Why Straight Women Are Attracted to Gay Men | Psychology Today

Contents:

• WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN ARE ATTRACTED TO GAY MEN
• WHAT'S THE SCIENCE BEHD STRAIGHT WOMEN LIKG GAY MEN?
• OPEN POST: WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN ARE ATTRACTED TO GAY OR BI MEN
• STRAIGHT WOMEN AND THEIR GAY HBANDS
• WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?
• WHY ARE SO MANY GAYS AND LBIANS ATTRACTED TO SAME-SEX PEOPLE WHO LOOK LIKE THE OPPOSE SEX?
• WOMEN'S TST GAY MEN: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY
• GAY AND BISEXUAL INTY VELOPMENT AMONG FEMALE-TO-MALE TRANSSEXUALS NORTH AMERI: EMERGENCE OF A TRANSGENR SEXUALY

WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN ARE ATTRACTED TO GAY MEN

Sure, an ocsnal teenage girl falls for a boy who's gay, but don't take most girls very long to figure out that, this se, where there's smoke, there's most fely not fire. In general, the attractn women feel for gay men tends to be emotnal nature, clearg the way for a highly satisfyg relatnship that outlasts most other relatnships gay men and straight women have. Send, straight women love gay men bee closens wh gay men provis a wdow to how the mds of men work, somethg that women want to know as they navigate datg waters wh their straight male peers.

WHAT'S THE SCIENCE BEHD STRAIGHT WOMEN LIKG GAY MEN?

When to the sexualy of young straight and gay men—meang, how equently they thk about sex, want , or feel impatient to get to the actual sex part—there are undoubtedly siari. In general, gay men, and gay women, too, tend to be more fearls than their straight unterparts—particularly straight men—bee they’ve ually experienced bullyg and prejudice bee of their sexual orientatn.

Books, televisn shows and feature-length films have all highlighted this unique relatnship, noted for s closens and wh society's attus toward gays and lbians changg, 's bee all the more important to build a holistic unrstandg of the relatnships between gay and straight a rearcher social psychology, I've often wonred: Why do straight female-gay male relatnships work so well? Bee gay men don't mate wh women—or pete wh them for mat—women feel a certa level of fort wh gay men, and the procs of formg a close iendship n occur relatively heterosexual men (who, by fn, are sexually attracted to women), the procs is longer—and potentially more ght—bee men may be grapplg wh their own sexual other words, bee gay men are attracted to their own genr, they're a "safe bet" for women—at least, om a socblogil three years ago, I ially tted this theory a seri of experiments that have served as the foundatn of my rearch program on gay-straight the experiments, straight female participants were shown fict Facebook profil pictg eher a straight woman, straight man or gay man.

OPEN POST: WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN ARE ATTRACTED TO GAY OR BI MEN

I also reced gay male participants, and had them plete the same task (wh the gay men viewg Facebook profil pictg a straight female, gay male or lbian female) experiments, published the journal Evolutnary Psychology, monstrated that straight women and gay men perceived one another to be tstworthy sourc of relatnship and datg advice.

Crackg the why and whenRecently, my lleagu and I at the Universy of Texas at Arlgton veloped a seri of four related tled the four studi "Why (and When) Straight Women Tst Gay Men: Ulterr Matg Motiv and Female Competn, " wh the hope of better tablishg why straight women tst gay men and when straight women would be most likely to seek out gay men for iendship and the first study, I wanted to replite the fdg that women tst gay men more than straight men or straight women.

This time, however, I wanted to see if women would only tst gay men's datg-related advice as opposed to other typ of turns out straight women only tsted a gay man's advice about a potential boyiend more than the same advice om, say, a straight man or another straight woman.

STRAIGHT WOMEN AND THEIR GAY HBANDS

It really only had to do wh one thg: datg and further exame why this might be the se, we had women image receivg rmatn om eher a straight woman, straight man, or a gay man about their physil appearance and the dateabily of potential boyiends. We then asked the women how scere they felt the rpons expected, the female subjects seemed to perceive the judgments g om the gay man to be more scere bee they knew that he wouldn't have any ulterr motiv—whether that meant woog the subject (which they might spect of straight men) or petg for the same romantic partner (straight women) the fal two studi, we wanted to figure out when women were most likely to beiend and place their tst gay men.

We predicted that this would most often occur highly petive datg environments, where a tstworthy source like a gay iend would be valued by women jockeyg wh one another for a tt this, we created a fake news article that tailed extremely skewed sex rats, ditg that women llege were petg over a very small pool of men.

WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?

