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

Contents:

• WHY SOME STRAIGHT PEOPLE MIGHT HAVE GAY SEX
• WHY DO SOME GAY MEN INTIFY AS "STRAIGHT-ACTG" AND HOW IS IT RELATED TO WELL-BEG?
• IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?
• GAY OR STRAIGHT, A MALE IS A MALE IS A MALE
• SHOULD STRAIGHT ACTORS STILL PLAY GAY CHARACTERS? 'IT'S PLITED'
• WHY STRAIGHT MEN SHOULD ACT GAY
• GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?

WHY SOME STRAIGHT PEOPLE MIGHT HAVE GAY SEX

"Roger Ebert wrote: "He plays the role not as a man pretendg to be a woman, and not as a woman trapped a man's body, and not as a parody of a woman, and not as a gay man, but as a drag queen, perd: Lola, a tall, athletic performer thigh-high red boots who l the stage of a drag club as if she were born there, and is a pretty good sger, too. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, both straight, were both Osr-nomated for their performanc (Ledger lead, Gyllenhaal supportg) this film about two men fallg love and ntug their affair for film sred 87% on Rotten Tomato, wh the se's cril nsens readg: "A betifully epic Wtern, 'Brokeback Mounta''s gay love story is imbued wh heartbreakg universaly, helped by the movg performanc of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. 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. Straight guy here but was havg a bate wh someone who said that the way straight guys are jokgly "gay" wh each other is sentially makg homosexualy the butt of the joke, s makg jok about a mographic who as a straight male you nt unrstand their stggl/issu, and by makg the jok you're implyg to each other that s okay to make fun of gay people?

WHY DO SOME GAY MEN INTIFY AS "STRAIGHT-ACTG" AND HOW IS IT RELATED TO WELL-BEG?

“By unrstandg their same-sex sexual practice as meangls, accintal, or even necsary, straight whe men n perform homosexual ntact heterosexual ways…Ward argu that the real reason ‘straight’ men behave the ways is to ‘reaffirm rather than challenge their genr and racial inty’ and ‘to leverage whens and masculy to thentite their heterosexualy the ntext of sex wh men. 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.

IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

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. While mascule self-prentatn posively predicted well-beg and ternalized homophobia negatively predicted well-beg, straight-actg intifitn, which posively rrelated wh both, did not penntly predict eher psychologil distrs or physil well-beg.

GAY OR STRAIGHT, A MALE IS A MALE IS A MALE

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. Send, recent rearch has argued that genr and sexual orientatn might not be as black and whe as prevly thought, which opens up new avenu for explorg how gay and straight men n relate to one another.

If a straight guy and his gay male iend are ls rigid about their masculy and sexualy, they’ll probably be more likely to discs tails about their sexual and romantic liv openly wh one another.

In short, women are able to tst the datg advice om gay male iends bee they know their gay iends don’t have any ulterr motiv: They’re not tryg to hook up wh them or pete wh them for guys.

SHOULD STRAIGHT ACTORS STILL PLAY GAY CHARACTERS? 'IT'S PLITED'

Jt as a gay man might be able to pass on advice about women to his straight iend, a straight man uld nnect his gay male iend wh another sirable gay man, sce neher the gay man nor his straight iend are petg for the same person. We believe that havg a tstworthy nfidant to help wh romantic pursus is one of the major reasons straight and gay men are leavg the fort of their same-sex, same-orientatn iend groups to form “bromosexual” iendships. Somehow, the origal “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” premiered on Bravo two s ago this month, prentg five gay men – each specializg a specific liftyle area – as they scend upon a (ually) heterosexual male subject need of some support, whether was wh clothg choic, groomg, anizatn or perhaps an unrlyg issue around self nfince.

It was a novel take on the makeover ncept, not only terms of beg one of the first monstroly succsful programs the then-nascent realm of realy TV, but also one of the first tl to feature not one – but five – gay people as the leads. Krsley agreed, sayg, “We meet people all the time who are probably their thirti now, who say, ‘I me om a very nservative fay, we were very relig, “Gay” was not somethg that was ever spoken about our home, and your show allowed to at least have that nversatn, if not make easier for me to e out.

He add that of urse, isn’t only gay people who approach them wh spiratnal msag, and that at the time the origal show aired, the st saw how their visibily as gay people wh a larger straight world was beg received firsthand. And for those who cricized the origal seri for rercg stereotyp by havg a gay fashnista or bety expert swoop to tidy thgs up, Colls creds his rint foodie Allen for a memorable moment at the show’s first NBC upont Los Angel back 2003, when he faced a slew of reporters and had the perfect retort. “Ted fally grabbed , really grabbed a hold of the answer, which was like, ‘Yeah, we are, as a matter of fact, owng the clich around the fact that gays have a different perspective, have a unique visn and perspective of a lot of different thgs.

WHY STRAIGHT MEN SHOULD ACT 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. 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.

GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?

But as I’ll be monstratg, the major (and ltle regnized) siari between them ultimately suggt that a gay’s “sexual psyche” is much more plementary to a heterosexual male’s than ntrastg to . As the two thors put : “The vast majory of gay men prefer to masturbate while thkg about wboys, firemen, or David Beckham stead of drag queens, ballet dancers, or Elton John. But returng to gay preferenc, is not cur—not to say, untertuive—that, overall, gays’ aroal would be more strongly activated by heterosexual mal than by fellow gays (where their attractn would much more likely be reciproted)?

But here, too, the dynamic would seem to dite that gays’ bras are “preload” to genr cu that (if anythg) are hyper-mascule, sce they’re generally attracted to mal more mascule than they are.

So, unsurprisgly, the genr cu operatg gays e them to be drawn toward other men and (also siar to most women) make them more fortable a sexually submissive, rather than domant, role.