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Girls and gay boys
Jul. 12th, 2009 06:50 pmThere's a cliché about heterosexual and bisexual men being turned on by lesbians. I've found that this is generally true when it comes to the theoretical fantasy level but not so much when it comes to real live knitting and cat owning lesbians. Some women find it objectionable because they feel that it fetishises and male centres a sexual expression which isn't about men. I have a lot of sympathy for people finding the idea of two people of a type they are attracted to having sex with each other arousing.
There also seems to be a reverse thing going on. Heterosexual and bisexual women, particularly teenagers, having a thing for gay boys. The internet is full of slash and the BBC is feeling their fury over the latest development of the Torchwood Jack/Ianto love story.
There are differences in the way these play out. It generally seems acceptable for men of all ages to be into lesbians and there's plenty of mainstream porn and erotica to cater for that. I don't think that can be said for women's attraction to gay men. I haven't checked recently, but I don't think that Cosmo or More magazine are running photo shoots of skantily clad men getting it on with each other in the way FHM does with women. Playboy relatively often does photo shoots in which female twins pose together, whereas I think that magazines which featured brothers in homoerotic poses would be less publicly acceptable. The female appreciation of gay men seems to be happening mostly on the internet through user created erotic literature and gay bits in non-porn film and TV. The homoerotic content consumed by women seems to be more romantic. Part of the point of slash is that it's not just about anonymous bodies, but about characters with a lot of back story and established relationships to add more of an emotional element to the story.
I'm trying to puzzle out what all this means about gender and sexuality. Do men and women find different things erotic? Does the eroticism of homosexuality by heterosexuals sign acceptance of gay people or of exclusion? Are teenage girls getting more fascinated with gay men, and is this a reflection of greater flexibility in their permitted sexual expressions or just a product of YouTube allowing them to watch Jack from Dawson's Creek on repeat?
So LiveJournal, what do you think?
There also seems to be a reverse thing going on. Heterosexual and bisexual women, particularly teenagers, having a thing for gay boys. The internet is full of slash and the BBC is feeling their fury over the latest development of the Torchwood Jack/Ianto love story.
There are differences in the way these play out. It generally seems acceptable for men of all ages to be into lesbians and there's plenty of mainstream porn and erotica to cater for that. I don't think that can be said for women's attraction to gay men. I haven't checked recently, but I don't think that Cosmo or More magazine are running photo shoots of skantily clad men getting it on with each other in the way FHM does with women. Playboy relatively often does photo shoots in which female twins pose together, whereas I think that magazines which featured brothers in homoerotic poses would be less publicly acceptable. The female appreciation of gay men seems to be happening mostly on the internet through user created erotic literature and gay bits in non-porn film and TV. The homoerotic content consumed by women seems to be more romantic. Part of the point of slash is that it's not just about anonymous bodies, but about characters with a lot of back story and established relationships to add more of an emotional element to the story.
I'm trying to puzzle out what all this means about gender and sexuality. Do men and women find different things erotic? Does the eroticism of homosexuality by heterosexuals sign acceptance of gay people or of exclusion? Are teenage girls getting more fascinated with gay men, and is this a reflection of greater flexibility in their permitted sexual expressions or just a product of YouTube allowing them to watch Jack from Dawson's Creek on repeat?
So LiveJournal, what do you think?