Put simply, hentai is just anime porn. So with the endless amount of real porn available for free online, and the millions of paysites and DVDs out there, why would anyone choose to watch drawn characters having sex over real porn?
Unlike real porn, hentai isn't limited by what is physically possible, so it can bring kinks and fetishes to a whole new level. Pretty much no matter how ridiculous or outlandish your kinks and fetishes are, there's a hentai out there for you.
Bigger-than-possible breasts? Got em, even ladies that have more than two! Tentacle rape? Got it, with a choice of plant tentacles, octopus tentacles or dick tentacles. Monster rape? Got it, any creature you can imagine. Urination denial? Plenty, in fact it's quite popular. Incest? Everywhere, legally, with no embarrassed family members. Extreme bondage? More than you can handle.
Even if you're not a super kinky person, there's the piece of mind in knowing that there is no person(s) sexually involved. No one's ego is being damaged. No one is physically or emotionally uncomfortable. No one was forced into the business. There's just the animators and production team working on some drawings.
Another benefit? Everyone is pretty/hot! Mostly.
Hentai (Hen-tie) literally means pervert, but it has gained a second meaning, anime porn. Also refered to as "H" in Japan, but H can cover anything from "pervert", to "sex", to "having sex", to "porn" depending on how it's used. Hentai in Japan is literally rated "H" instead of X or XXX.
Hentai is the umbrella term to refer to all sexual anime/manga. While a lot of hentai focuses on sex and sexual acts, Japanese culture often prefers more "teasing" pornography such as Ecchi, where sex is not directly involved, but nudity, suggestive themes and "accidental" sexual touching is rampant. Cuteness and innocence are way more widely regarded as sexy than they are in western culture. Even further, Moe doesn't involve any sex at all, but is still part of fetishism, literally the fetish for complete and total sexual ignorance and innocence. There's still plenty of heavily sexually explicit hentai of course.
Unlike real porn, hentai isn't limited by what is physically possible, so it can bring kinks and fetishes to a whole new level. Pretty much no matter how ridiculous or outlandish your kinks and fetishes are, there's a hentai out there for you.
Bigger-than-possible breasts? Got em, even ladies that have more than two! Tentacle rape? Got it, with a choice of plant tentacles, octopus tentacles or dick tentacles. Monster rape? Got it, any creature you can imagine. Urination denial? Plenty, in fact it's quite popular. Incest? Everywhere, legally, with no embarrassed family members. Extreme bondage? More than you can handle.
Even if you're not a super kinky person, there's the piece of mind in knowing that there is no person(s) sexually involved. No one's ego is being damaged. No one is physically or emotionally uncomfortable. No one was forced into the business. There's just the animators and production team working on some drawings.
Another benefit? Everyone is pretty/hot! Mostly.
Hentai (Hen-tie) literally means pervert, but it has gained a second meaning, anime porn. Also refered to as "H" in Japan, but H can cover anything from "pervert", to "sex", to "having sex", to "porn" depending on how it's used. Hentai in Japan is literally rated "H" instead of X or XXX.
Hentai is the umbrella term to refer to all sexual anime/manga. While a lot of hentai focuses on sex and sexual acts, Japanese culture often prefers more "teasing" pornography such as Ecchi, where sex is not directly involved, but nudity, suggestive themes and "accidental" sexual touching is rampant. Cuteness and innocence are way more widely regarded as sexy than they are in western culture. Even further, Moe doesn't involve any sex at all, but is still part of fetishism, literally the fetish for complete and total sexual ignorance and innocence. There's still plenty of heavily sexually explicit hentai of course.
Hentai types
Bara/Gei Comi (Bah-rah/Gay coh-mee): Originally gay comics for gay men, drawn by men. This typically involved masculine, muscular guys (bears in western culture) and focused on the sexual part of relationships rather than the emotional attachments and romance that BL focuses on. In recent times, BL and bara have merged a bit, more gay men are enjoying yaoi and more women are enjoying bara. Gei Comi is short for "gay comics" in Japanese is used along side bara, but it's not a term used in western culture.
