You might have meant to say “Why is an interest in drawings and stories about naked men different from pictures of actual naked men?” As Jack and Guin have said, you is not simply gay porn in written form. Visual pornography shows actual pictures of real men, while yaoi shows an idealized image of men, filtered through a lens of hopes and dreams. Wait, strike that, I should say “a lens of the hopes and dreams of women” While there are male yaoi artists and writers, the vast majority of the producers and consumers are women. It is said that the protagonists in the more romantic stories are women in drag, "That is to say, romantic protagonists who represent the interests of the readers. Not “porn” at all, unlike playgirl.
Au contraire, mon frère. I feel that if this is the thread where you are getting the most interest in your posts, then you should elaborate further in this thread, not in Private Messaging.
Well, it’s pretty much totally meaningless to anyone who isn’t involved with YaoiCon. Out of that, I think it’s only interesting to people who care about my attendance, which I think is an audience of one.
Ehr… how is that different from, say, one of Sorayama’s more explicit airbrush-works, or a heavily made-up pornstar? Some pornstars look very different on and off camera, and I’ve never heard of any who don’t behave differently. It’s all about the fantasy, either way.
This situation is more like asking, “Why is grass green, but not purple?” … and then getting numerous responses from people declaring that the grass in THEIR lawns is purple, linking to previous threads in which people discussed their purple grass, revealing that selling purple grass is an extremely lucrative business in Japan, and telling you about how they attended conventions in the US for people who have purple grass.
Actually, the OP makes two statements about women - “women are not attracted to gay men” and “2 guys getting it on would disgust a woman”.
I’m perfectly willing to concede that, on average, men would be way more interested in watching a video of two lesbians gettin’ it on than women would be in watching a video of two gay guys gettin’ it on. But I think that has a lot more to do with preferred pornographic media than anything else.
If you don’t think a lot of women like gay sex, try this sometime - make up a list of a few popular movies or tv shows from the last couple of decades. Any of them, so long as they have at least a few male characters. Then google for the name of the show along with the word “slash”. Granted, not all will be written/read exclusively by women, but a lot are.
I suggest some of the following:
harry potter slash
lord of the rings slash
star trek slash
a-team slash
transformers slash (you’ll have to dig a little deeper to find the actual slash on that one)
dragnet slash
x-files slash
star wars slash
batman slash
ER slash
No compulsion on the planet could force me to type those words into Google.
I’m horrified just thinking about it. And I blame you that I’m thinking about it at all! Aiiieeee!
Ohhh, jsgoddess… look what I found… 
evil laugh
Helllp meeeeeee!
Yep, you illustrate my point very nicely indeed. Couldn’t have done it better myself. If you make a 99% true statement like “grass is green”, any number of purple grass afficionados will come out of the woodwork to tell you that, “actually, some grass is purple.” Tells you precisely nothing about averages or norms, and doesn’t alter one iota the fact that grass is overwhelmingly green.
ie you concede the OP.
Don’t strawman me.
.
Try this sometime: enter “ferrari” into Google. It will yield close to 10 million hits.
Now answer me this question: do you think this indicates that most people drive a Ferrari?
The rest are obvious. But I’m torn between really wanting to google that and really not wanting to google that one.
I don’t think they’re saying that all grass is purple, only that a substantially larger portion of it is purple than you think. What if someone points out that purple grass is a multimillion-dollar industry, and that vendors with purple grass are often some of the busiest at gardening conventions? I’d think you’d have to start tempering the statement “grass is green” with some qualifiers.
Okay, forgive my newbie-ish ignorance, but how does that follow? I don’t see how that’s a consession to
, especially when the very next sentence is
?
As far as I can tell, she’s only talking about video being a medium that appeals primarily to guys. I don’t see where “2 guys getting it on would disgust a woman” posits a specific form for the delivery of the fantasy.
It says a whole lot of people would like to, I think. There’s a very high barrier to entry, so a large portion of those people are forced to be merely ogglers. On the other hand, since slash/yaoi/associated-guyporn is relatively cheap (if not outright free), the barrier of entry is very low, and anyone who wants to can enjoy and participate. I’m not really sure whether everyone does, but I think it’s safe to say that your argument is ignoring something pretty important.
Don’t you see that by saying “vendors of purple grass are often some of the busiest at gardening conventions” you are perfectly illustrating my point? You are perfectly illustrating the way if you make an obvious statement that grass is green, those who will speak up the loudest will be those with an unusual interest in a subject, who will offer a totally unrepresentative viewpoint and think it’s meaningful. Bear in mind that purple grass sells at gardening conventions (which 99.9999% of the population don’t even go to) precisely because it’s so goddamned weird.
You’re quite right here, I overlooked the “disgusting” bit.
My point is simply that it doesn’t matter how rarified the subject, you can find gigloads of www hits on anything. Put copraphagia into google (if you dare!). Do you think the fact you’ll get heaps of hits means a significant proportion of people are into eating shit?
