Research explores women who produce and consume mm erotica and visual pornography
The majority of women who like gay male pornography and erotica imagine themselves as men during their sexual fantasies, new research has found.
Among women who engage with m/m content – from slashfics, to erotic texts and other forms of visual pornography –over half surveyed imagined themselves as a man during the course of their sexual fantasies.
The research, which has been conducted by Dr Lucy Neville, a Lecturer in our Department of Criminology, is the culmination of a 5-year long project, the findings of which have been published in a new book titled ‘Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: Women and Gay Male Pornography and Erotica’.
The book, which interviewed and surveyed over 500 women recruited through platforms such as social media and pornography websites, examines how women’s use of gay male erotic media fits in with their perceptions of gender and sexuality.
Dr Neville said: “While some meet the existence of women enjoying m/m sexually explicit media with surprise, there is growing acceptance that it is perhaps not quite as uncommon as first thought.
“For example, m/m was the second most popular choice for women visitors to PornHub for the last two years of viewer data and PornHub estimates women make up 37% of its m/m porn viewers – suggesting that women represent viable secondary consumers of m/m porn.
“By drawing on a piece of wide-scale mixed methods research that examines these motivations, an original approach is taken with my research that serves to explore and contribute to this under-researched area.”
A launch event for the book will be held on Monday 16 July at the College Court conference centre in Leicester between 5:00PM – 7:00PM.