Ecchi (eh-kee): Erotic hentai focusing on revealing clothing, nudity and teasing acts rather than sex. Ecchi is very popular in anime and manga. There are hundreds of productions where women simply appear in rather normal anime while wearing revealing/tight clothing, sometimes including panty shots and accidentally exposed breasts.
Lolicon (roh-ree-koh-n): It's the same thing as shota, but with young girls under the age of legal consent. Same with Shotacon, it's legal as long as the characters do not represent real people. Lolicon typically refers to pictures/manga/anime of young girls in sexual situations. It can also just refer to innocent pinups. Lolis are typically paired with oyaji type characters, older brother figures and other lolis.
Moe (moh-eh): Strangely, this isn't porn. It's pretty much the opposite of porn! Moe is the fascination and near fetish for complete innocence. I include Moe in the hentai category because really, it's borderline, it's hard to describe, and it isn't seen much in western culture. The huge fad of adult men being obsessed with "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" (Bronies) is the closest that western culture comes to moe. Moe shows, manga and characters are completely innocent and often devoid of any sort of knowledge of sex. They are often young, feminine, cute, ditsy and are often confused about dating and members of the opposite sex. Moe stays moe as long as there is absolutely no sex. Many people interested in more will lose interest once a character develops sexuality because it is seen as their loss of innocence. While you're still thinking "how is this porn?", remember that there's lots of non-directly sexual fetishes out there!
Omorashi (oh-moh-rah-shee): Watersports, but it usually heavily involves urination denial. Omorashi is a quite popular genre of hentai in Japan. There are even game shows that involve women drinking lots of liquid, then being denied a bathroom for long periods of time. Omorashi can involve just denial play, or actual urination. Usually the girls in omorashi will hold it until they can't anymore, then dramatically wet themselves -- often in a public place -- and become extremely embarrassed. Omorashi is often abbreviated as "Omo" in western culture and refers directly to bladder desperation/denial rather than watersports, which tends to involve peeing willingly on others. Nappie and Yagai refers to erotically peeing one's panties while in public. Nappie(s) are diapers, usually worn in public, and are usually meant to pee in.
Paizuri (pie-zoo-ree): "Titty fucking", someone with a penis using a female partner's breasts for sex instead of penetration. Commonly seen in Bakunyu hentai.
Shokushu goukan (show-koo-shoe go-oo-kah-n): Tentacle porn! Originally this came from a Japanese folk tale about an octopus that rapes a fisherman's wife and has become a classic of Japanese porn. Tentacle hentai is usually called "tentacle rape", but the victims are not always unwilling. The tentacles, while they classically come from a sea creature, can come from fantasy "sentient plants" with tentacle appendages that feed on people's sexual fluids, or one-eyed tentacle monsters that wish to sexually pleasure humans instead of battling, or even just highly phallic tentacles that seem to appear from an unknown abyss to capture and penetrate someone.
Shotacon (show-tah-kah-n): Young boys under the legal age of consent. While many ask why this isn't illegal, Japanese law states that as long as the characters do not represent real people, no harm is being done. Most people interested in Shotacon aren't interested in real children, but are drawn to the cuteness and innocence of the characters. Some people who enjoy shota actually identify with the young characters, often because they had sexual experiences as kids or wish to regain innocence. The mind's way of coping in some situations is to create a kink or fetish out of the trauma, and shota is a perfect outlet for those who like the idea, but don't want to see real child porn. Shota typically refers to pictures/manga/anime of young boys in sexual situations. It can also just refer to innocent but suggestive pinups. Shota boys licking popsicles, sitting around in swim suits or wearing feminine clothing is popular for pinups. Shota boys are often paired with oyaji type characters and masculine "powerful" seme type men, or MILF ladies, and of course, other shotas.
Toddlercon: Sexualized toddlers, children who are barely old enough to walk. A less common and extreme form of lolicon/shotacon that often depicts rape and incest between older brothers/dads/etc and very young children/siblings.
