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

Contents:

• IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?
• WHY SOME STRAIGHT PEOPLE MIGHT HAVE GAY SEX
• IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND
• KEV SPACEY: I N’T TELL WHETHER MEN ARE GAY JT BY LOOKG AT THEM
• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
• TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY
• STEP-BY-STEP INSTCTNS FOR SHOOTG YOUR SHOT WH GAY GUYS

IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

In his Royal Oaks, Michigan, practice, Joe specializ Gay Affirmative Psychotherapy and IMAGO Relatnship Therapy, often treatg men who are qutng their sexual orientatn. And I thk ’s very important to state right here that I’m a gay man, yet here I am sayg that most of the time the men who are beg sexual wh other men aren’t 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.

When a man is a long-term relatnship wh a woman but beg sexual wh men, eher lookg at porn or havg actual sex, he eher will or won’t be homophobic. A lot of tim the gay men never even make to me (whout promptg om their wife, anyway) bee they’re riddled wh homophobia and I’m too gay for them. A gay guy wants to do all of that wh a man, a bisexual guy might want a man or a woman, and the straight guy wants to only be wh a woman that way.

WHY SOME STRAIGHT PEOPLE MIGHT HAVE GAY SEX

So this is a way of bondg wh men—ironilly, through sex—and happens not bee the man is gay but bee he don’t know any other way to get this need met. 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. “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.

IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND

What Ward don’t addrs is whether the straight men are actually straight or some other sexual orientatn — such as mostly straight, bisexual, or gay--nial/hidg.

As homophobia creas, McCormack says, straight men are actg “much softer” than those om olr generatns -- somethg he and Eric Anrson, of the Universy of Wchter, set out to exame. We have a bromance where we are very fortable around each history of homosocial relatnships, or heterosexual male iendships, is eply plex and steeped social stigmas, myth, rejectn and aggrsn, the thors expla their rearch.

Men wanted to avoid beg the target of homophobic abe, so they would be macho to distance themselv om any perceptn of homosexualy, ” McCormack told HuffPost. “But there is a generatnal effect here: Olr men who grew up the 1980s may still feel the need to prent a very straight versn of themselv, but more posive attus toward homosexualy ntemporary culture mean that younger men are simply ls ncerned about how other people view their behavrs. Though they loved the sexual experience and wanted to have a future relatnship wh the person, they had mixed attus toward homosexualy and premaral sex.

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

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. Sometim a woman may have been a heterosexual relatnship for years and yet feel somethg is somehow "off;" and she may fd herself askg, "Is my hband gay?

KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

" Many women fd this qutn unthkable but acrdg to Bonnie Kaye,, an expert women married to gay men, is timated that 4 ln women have been, or are, married to gay men. That's the qutn Atralian news show You Can't Ask That posed to gay men s latt you're not faiar, You Can't Ask That is a miseri on the Atralian Broadstg Corporatn's (ABC) iview service where they ask "outrageo, unfortable, and shockg qutns to unver the tth behd some of the most margalized and misunrstood Atralians.

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.

Per Outsports, Maxen is the “first publicly out male ach a major Amerin men’s pro sports league, ” wh WNBA ach Curt Miller, who publicly me out to the media as gay 2015, also a publicly out male ach an Amerin profsnal sports league. Ooh, that's 's worth keepg md that 1% of men the study refed to share their sexual orientatns altogether, which uld acunt for some of the gay sex qutn. But the qutn of whether straight men n have same-sex sire was particularly buzzy last year, poppg up everywhere om Redd threads to the MTV episo Te Life: I'm a Gay-For-Pay Porn Star.

TELL: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF GAY MEN THE MILARY

A drivg force behd the discsn was the 2015 release of Not Gay: Sex Between Straight Whe Men, which thor Jane Ward explored the plited relatnship between male same-sex experimentatn and sexual inty. Most recently, Teen Wolf heartthrob Colton Hayn took a very chill approach to addrsg gay mors about him, simply wrg on Tumblr that his "secret gay past" wasn't a secret at all and that we should all "enjoy life" wh "no regrets. While Hayn might've bshed off his same-sex attractn as not a big al, the Advote's Jase Peepl took a different a recent op-ed, Peepl wrote that takg such a flippant approach to same-sex male attractn uld actually do more harm than good for the gay muny at large.

STEP-BY-STEP INSTCTNS FOR SHOOTG YOUR SHOT WH GAY GUYS

In his piece, Peepl ced exampl of antigay bigotry and vlence, argug that "we need to stop pretendg that avoidg the topic [of g out as gay] altogether is somehow makg the world a better place for people who aren't heterosexual. Maybe the ultimate takeaway om all this data is that data is meangls (lol) and we should all jt listen to the wise and profound Nicki Maj her 2012 anthem "Starships": "Fuck who want and fuck who you likSource: NickiMajAtVevo/YouTubeh/t GayStarNews.

The are the voic explag what has been like to be a gay man1 the Amerin ary over the prev seventy or so years, om World War II veterans their late eighti to young servicemen on active duty. "I remember beg the Castro, " says John Forrett (army rerve, 1987–99), "and watchg the TV at a bar wh some iends, watchg Al Gore and Bill Clton swearg that if they beme the tag team for Ameri they were gog to get rid of the harassment of gays and lbians servg the ary.

" Gay people were allowed the ary but only as long as they didn’t reveal their sexualy; to facilate this, all members of the ary were also prohibed om quirg about anyone’s possible orientatn.

Servicemen were advised that until then the policy would still apply, and that they uld potentially face s sanctns if they intify themselv publicly as gay.

You’re a Mare, you don’t md gettg dirty, gog out to the field and not showerg for weeks at a, if you were gay, when you have to shower wh all the other guys you’d get all exced. One Man’s Operatn Iraqi FreedomMany gay servicemen the morn era—cludg Eric Alva (Mar, 1991–2004)—have pleted long ary reers whout their sexualy ever beg revealed. And therefore few people realized that the first Amerin serly wound the vasn of Iraq durg the send Gulf war was a gay Alva signed up, before "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, " he had to lie on his paperwork.

Lbians have suffered unr the same prohibns and prejudic and share many of the same experienc, as well as some that are distct, but this article ncentrat on the experience of gay men.