Is Your Man Gay, Straight, or Bisexual? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• WHY SOME STRAIGHT PEOPLE MIGHT HAVE GAY SEX
• IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?
• THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT
• GAY MEN AND STRAIGHT MEN AS FRIENDS
• MEET THE STRAIGHT MEN WHO ARE TERRIFIED THEY ARE GAY
• IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?
• CAN SCTN MAKE STRAIGHT MEN GAY?
• GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?

WHY SOME STRAIGHT PEOPLE MIGHT HAVE GAY SEX

Yet when the men were forced to choose between straight, bisexual or gay, about three-quarters marked straight bee for them bisexual, even if is unrstood as “bisexual-leang straight, ” is too gay to accurately scribe their inty. Bee only four sexual orientatn optns were given to stunts — heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, and don’t know — perhaps many of the dividuals were misplaced the straight tegory.

IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

If we lived a culture which havg some gree of same-sex sexualy did not imply that you th had to be the “dread” lbian, gay, or bisexual, would be easier for dividuals who stggle or n’t ci their sexualy to be te to their thentic self.

THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT

In his Royal Oaks, Michigan, practice, Joe specializ Gay Affirmative Psychotherapy and IMAGO Relatnship Therapy, often treatg men who are qutng their sexual orientatn.

And I thk ’s very important to state right here that I’m a gay man, yet here I am sayg that most of the time the men who are beg sexual wh other men aren’t gay.

GAY MEN AND STRAIGHT MEN AS FRIENDS

Wh gay clients, they say they feel the same way; wh bisexual clients, they say they’re lookg at both the men and the women; wh straight clients, they say they’re lookg only at the women. Eher they’re worried that their man will eventually ci he’s gay and end the relatnship, or they want monogamy, and his cheatg is a threat to the marriage regardls of who he’s dog wh. And I should pot out here that the men when they’re engagg this behavr (regardls of whether they’re gay, straight or bi) nearly always tell themselv that what they’re dog is not cheatg bee they’re dog wh a guy.

MEET THE STRAIGHT MEN WHO ARE TERRIFIED THEY ARE GAY

My last post scribed a populatn of mal who nsir themselv heterosexual, do not label themselv gay or bisexual, chew volvement wh the LGBT muny, are often married or romantilly volved wh an oppose-sex partner, and who engage sex wh mal or exprs the sire to do so.

Due large part to the popularizatn of the topic the btsellg 2005 book On the Down Low: A Journey to the Liv of 'Straight' Black Men Who Sleep wh Men, [i] Lato and Ain-Amerin men are the primary subjects rearch wh non-gay intified MSM.

One of the earlit studi, "The Bisexual and Non-Gay Attached Rearch Project" om the early 1990s, found that participants engagg same-sex sexual behavr but not intifyg as gay or bisexual scribed themselv as “kky, ” “normal, ” or “jt a guy. [iii] Daryl Hood, Garrett Prtage, June Crawford, Tania Sorrell, and Chris O’Reilly, "Report on the BANGAR Project: Bisexual Activy/non Gay Attachment Rearch Targetg Strategi Intifitn Project. Ramamurthi, Cleo Manago, Serg Ava, and Marv Jon, “Sexual Behavr, Sexual Inty, and Substance Abe Among Low-Ine Bisexual and Non-Gay-Intifyg Ain Amerin Men Who Have Sex wh Men, ” Archiv of Sexual Behavr 37, no.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?

When I was young, I was told the whole world was divid to heterosexual men and heterosexual women, bar a small number of unfortunate ‘homosexuals’ of both genrs and possibly an even smaller number a third tegory, ‘bisexuals’, who ‘swung both ways’; pl, fally, a ty band of wretched creatur who were physilly not que one thg or the other.

Ksey diststed btal tegorisatn but, wishg to unt, nstcted what me close to a slidg sle ntag seven gradatns between exclive heterosexualy and exclive homosexualy. He found that almost half his male terviewe had reacted sexually to both genrs; more than a third had had a homosexual enunter; and more than one ten reported roughly equally strong sexual rpons to both men and women.

In what pass for the gay ‘muny’, there’s somethg of a taboo about admtg, even to ourselv, that que a few of (not me) uld, wh a ltle axg and self-disciple, be ‘straight’. Sex the Cy, Will and Grace), though a lot ls has been said about how gay and straight men regnize and negotiate the distct challeng, plitns, and rewards of their iendships. S., before there was such a thg as a gay inty, some straight men would, wh ltle shame, engage sexual ntact wh other men (ually allowg themselv to be fellated) when female partners were otherwise unavailable (see Gee Chncey’s semal book, Gay New York: Genr, Urban Culture, and the Makg of the Gay Male World 1890-1940) and there is good reason to believe this still occurs other untri and cultur.

CAN SCTN MAKE STRAIGHT MEN GAY?

Gay men have suffered physil, social, and psychologil abe at the hands of heterosexually intified mal who, thanks to homophobia and heterosexism, felt fully jtified flictg the terrors.

This legacy of vlence, both physil and psychologil, flicted by straight men toward those of who are gay naturally fuels our utn and distst at the thought of beiendg them. We currently have a survey vtigatn unrway that explor some of the posive out of “bromosexual” iendships, cludg our theory that gay men and straight men n be optimal wg men for one another.

GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?

At the same time, many straight men still doubt that they’ll be able to relate to gay men any meangful way and, for this reason, may not try to iate a iendship.