A number of men feel that pornography that shows ‘heterosexual’ intercourse is actually ‘homosexual’, or at least that men who watch such pornography are. Male ‘heterosexuals’, of course, should never direct a Desirous gaze in the remote vicinity of another man’s genitalia. Never. (Some women share this belief, though I don’t know their opinion of female viewers of such material.)

In order to spare myself the excessive ‘bracketing’ of every word that ends with ‘-sexual’ or ‘-sexuality’ (but readers should picture ‘ ’ around every sexual term here), I’ll jump to my main argument now: the labelling of sexualities is stupid.

For the men above, appropriate viewing for a male heterosexual generally comprises the depiction of female homosexuality. In other words, they believe that straight men should watch lesbian porn (though with or without dildos/strap-on’s is a whole other can of worms); no really straight guy would want to even glimpse another man’s penis, right? On the other hand, how is lesbian sex a feature of heterosexuality?

This attitude is probably quite widespread and ‘makes sense’ in terms of censorship laws and socially-bred, unconscious aversions to anything remotely (male) homosexual. A lot of men start with R-rated porn (softcore, nude modelling), venture into girl/girl porn (depending on age and availability) and then into full-blown hardcore with both men and women. This isn’t the only progression of course, but it does seem common among a lot of guys - myself included.

Ideally, no one would care about sexuality. Unfortunately, some people are more worried about ‘going outside the lines’ than just enjoying what they watch. Presumably, male viewers opposed to all homosexuality believe that truly heterosexual porn depicts a woman alone. They’re probably the closest to maintaining the notion of heterosexuality, but I hope they’re not also depriving themselves of anything they’d otherwise enjoy if they spent a little less time worrying about futile labels.

What’s the point? A lot of men (straight and gay) worry about the category of what they watch because it might call their sexuality into question. But why should anyone care if they’re heterosexual, homosexual or anything else? Unfortunately, a lot of people do care and unfortunately, some of them discriminate on these nonsensical notions of difference. But sexuality, more so than ever before, cannot be strictly labelled. And attempts to do so in terms of porn viewership are particularly ridiculous.

There are probably a lot of guys who’d shy away from a transsexual movie yet happily watch a gangbang, in which the female performers are occasionally hidden by a sea of naked man ass. There might be ten men on-screen masturbating in a gangbang and they might later rub penises together in a very tight space, or even - gasp - ejaculate on each other (or somehow get another man’s come on their penis).

Understandably, some people might not be able to label a gangbang movie heterosexual or homosexual. Are gangbang movies gay? Are lesbian movies straight? Is straight porn (with men and women) gay? Is transsexual porn straight (most male viewers of it label themselves straight)? Is double penetration bisexual? Can a straight man like seeing come shots? Isn’t anal a little gay? And who the hell knows where to begin with rimming?

The ultimate question is why does anyone care? Watch what you want to watch, like whatever you like. It shouldn’t be any more complicated than that. There’s always going to be someone more fanatical about bi/hetero/homo/sexuality than you, but defending yourself to them or anyone else is really just a waste of your time.

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