Yaoi/BL/Shonen Ai (yah-oh-ee/BL/Show-nehn-eye): BL is the umbrella term for all male on male relationships, it's short for "Boy's Love". Shonen ai literally means "boy's love", in western culture. It's usually used to describe romantic soft relationships between two boys. Yaoi is the term used to describe sexual male on male relationships in western culture. In Japanese, it stands for YAmanashi, Ochinashi, Iminashi (no climax, no resolution, no meaning), referring to the fact that children cannot be conceived from gay sex.
BL is typically drawn by, and aimed towards women. Years ago, in traditional Japanese culture, it was considered dirty for women to have sex (or be sexual at all) before marriage, but many women didn't want the commitment. Stories of women having erotic encounters with men who they were not married to were considered taboo, but gay sex was not. Manga (Japanese comics) started to show up involving two men, one of them was feminine and submissive and represented the woman in the relationship.
Yaoi was not intended for, and never became nearly as popular with, gay men. BL manga tended to focus on emotional ties and romance over sexuality. While many BL manga now keep the classic feminine-submissive with masculine-dominant theme, there are plenty of modern BL manga/anime that involve only masculine men (sometimes considered bara, or on the line between bara and yaoi), or only feminine men. Fujoshi (yaoi fangirls), gay men and other yaoi fans have given BL a wider spectrum of preferences and kinks over the years.
Yuri/GL/Shoujo Ai (You-ree/GL/Show-joe-eye): "Girls love", GL or Shoujo Ai, refers to romantic and sexual relationships between women. Originally these were stories of very romantic or very tight platonic relationships geared towards women. Lesbianism is hinted when the characters are young, but most of the stories involve them experimenting then growing out of it in their adult years. Many of these relationships begin as a high admiration by a lower classmate to a higher classmate or "senpai", escalating into a romantic but non-sexual love.
In the mid 1990s, yuri manga/anime began to be geared more towards men and lesbian audiences, often with heavy sexual overtones unlike original GL stories. Recently, most yuri is geared towards men and is highly sexual. GL or Shoujo Ai is still geared more towards women and tends to be closer to the classic ideas. Just like yaoi, in western culture yuri, is used to describe sexual relationships, while GL/shoujo ai is used for romantic soft relationships.
Zenra (zen-rah): Gaining popularity in recent years, zenra is sports played in the nude. Sort of like Ecchi, it's not directly sex related, but more about the tease of seeing bouncing breasts and butts of the players. Zenra players are most commonly women, but sometimes it is seen in bara too.
With the huge range of Hentai out there, why not give it a try? It's definitely a different experience from live-action porn, you may find that at certain times, you crave hentai over other kinds of porn, you might even find something perfectly suited for your kinks that you can't find easily in real porn. No matter what you're into, there's bound to be some hentai out there for you, whether it's in the form of pictures, gifs, anime, games or manga/comics!
Some sites to explore:
https://www.pixiv.net An art community with an R-18 section, mostly drawings and comics. (you need a free account to view the adult section)
https://www.hentai-foundry.com/ Another art community that focuses solely on hentai art and stories.
https://e-hentai.org/ A massive collection of hentai art, games, stories, comics and animations.
https://www.watchhentaionline.net A decent sized collection of hentai and ecchi anime.
https://www.jlist.com/home Not just a hentai store, but they have a nice variety of hentai games, comics, magazines and paraphernalia.
Ecchi (eh-kee): Erotic hentai focusing on revealing clothing, nudity and teasing acts rather than sex. Ecchi is very popular in anime and manga. There are hundreds of productions where women simply appear in rather normal anime while wearing revealing/tight clothing, sometimes including panty shots and accidentally exposed breasts.
Lolicon (roh-ree-koh-n): It's the same thing as shota, but with young girls under the age of legal consent. Same with Shotacon, it's legal as long as the characters do not represent real people. Lolicon typically refers to pictures/manga/anime of young girls in sexual situations. It can also just refer to innocent pinups. Lolis are typically paired with oyaji type characters, older brother figures and other lolis.
