, is defined as a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked, to an abnormal degree, to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc.” “To fetishize, as a verb, is to make something the object of a sexual fetish,” Wright explains. “In no way is saying what turns you on personally inherently fetishization.” “I really dislike the fact that this TikTok user got called out in such a negative way,” says sex and relationship therapist Rachel Wright, MA, LMFT. Kirah’s video went viral and currently hosts over 35,000 comments and an alarming number of death threats.
“So when I posted it I was expecting the same response since I thought society was moving more toward -positivity than slut-shaming.”
“I was really surprised that it blew up because I’d told my best friend that I watch gay porn and she didn’t think much of it,” she explains. “At first the responses were agreeing with what I said, but after about four hours, they got really nasty,” she tells InsideHook. It was a seemingly harmless observation (and typical TikTok fodder) that turned controversial when a rush of gay men accused Kirah of fetishizing the gay male community. This was made abundantly clear earlier this year when TikTok user posted a video with with the text: “When I realized gay male p**n turns me on more than straight p**n.”
You know how tons of straight men enjoy watching lesbian porn and nobody bats an eye? The same doesn’t seem to apply to women who watch gay porn.