Are You Straight, Gay, or Somewhere Between? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• KEV SPACEY: I N’T TELL WHETHER MEN ARE GAY JT BY LOOKG AT THEM
• PEACHY KEENAN: EVERYONE IS GAY, N YOU BLAME THEM?
• IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?
• CAN GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN REALLY BE FRIENDS?
• ARE YOU STRAIGHT, GAY, OR SOMEWHERE BETWEEN?
• WHY DO SOME GAY MEN INTIFY AS "STRAIGHT-ACTG" AND HOW IS IT RELATED TO WELL-BEG?
• IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?
• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS

KEV SPACEY: I N’T TELL WHETHER MEN ARE GAY JT BY LOOKG AT THEM

In a sea of nned cktails, Gay Water wants to stand out.

In other words, where Bud Light has buckled unr prsure as bigotry grows agast the LGBTQ+ muny, Gay Water’s creator Spencer Hodson wants his new boozy brand to be the anthis of that. “The key issue that Bud Light tapped to was the fact that they didn’t unrstand their re dience and know enough about them,” Hodson, a gay man, told CNN about the ntroversy that began when the Anhser-Bch beer brand sent fluencer Dylan Mulvaney a n of beer.

Gay Water, however, is out and proud. The nned cktail is named after a lloquialism given to the popular mixed drk (vodka and soda) orred at bars by the gay muny. “Puttg a product wh the word gay the tle is reprentatn self,” which he hop reclaims the word om the negativy ’s sometim associated wh.

PEACHY KEENAN: EVERYONE IS GAY, N YOU BLAME THEM?

He thought of creatg Gay Water about a year ago while on a vatn wh his iend that had got a job wh the beverage dtry.

The two chatted about the limed amount of gay people wh , and wh Hodson burnt out om his tradnal day job tech, started the nned cktail. Hodson built up a strong social media followg on TikTok and Instagram durg Covid-19 and is g some of the money om that (as well as om iends and fay) to help fund Gay Water.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?

“Gay is an umbrella term and the ia behd the brand is to be as clive as possible, which means we want alli, we want straight people to be part of this muny we’re buildg.”. For now, Gay Water is sold largely onle (wh a few retailers) and four sugar-ee flavors — watermelon, lime, peach and grapeu — at lnch.

CAN GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN REALLY BE FRIENDS?

Gay Water might not have the ep pockets pared to s petors, like Whe Claw, but “even at small sle, pani of many siz are havg succs makg spir-based seltzers and premixed cktails,” Bryan Roth, an analyst for Feel Goods Company and edor of the alhol beverage newsletter, Sightl+, told CNN. “There’s lots of space the spir-based seltzer tegory which Gay Water n play, pecially if the brand n offer a cultural or emotnal nnectn that will feel more excg than the prospect of another peapple-flavored vodka seltzer om natnal or ternatnal rporatns,” Roth said. Of urse, other drks e the word “gay,” too, cludg Gay Beer and So Gay Rosé, Hodson noted, which are also tryg to reach the queer muny and offer them an alternative the straight-domated space.

LGBT is still a popular term ed to discs genr and sexual mori, but all GSRM are wele beyond lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr people who nsent to participate a safe space.

ARE YOU STRAIGHT, GAY, OR SOMEWHERE BETWEEN?

Osr-wng actor Kev Spacey has said he is attracted to mascule men but is not able to tell whether someone is gay jt by lookg at cross-examatn durg his trial on sex abe charg, the Hollywood star nied he was a “sexual bully” and told the jury he did not have a “power wand” to make people want to sleep wh about his sexual preferenc, Mr Spacey said he had prevly had romantic enunters wh men who would not scribe themselv as homosexual.

I don’t know if someone is gay or straight by lookg at them. In Team Ameri, the 2004 puppet edy om the creators of South Park, there’s a scene that satiriz the prevalence of gay-themed stage plays of that era (Angels Ameri, Rent, etc. The gay or lbian populatn has creased by 26% and the percentage of stunts intifyg as bisexual has creased by 232%.

Joseph Nilosi, a psychologist Enco, Calif., says he n rid adults, teens, and even children of homosexualy. "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.

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

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. 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. He was unsuccsful, and nclud that attempts to change homosexual orientatn were likely to fail.

Given that homosexual activy was also crimally prosecuted 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. It was based on the ia that homosexualy origated om a fear of takg on the normal quali of one's genr.

IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

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. McKellan is a gay man who me out 1988, and although 33 years have passed sce he me out, n still be shockg to the world to see such a close same-sex iendship that cross sexual inti.

THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS

Along wh his supervisor, Robb Travers, he lnched a study that surveyed 350 straight men and 275 gay or bisexual men om across North Ameri. Siar to qutns that loom about whether straight men and women n ever tly be platonic iends, the same qutn lgers over the iendships between gay and straight men.

A bromosexual iendship is a nonsexual iendship between two men, where typilly one iend is gay (or bisexual), and the other is straight. In days past, this may have seemed as unlikely as a iendship between a ln and a moe, given the tradnally high levels of homophobia among straight men. McKie’s rearch reported that straight participants felt that a gay iend ma for the ultimate wgman bee the gay iend uld help to attract prospective partners for the straight iend.