Everything you need to know about ahegao

Table of Contents

What is ahegao?
What does the term ahegao literally mean?
A bit of research
Ahegao through history
Ahegao and fashion

Are you a fan of hentai? Then you probably already came across the term ahegao. If you already tried to look for an English translation but couldn’t find anything, it is not because you’re not good at searching but simply because there is no English synonym. So, what does ahegao mean? Without further ado, let’s get to the business!

What is ahegao?

Ahegao is a term referring to an exaggerated facial expression often represented in hentai. This is frequently adopted by women during sex scenes and consists of the rolling or crossing of the eyes, a protruding tongue, and blushed cheeks. Ahegao is representative of women’s pleasure and is used in erotic manga, anime, and video games when female characters are approaching climax or experiencing orgasm. This is a purposely distorted facial expression indicating that the character is experiencing so much pleasure to have lost control of her body. However, ahegao is also used by a number of non-adult works as a parody of porn. In some cases, it can also represent both joyful emotions, such as pleasure or ecstasy, or even sad ones, ranging from fear to reluctance.

What does the term ahegao literally mean?

This Japanese term is composed of two main parts. The first one アヘ, pronounced ‘ahe’, is the abbreviation for アヘアヘ, in English ‘aheahe’. This literally means ‘moan’ or ‘pant’. The second part of the word, in Japanese 顔, can be pronounced as both ‘gao’ or ‘kao’. This can easily be translated as 'face'. In light of this, ahegao literally means moaning face.

A bit of research

It may seem weird at first, but Ahegao has also been at the center of academic research. In fact, researcher Kimi Rito talks about it in his book The History of Hentai Manga, originally published in 2021. In this text, Professor Kimi Rito declares that ahegao differs from other facial expressions indicating sexual enjoyment for three main reasons. First, the white of the eyes is either visible or close to becoming visible. Second, the mouth is always open with the tongue sticking out, and third, there are often bodily fluids involved ranging from sweat to mucus, and or saliva.

Some of the other words used to describe female facial expressions during sex include ikigao (イキガオ), which literally means ‘coming face’, and yogarigao (よがり顔) which can be translated as ‘satisfaction face’.

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Ahegao through history

The term ahegao dates back to the beginning of the 1990s. It was first used to describe live-action porn actresses during climax. This word was also often used in pornographic magazines and on 2Channel and BBSPink, two early Japanese textboards. Ahegao got its first spotlight in the mid-2000s when it became popular in anime and hentai culture to the point of being chosen as the main theme of a comics anthology called A-H-E. In 2016, ahegao regained popularity when the ahegao challenges and memes started to spread on social media, mostly on Instagram. It was thanks to these memes that this Japanese trend left its homeland and started to get known all over the world, particularly, in the USA. Not surprisingly, ahegao is still very popular to this day. In fact, Japanese illustrators communities such as Pixiv and Nico Nico Seiga have over 20,000 illustrations tagged under ahegao.

Ahegao and fashion

After reading this article you may now be wondering how ahegao can have any connection with the fashion world. Well, you may be surprised but it actually does! Let us explain. In 2015, the artist Hirame, created an image with several characters adopting the ahegao facial expression. The image soon became viral and was shared an incredible amount of times circulating all over the world. A few months later, someone got the idea of producing shirts with this image printed on them. It took roughly two years before this fashion trend also spread to the Western world, but it eventually did. To this day, the hentai publisher FAKKU, publishing English hentai, sells a version of this shirt featuring the characters of hentai Danke Dankei Revolution by Asanagi. Unfortunately, with time some people started to think that this item of clothing was offensive. For this reason, it was banned by several 2020 anime conventions throughout the USA. People wearing these shirts were simply refused entrance unless they changed into something ‘more appropriate’. Apart from the US, ahegao articles of clothing were also banned in Malaysia in 2022.

Despite some nations deciding to censor it, ahegao still remains a popular facial expression in Japanese pornography, whether moralists like it or not!

Everything you need to know about ahegao