We had women read this news article and then dite how much they would tst a straight woman or a gay man var datg-related women read the news article about the creased petn, their tst gay men was amplified. Not only were women more apt to tst gay men unr this ndn, but we also found that they beme more willg to make gay male datg adviceThe downsi is that if a straight woman valu her gay male iends only for datg advice, the relatnship uld bee que superficial (see Chris Rtta's say "I'm Gay, Not Your Accsory").

However, the strong tst that women ially form wh gay men n serve as a primer; eventually, this tst uld extend to other areas, wh the iendship blossomg over fdgs—bed wh our own—show that there seems to be an extremely strong psychologil unrpng for why women are so drawn to gay stance, a recent study the Journal of Bs and Psychology revealed that straight women tend to hire gay men over other heterosexual dividuals bee they perceive gay men to be more petent and warmer. Furthermore, marketg rearchers have suggted that straight women prefer to work wh gay male sal associat over others nsumer retail two fdgs alone uld have many posive implitns for gay men the workplace.

Although much of this rearch foc on why women are drawn to iendships wh gay men, another obv avenue of exploratn is whether or not gay men are siarly keen to form iendships wh straight women. For example, a study I nducted 2013, I found that gay men also look to women for tstworthy datg advice or tips for fdg a prospective rearchers have suggted that gay men value the posive attus towards homosexualy that women tend to have (relative to straight men) this se, the implic tst seems to be a two-way Rsell is a Ph. Acrdg to Psychology Today, most women who fall for gay men are secure and seekg a relatnship where they are emotnally attracted to the man rather than sexually attracted to him.

WHY ARE SO MANY GAYS AND LBIANS ATTRACTED TO SAME-SEX PEOPLE WHO LOOK LIKE THE OPPOSE SEX?

There are plenty of other lorful exprsns that pture this distct mographic rather vividly, some ls sultgly so than others, cludg:• F fly• Queen bee• Queer ar• Fairy godmother• Fag shagger• Queen mag• Hag along• Swish dish• Faggota • Homo honey• Fairy llector• Fairy prcs• Fag But ’s “fag hag” that ronat the public nscns. The rearchers note that both popular media and everyday exprsn, the term njur up the image of an unattractive, overweight, sperate woman who seeks out the pany of gay men to pensate for her lack of romantic attentn om straight guys.

” The French refer to such women as sorett (“Ltle Sisters”), the German brand them as Schwulen-Muttis (“Gay Moms”), and the Mexins know them as joteras (“jota” is monly ed for “fag”).

WOMEN'S TST GAY MEN: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

” Acrdg to the vtigators, the “hag” ponent is sentially the mon belief that the women “do not feel good about their bodi, and as a rult, take refuge the ‘gay world’ to avoid the harsher judgment and emphasis on female physil attractivens herent the heterosexual social scene. She’s also apparently never heard of blogist John Maynard Smh’s “sneaky f*cker” evolutnary hypothis for male homosexualy, which poss that gay men the anctral past had unique accs to the reproductive niche bee femal let their guards down around them and other mal didn't view them as sexual petors.

If this were te, the thors reason, then there should be a meangful statistil associatn between a woman’s number of gay male iends and her body teem and relatnship succs— other words, the more pathetic a woman’s romantic life and the more she se herself as beg unsirable to straight men, the more she should seek out gay men as iends.

In fact, wh this sample at least, there was absolutely no lk between a woman’s relatnship stat, the number of tim she’d been on the receivg end of a breakup, or her body teem and the number of gay male iends her life. On terpretg this unexpected fdg, the thors suggt that this may actually reflect some re, but nuanced tth of the “fag hag” stereotype: “Perhaps women who perceive themselv as ls sexually attractive velop closer relatnships wh gay men.

GAY AND BISEXUAL INTY VELOPMENT AMONG FEMALE-TO-MALE TRANSSEXUALS NORTH AMERI: EMERGENCE OF A TRANSGENR SEXUALY

You might be able to claim your inty by meetg ocsnally wh gay men, stayg touch on Facebook, and lettg your gay iends know that you want to rema sexually fahful to your wife. I warn mixed-orientatn upl that he may feel differently later life and his gayns may surface more strongly and bee more of an inty for him and th bee an issue their marriage.

But nsirg that the tra disurag the type of sex that leads to procreatn — that is, sex wh women — and would therefore seem to thwart s own chanc of beg geilly passed on to the next generatn, why are there gay men at all? For several years, studi led by Andrea Camper Ciani at the Universy of Padova Italy and others have found that mothers and maternal nts of gay men tend to have signifintly more offsprg than the maternal relativ of straight men. The rults show strong support for the "balancg selectn hypothis, " which is fast beg the accepted theory of the geic basis of male theory holds that the same geic factors that duce gayns mal also promote fecundy (high reproductive succs) those mal' female maternal relativ.