Why Straight Women Are Attracted to Gay Men | Psychology Today

Contents:

• OPEN POST: WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN ARE ATTRACTED TO GAY OR BI MEN
• WHAT'S THE SCIENCE BEHD STRAIGHT WOMEN LIKG GAY MEN?
• WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN ARE ATTRACTED TO GAY MEN
• STRAIGHT WOMEN AND THEIR GAY HBANDS

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

Acrdg to the CDC, one 2 gay black men the south is fected wh the vis that AIDS (acquired immune ficiency syndrome). Black men (and women) have overtaken whe gay mal as the populatn most at risk for ntractg HIV fectns. There is an crease the numbers of straight women who are knowgly datg gay or bisexual men.

The numbers are soberg: black women are send only to gay men as the tegory wh the hight HIV ntractns. Why are so many black women and women of lor datg or marryg bisexual and gay men? 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.

I hope this helps expla why celebri such as Blac Chyna, Tamar Braxton, Toni Braxton, Kim Kardashian, and others are emotnally attracted to bi and gay men.

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

An earlier versn of this post was eded to rrect the followg: “One 2 gay black men the south is fected wh the vis that AIDS. This article first appeared on The years, iendships between straight women and gay men have been a subject of pop culture fascatn.

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?

Why are straight women so drawn to havg gay men as iends? Specifilly, I believe evolutnary psychology and human matg n help expla why relatnships between straight women and gay men tend to flourish.

WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN ARE ATTRACTED TO GAY MEN

(After all, straight women and gay men don't mate wh one another. 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. 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.

In other words, 's not like straight women totally tsted gay men on all matters. 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.

STRAIGHT WOMEN AND THEIR GAY HBANDS

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. 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.