Moe (moh-eh): Strangely, this isn't porn. It's pretty much the opposite of porn! Moe is the fascination and near fetish for complete innocence. I include Moe in the hentai category because really, it's borderline, it's hard to describe, and it isn't seen much in western culture. The huge fad of adult men being obsessed with "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" (Bronies) is the closest that western culture comes to moe. Moe shows, manga and characters are completely innocent and often devoid of any sort of knowledge of sex. They are often young, feminine, cute, ditsy and are often confused about dating and members of the opposite sex. Moe stays moe as long as there is absolutely no sex. Many people interested in more will lose interest once a character develops sexuality because it is seen as their loss of innocence. While you're still thinking "how is this porn?", remember that there's lots of non-directly sexual fetishes out there!
Featured Product
Not afraid to try new things or potentially get caught doing something naughty? This is the exact thing you may need to spice things up! – ~LaUr3n~
Omorashi (oh-moh-rah-shee): Watersports, but it usually heavily involves urination denial. Omorashi is a quite popular genre of hentai in Japan. There are even game shows that involve women drinking lots of liquid, then being denied a bathroom for long periods of time. Omorashi can involve just denial play, or actual urination. Usually the girls in omorashi will hold it until they can't anymore, then dramatically wet themselves -- often in a public place -- and become extremely embarrassed. Omorashi is often abbreviated as "Omo" in western culture and refers directly to bladder desperation/denial rather than watersports, which tends to involve peeing willingly on others. Nappie and Yagai refers to erotically peeing one's panties while in public. Nappie(s) are diapers, usually worn in public, and are usually meant to pee in.
Paizuri (pie-zoo-ree): "Titty fucking", someone with a penis using a female partner's breasts for sex instead of penetration. Commonly seen in Bakunyu hentai.
Shokushu goukan (show-koo-shoe go-oo-kah-n): Tentacle porn! Originally this came from a Japanese folk tale about an octopus that rapes a fisherman's wife and has become a classic of Japanese porn. Tentacle hentai is usually called "tentacle rape", but the victims are not always unwilling. The tentacles, while they classically come from a sea creature, can come from fantasy "sentient plants" with tentacle appendages that feed on people's sexual fluids, or one-eyed tentacle monsters that wish to sexually pleasure humans instead of battling, or even just highly phallic tentacles that seem to appear from an unknown abyss to capture and penetrate someone.
Shotacon (show-tah-kah-n): Young boys under the legal age of consent. While many ask why this isn't illegal, Japanese law states that as long as the characters do not represent real people, no harm is being done. Most people interested in Shotacon aren't interested in real children, but are drawn to the cuteness and innocence of the characters. Some people who enjoy shota actually identify with the young characters, often because they had sexual experiences as kids or wish to regain innocence. The mind's way of coping in some situations is to create a kink or fetish out of the trauma, and shota is a perfect outlet for those who like the idea, but don't want to see real child porn. Shota typically refers to pictures/manga/anime of young boys in sexual situations. It can also just refer to innocent but suggestive pinups. Shota boys licking popsicles, sitting around in swim suits or wearing feminine clothing is popular for pinups. Shota boys are often paired with oyaji type characters and masculine "powerful" seme type men, or MILF ladies, and of course, other shotas.
Toddlercon: Sexualized toddlers, children who are barely old enough to walk. A less common and extreme form of lolicon/shotacon that often depicts rape and incest between older brothers/dads/etc and very young children/siblings.
Yaoi/BL/Shonen Ai (yah-oh-ee/BL/Show-nehn-eye): BL is the umbrella term for all male on male relationships, it's short for "Boy's Love". Shonen ai literally means "boy's love", in western culture. It's usually used to describe romantic soft relationships between two boys. Yaoi is the term used to describe sexual male on male relationships in western culture. In Japanese, it stands for YAmanashi, Ochinashi, Iminashi (no climax, no resolution, no meaning), referring to the fact that children cannot be conceived from gay sex.
BL is typically drawn by, and aimed towards women. Years ago, in traditional Japanese culture, it was considered dirty for women to have sex (or be sexual at all) before marriage, but many women didn't want the commitment. Stories of women having erotic encounters with men who they were not married to were considered taboo, but gay sex was not. Manga (Japanese comics) started to show up involving two men, one of them was feminine and submissive and represented the woman in the relationship.
