‘That feels good!’: straight men’s sexual fluidity in gay porn

This article analyzes the rhetorical devices employed in gay porn films featuring characters of heterosexual men. Through examples from six contemporary commercial gay porn websites, I identify three rhetorical devices used to facilitate the straight man’s sexual interaction with another man: suspension of heterosexuality, visible bodily arousal as proof of pleasure, and equating male and female orifices. These devices point to a conception of a ‘bisexual body' that may become aroused irrespective of one’s psychosocial identification. Utilizing bisexual theory and sociological research of heterosexuality, I claim that this disconnection between a bisexual body and heterosexual identity simultaneously opens possibilities of destabilizing the rigid hetero/homo binary of sexual identity and closes them down by de-politicizing them. This pornographic discourse may be connected to wider discourses regarding male sexual fluidity and bisexuality.