By Shruti Sunderraman
A 24-year-old straight female friend recently told me that she used to hate watching porn until she discovered lesbian porn. She dislikes the aggressive display of male sexuality in straight porn that focuses on the man’s pleasure alone. “Women are just props in straight porn,” she says. But lesbian porn shows two or more women having orgasms without aggressive interference of male macho dudes, putting the spotlight on female pleasure, something my friend finds immensely arousing and empowering.
Turns out, she’s nowhere close to being alone with her preference. An annual data report by online porn giant PornHub reveals that the highest searched category is ‘lesbian porn’. Interestingly, it is women who search for ‘lesbian porn’ more than men, according to the report. Now, the PornHub algorithm cannot screen the identity of its searchers, so how do we know that the searchers are women? PornHub records searches through female user profiles (which has 22,424,138 registered users, out of which 37 percent are women). So, the term ‘lesbian’ reigned as the most searched word across the female PornHub user base, another report states. The report also reveals that while men also searched for lesbian porn, women were far more interested in search terms like that involved female pleasure, precisely a 906 percent higher than men.
Since India ranks 4th in traffic generation for PornHub, the website generated separate statistics for its Indian porn users. According to these statistics, 28.6 percent Indian viewers are women. Among these women, ‘lesbian porn’ and ‘female-friendly’ rank highest as search terms, the report states.
So why are women searching for more lesbian porn? As it is with my friend, the idea of female pleasure taking centre-stage in lesbian porn entices many women. ‘He always finishes first’ is a common complaint against men. Movies and TV series that completely forget women’s pleasure support this complaint. A recent AIB video hilariously threw light on how clitoris-centered pleasure is thoroughly ignored by men during sex. So, it is any surprise that women want to watch a video that actually shows women finding the forgotten clitoris and all the pleasure it brings along in lesbian porn? PornHub’s data reveals exactly what women want. And what women want is not necessarily other women, just their sexual pleasure being given the attention it deserves.