Yaoi was not intended for, and never became nearly as popular with, gay men. BL manga tended to focus on emotional ties and romance over sexuality. While many BL manga now keep the classic feminine-submissive with masculine-dominant theme, there are plenty of modern BL manga/anime that involve only masculine men (sometimes considered bara, or on the line between bara and yaoi), or only feminine men. Fujoshi (yaoi fangirls), gay men and other yaoi fans have given BL a wider spectrum of preferences and kinks over the years.
Yuri/GL/Shoujo Ai (You-ree/GL/Show-joe-eye): "Girls love", GL or Shoujo Ai, refers to romantic and sexual relationships between women. Originally these were stories of very romantic or very tight platonic relationships geared towards women. Lesbianism is hinted when the characters are young, but most of the stories involve them experimenting then growing out of it in their adult years. Many of these relationships begin as a high admiration by a lower classmate to a higher classmate or "senpai", escalating into a romantic but non-sexual love.
In the mid 1990s, yuri manga/anime began to be geared more towards men and lesbian audiences, often with heavy sexual overtones unlike original GL stories. Recently, most yuri is geared towards men and is highly sexual. GL or Shoujo Ai is still geared more towards women and tends to be closer to the classic ideas. Just like yaoi, in western culture yuri, is used to describe sexual relationships, while GL/shoujo ai is used for romantic soft relationships.
Zenra (zen-rah): Gaining popularity in recent years, zenra is sports played in the nude. Sort of like Ecchi, it's not directly sex related, but more about the tease of seeing bouncing breasts and butts of the players. Zenra players are most commonly women, but sometimes it is seen in bara too.
With the huge range of Hentai out there, why not give it a try? It's definitely a different experience from live-action porn, you may find that at certain times, you crave hentai over other kinds of porn, you might even find something perfectly suited for your kinks that you can't find easily in real porn. No matter what you're into, there's bound to be some hentai out there for you, whether it's in the form of pictures, gifs, anime, games or manga/comics!
Some sites to explore:
https://www.pixiv.net An art community with an R-18 section, mostly drawings and comics. (you need a free account to view the adult section)
https://www.hentai-foundry.com/ Another art community that focuses solely on hentai art and stories.
https://e-hentai.org/ A massive collection of hentai art, games, stories, comics and animations.
https://www.watchhentaionline.net A decent sized collection of hentai and ecchi anime.
https://www.jlist.com/home Not just a hentai store, but they have a nice variety of hentai games, comics, magazines and paraphernalia.
This made me interested in Hentai Well done!
Wow, what a lot of info, but it's so nice to have all this in one place & have it explained for me, thank you! I was mildly interested before, but I now see there are lots of good reasons to check it out, especially since it avoids all the negatives of actual people acted porn which cause me concern; I'll be checking this out!
Who knew all those pictures have a name.
Very interesting article. I have been wondering a little more about this subject for awhile now and here is more information then I had bargained for. I am glad to have run across this, saving this link to refer back to from time time.. Thanks to you I am a little more enlightened on this subject.
Never heard of zenra before, this is interesting!
My name says my fetish obviously. Good article, but I have always been wondering something (this is not a troll post). I keep my fetishes to myself from my friends and just do my thing online and although I'm a girl, it makes me wonder if perverted guys who are openly into any of this actually have or can get girlfriends. Even being a lesbian, I wouldn't really care since I'm one myself, but I really don't see many girls in general society going for anyone into a fetish like hentai overall. Any insight?
Well to answer your question FutanariMama,I've been an assumed hentai lover for over 15 years now and to my great surprise hentai is VERY popular among women.Why ? From what I,ve been told is pretty much the esthetique of it as a whole,the man and women are almost always good looking and the actresses really give incredible performance compare to "regular porn" ones.As for futanari,well I love too watch too girls,its always a lovely sight but the extra help me relate to her pleasure.To me it's the combination of best of both worlds.And "perverts" like me don't have a hard time finding mate,sexual partner,ect.As in any type of interest you just need to look at the right place and be open to the limits and needs of others. Hurray for futa-nekomimi-tentacles !!!