Gay Men and Straight Men as Friends | Psychology Today

Contents:

• IS FLIRTG BETWEEN GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN OKAY?
• WHY SOME STRAIGHT PEOPLE MIGHT HAVE GAY SEX
• CAN SCTN MAKE STRAIGHT MEN GAY?
• THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT
• HOW TO LEAD A HETEROSEXUAL LIFTYLE IF YOU ARE GAY
• IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?
• IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?
• SOME GAYS CAN GO STRAIGHT, STUDY SAYS
• HOW TO GET A MAN (FOR GAY MEN)
• GAY MEN AND STRAIGHT MEN AS FRIENDS

IS FLIRTG BETWEEN GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN OKAY?

Of urse, some intify as straight but are realy closeted bisexuals or gays by sexual orientatn—perhaps likely to e out at a later age (if ever). A mory of the men I terviewed were homophobic and held prejudice agast LGBTQ2+ people and this prejudice mak the thought of an LGBTQ2+ inty unappealg to them. 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.

WHY SOME STRAIGHT PEOPLE MIGHT HAVE GAY SEX

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. In tally, the men terviewed reported that if sexual activy between men was anonymo, experimental, ocsnal, or if substance e was volved, the act was not “gay.

CAN SCTN MAKE STRAIGHT MEN GAY?

[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.

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

Though they loved the sexual experience and wanted to have a future relatnship wh the person, they had mixed attus toward homosexualy and premaral sex. 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. 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.

HOW TO LEAD A HETEROSEXUAL LIFTYLE IF YOU ARE GAY

The article rais the qutn of changg sexual preference: Can a man whose past sexual practice has been almost exclively heterosexual change his practice to homosexual after beg sced by another man? " Contrary to this rponse, the thor prents three s which the men swch om heterosexual to homosexual relatnships (exclively two s) by means of a sexual enunter iated by another man. The evince that the men experienced a genue change sexual preference, shows that life-long, exclive homosexualy, as articulated by gay rhetoric, is more a statement about the culture which occurs than the "sence" of homosexualy.

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.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?

All all, I’ve probably slept wh as many straight men as self–intifyg gay or bisexual on: I doubt most were lyg, and some s have reason to know they weren’t.

IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

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’. There exist strong reasons for this taboo among gays: first, ‘we n’t help ’ was absolutely central to our early pch for equaly, and we need to believe .

For starters, the ia fli the face of false narrativ that have been promulgated by gay activists sce the 1950s, which claim that sexual orientatn is geilly fixed and therefore unchangeable.

The big secret that the public is not supposed to know is that gay people n fd healg for the of their homosexual nfn and velop some gree of heterosexual attractn.

SOME GAYS CAN GO STRAIGHT, STUDY SAYS

Such men would enter to same-sex activi as a rponse to beg regularly approached by strong-willed homosexuals who uld nvce them that they were really gay. However, once they fd a safe, sensive male, (and once they have worked through their aversn to or fear of men), is much easier for them to rega their former heterosexual clatns - ergo, the unsurprisg movement om straight-to-gay-to-straight that was seen the Anne Heche/Ellen Degener saga.

"If [a patient] n accept his bodily homoerotic experience while stayg nnected to the therapist, " he wrote The Paradox of Self-Acceptance, "the sexual feelg soon transforms to somethg else: the regnn of eper, pa-generated emotnal needs which have nothg to do wh sexualy. Both APAs have led that the therapi are unscientific and possibly harmful — not to mentn unnecsary, sce homosexualy was officially -classified as an illns 1973, and therefore n't be "cured.

HOW TO GET A MAN (FOR GAY MEN)

The few that did have "high-qualy" evince "show that endurg change to an dividual's sexual orientatn is unmon, " and that treatments tend to change sexual orientatn may e harm, cludg prsn and mental Dark AgHomosexualy was officially labeled a mental illns the U. Another method was satiatn therapy, which a subject was told to masturbate over and over while verbally scribg his homosexual fantasi, until they disappeared — or, at least, "therapi" were generally effective — the person remaed attracted to the same sex — or over-effective — the person was trmatized and lost all sexual aroal entirely. They "were ed whout people thkg about whether they were humane, " Glassgold all treatments were so gome: Lnel Ovey, a Columbia Universy psychoanalyst and thor of Homosexualy and Psdohomosexualy, created a behavral method the 1960s.

Ovey studied a clilly disturbed group of patients and summarized their unnsc mds as follows: "I am a failure = I am not a man = I am strated = I am a woman = I am a homosexual.

" His view mirrored the belief of many clicians at the time: that homosexualy was based on a phobia of the oppose non-aversive treatments followg this theory foced on buildg "tnal skills" like datg techniqu, assertivens trag, and affectn achg to crease teractns wh women. Cognive therapists, meanwhile, ma a few attempts to change homosexuals' thought patterns by reamg sir — redirectg thoughts away om homosexual activy — or through hypnosis. Still, SOCE is still beg practiced wh a small group of mental-health practners, most of whom ter to a populatn whose relig beliefs strictly bar homosexualy.

GAY MEN AND STRAIGHT MEN AS FRIENDS

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.

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. When a man is a long-term relatnship wh a woman but beg sexual wh men, eher lookg at porn or havg actual sex, he eher will or won’t be homophobic. A lot of tim the gay men never even make to me (whout promptg om their wife, anyway) bee they’re riddled wh homophobia and I’m too gay for them.

A gay guy wants to do all of that wh a man, a bisexual guy might want a man or a woman, and the straight guy wants to only be wh a woman that way. So this is a way of bondg wh men—ironilly, through sex—and happens not bee the man is gay but bee he don’t know any other way to get this need met. 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.