I wonder about the opposite of the OP; why do women enjoy consuming gay porn?
There’s two different things I like about two women together. If it’s just the two of them, I identity with what they do to each other; there’s virtually nothing a lesbian does to another woman that I wouldn’t enjoy doing myself. I like going down, I like the kissing, I like using my fingers, I like using toys. (Especially the toy I was born with!)
If it’s the proverbial hooking up with two chicks fantasy, I always thought this one was a no-brainer that I have never really heard articulated. Men tend to have some performance pressure. Most of us aren’t bothered by it, but it will usually at least be a tiny voice in the back of your head hoping you won’t finish too soon (or go too long), or wondering if she’s faking, or whatever. With two chicks, a guy can have his fun with no worries, because the women can see to it that they get each other off. All the fun with none of the pressure!
But women watching gay porn I don’t really understand other than to come to one inescapable coclusion: they fantasize about chugging cock and getting railed up the ass. Interestingly, these are two activities that the stereotype says women don’t enjoy doing, so that’s where the disconnect comes in. If that’s not the point of it for the women, I truly do not understand. Any help?
By that standard, once you’ve declared something to be true, no one else can contradict it. We’re not allowed to demonstrate that it’s popular, even when the question boils down to “Is it popular?”
If the OP were:
- Men like Coca-Cola.
- Women don’t like Coca-Cola.
- Why?
We could provide more concrete statistics. But you could never explain away 3 because 2 is untrue.
The OP’s premise:
- Men are attracted (want to watch) to lesbians.
- Women aren’t attracted to (are disgusted by) gay men.
- How come?
You can’t answer 3, which is the entire point of the OP, if 2 is incorrect. A lot of us are saying that 2 is incorrect, and the only evidence brought out is that we’re the exception that proves the rule?
Where is your evidence that it’s weird or uncommon? You think it is therefore it is?
Nonsense. It’s not that you are not allowed to demonstrate it, it’s just that you haven’t. The plural of anecdote is not data. All you are offering is anecdote.
It’s a hard thing to Google. A few posts ago, though, I said this:
“Does anyone here seriously think that if you did a survey of a representative sample of men, to determine if they are “into watching two women get it on” and a representative sample of women vice versa, the survey would come back even handed?”
No one has said they seriously think this. Do you?
Let’s try some data.
First, have a look here. This cite concerns male and female fantasies. It’s not directly on point, but it’s indicative. What you notice is that males are much more voyeuristic, and fantasize about group sex more (and note that there is no other categories into which fantasies about seeing g on g sex would fall). Female fantasies involve over 50% less voyeurism or group sex and the single most common fantasy involves their actual partner, which is needless to say not going to be a gay male.
Ooh, now, this took nearly an effin hour to find, but have a gander at this.. It’s after midnight now and I have to get to bed, but this survey concluded:
“Post-hoc analyses indicated that women attributed similarly low erotic values to male and female homosexuality, whereas men attributed a high erotic value to lesbianism and a low erotic value to male homosexuality.”
The raw numbers seem to suggest that straight women on average attribute about 1/3 the erotic value to gay men that straight men do to gay women.
Such a statement indicats that you somehow think we are implying that it WILL be a gay male they fantasize about having sex with. In your mind, does all sexual fantasies have to do only with what YOU do? :dubious:
Even so, why the hell do you care so much about this topic?
amarinth:
Maybe Schoedinger can help.
I think that’s cultural more than biological. Slash/boy’s love is a world-wide phenomenia that is constantly growing in scope and popularity. I don’t think that people’s basic biologies have that much in the past 5 years, I believe instead that females within our culture now feel freer to express themselves and their sexuality. Porn is still seen as something that ‘good girls’ avoid in most circles, but you will find that male-male eroticism is most popular among the 13-20 year old fan base.
[Paraphrasing]
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be obscene; but cartoons of pre-pubescent boys get anally penetrated by tentacled creatures borders on weird & disturbing.
[/Paraphrasing]
Perhaps the fan base you define still watches Pokeman - or hasn’t gotten over their childhood fascination with Dragonball Z.
How much credit can you give a survey about sex? How many people answer *truly * about sex?
The fact that I admit on the Dope that I read slash porn does not mean that any of my non-Doper friends know about it. I might admit to it in a survey now, but even 2 years ago? Not on your life.
In short, I don’t believe your stats. I never believe stats about sex, because too many people were brought up in a culture of “Don’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist.”
Many women my age or a little younger grew into their 20’s and started to realize that not only do they like sex, it’s OK to like sex, and even more, it’s OK to like sex that’s not about you in any way (i.e. gay male porn). This realization came pretty late to me. This subset of people fit right into the college-age demographic which your second site brings up.
Anyway, while the plural of anecdote is not data and never will be, you can’t stand there and say anecdotes have no meaning, either, and dismiss them out of hand.