Running a cosplay porn tube lets you see a lot of trends. More so than in any other porn niche, certain outfits and characters come and go. For example, in the last two years lots of Bowsette (the female Mario villain) porn started to appear online and quickly subsided. One of the trends I did notice was cosplay performers crossing their eyes, sticking out their tongues and drooling. It looked outright weird and totally unnatural. I wondered what on earth it was and set about finding out. Little did I know that this was Ahegao.
For those of you who do not know what Ahegao is, let me give a more detailed description. Ahegao is a facial gesture in which a person having intercourse or someone in the throws of orgasm cross or roll their eyes. Their cheeks are often reddened, either via a nautral flush or makeup. This is followed by a sticking out, limpness of the tongue and drooling from the mouth. The more drool, the less realistic the expression looks and thus the more successful the Ahegao.
So why is such an unrealistic expression becoming a symbol of eroticism? Well, the history of Ahegao lies in the world of anime and it is not surprising that it is a Japanese invention. The earliest examples are rumored to date back to the nineties, particularly in the later part of the decade when the term was widely posted on Japanese online message boards. It described the facial expression of porn stars during sex. As use of the term increased, it became more prevalent in mainstream porn.
The global internet culture spread the concept of Otaku (Japanese Manga and Anime consumer culture) just as the first full Ahegao based hentai was coming into fruition. Soon it was a staple in adult cartoons, anime and convention culture with an erotic leaning.
The Ahegao face soon became an internet meme in Japan. It was picked up on by a number of Western Instagram stars, particularly Belle Delphine who has essentially made a career from it. By combining Japanese Otaku fashion, elements of cosplay, soft porn and Ahegao, Delphine has managed to amass a fortune that is reputed to be around $500 million USD a year.
One really controversial incident occurred with the introduction of the ‘Ahegao Hoodie’. In 2016 a particular hentai Ahegao image appeared on a number of South Korean consumer goods. It made its way into Western fashion the next year and attendees at a number of US conventions were banned from wearing them. The image was deemed sexist and offensive by many, though others argued that the cosplays in the convention themselves were much more sexist and in fact sexualised.
So where can you find ahegao? Well, whole sections of the internet are totally devoted to it. It has numerous reddit threads and often occurs in webcam porn from cosplay and gamer girls. Oddly enough, larger porn sites are only just coming around to adding tags and categories devoted to it, though it has a cult following and is gaining more traction everyday.