Straight Women and Their Gay Hbands | 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
• MY HBAND IS GAY BUT WE’RE MARRIED WH TWO KIDS AND HAVE GREAT SEX
• GAY MEN HAVG SEX WH WOMEN?
• IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND
• I AM A GUY, AND I GET SEXUALLY ATTRACTED TO OTHER MEN. AM I GAY?

WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN ARE ATTRACTED TO GAY MEN

For the most part, relatnships between gay men and straight women are healthy and posive, wh one exceptn I'll get to later. 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.

To beg, I'll addrs how and why straight women are emotnally attracted to gay men—an attractn, by the way, that is returned by gay men spas.

First, bee most straight women don’t feel sexual toward gay men, the relatnship don’t rry the threat of sexual tensn.

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

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. Though there are, of urse, differenc between straight and gay men, gay men are neverthels men who share many characteristics and motivatns wh straight 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.

When a straight woman hangs out wh a gay man, she begs to put the puzzle together that men, general, treat sex differently than women do.

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

Fally, straight women love gay men bee they are emotnally attracted to the fearlsns and lack of self-nscns gay men. 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.

As out adults, gay men ually learn to accept themselv and stop tryg so hard to w the approval and acceptance of others.

STRAIGHT WOMEN AND THEIR GAY HBANDS

Siarly, the iendship of gay men offers somethg different than the pannship of straight men. Meanwhile, gay men have the social license to be as outrageo or emotnal as they want to be bee gay men don't have to f to such a tightly prcribed role.

As I mentned at the begng, not all relatnships between straight women and gay men are healthy. The group of women I’m referrg to are often lled "f*g hags, " a term that manag to be rogatory toward two groups: women and gay men. The term "f*g hag" refers to a woman, ually her 20s or 30s, who lov htg the gay bars wh her gay male iends.

MY HBAND IS GAY BUT WE’RE MARRIED WH TWO KIDS AND HAVE GREAT SEX

Instead, they feel more fortable removg the sexual factor that exists at straight bars and prefer the harmlsns that wh socializg wh gay men gay surroundgs. This type of relatnship is often unhealthy, wh women choosg gay men as iends for superficial reasons: bee they're more fun and love to shop. Siarly, their gay male iends often treat their female iends as social accsori until the men fd a guy to hook up wh up later the night.

Overall, the relatnships between straight women and gay men are special, wh the ocsnal negative exceptns. If straight women and gay men foc on fdg iendships where there's te emotnal patibily and rpect, they n velop one of the most rewardg relatnships a person uld have. 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? Specifilly, I believe evolutnary psychology and human matg n help expla why relatnships between straight women and gay men tend to flourish. 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.

GAY MEN HAVG SEX WH WOMEN?

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.

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.

IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND

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.

I AM A GUY, AND I GET SEXUALLY ATTRACTED TO OTHER MEN. AM I GAY?

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. Bee many women seem to value put and ntributns of gay men the settgs, 's likely that we'll see a more clive workplace environment for gay men.

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 the CDC, one 2 gay black men the south is fected wh the vis that AIDS (acquired immune ficiency syndrome).