Can Gay and Straight Men Really Be Friends? | Psychology Today South Ai

Contents:

• ARE YOU STRAIGHT, GAY, OR SOMEWHERE BETWEEN?
• HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE GAY, STRAIGHT, OR SOMETHG BETWEEN?
• GAY, STRAIGHT, AND -BETWEEN : THE SEXOLOGY OF EROTIC ORIENTATN
• IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?
• “ARE YOU GAY, STRAIGHT, OR SOMETHG BETWEEN?”
• GAY, STRAIGHT, OR SOMEWHERE BETWEEN: ACCURACY AND BIAS THE PERCEPTN OF BISEXUAL FAC
• DIFFERENC AND SIARI BETWEEN GAY AND STRAIGHT DIVIDUALS VOLVED THE SADOMASOCHISTIC SUBCULTURE
• GAYS VS. STRAIGHTS: ANY DIFFERENC SEXUAL SATISFACTN?
• CAN GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN REALLY BE FRIENDS?
• BRAS OF GAY PEOPLE REMBLE THOSE OF STRAIGHT PEOPLE OF OPPOSE SEX
• PEOPLE N INTIFY WHETHER A MAN IS GAY OR STRAIGHT BY THEIR VOICE. BISEXUALS? NOT SO MUCH

ARE YOU STRAIGHT, GAY, OR SOMEWHERE BETWEEN?

Such a nversatn the Hoe of Commons dg hall would certaly have been sndalo the 1960s, when this scene tak place, bee homosexualy was still illegal England at that time. Although Wtern society is now far more acceptg of gays and lbians, there’s still a strong tenncy among the general populatn to thk of sexual orientatn bary terms—you’re eher straight or gay. Of urse, we n add a third tegory of “bisexual” to ver the range between "straight" and "gay, " but that his the varyg gre of straightns and gayns that Ksey found his subjects.

As Northwtern Universy psychologist Jeremy Jabbour and his lleagu pot out an article recently published the Archiv of Sexualy, many rearchers today still thk terms of a three-way divisn of sexual orientatn to straight, bi, and gay.

” Likewise, bee of the many negative attus about homosexualy that rema our culture, some men may ll themselv “mostly straight” even though their preferenc are exclively for the same sex.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE GAY, STRAIGHT, OR SOMETHG BETWEEN?

In addn to reportg their mographic rmatn and self-perceived sexual orientatn, the rponnts also answered qutns tend to distguish between straight and gay tennci.

GAY, STRAIGHT, AND -BETWEEN : THE SEXOLOGY OF EROTIC ORIENTATN

In terms of childhood genr nformy, “mostly straight” men agreed that they often felt they had more mon wh girls than boys, but not nearly to the same gree as gay men. In sum, the pattern of data suggt that men who report themselv as “mostly straight” have some tennci mon wh “gay” men, but they’re also more like “straight” men than those who intify as “bisexual. In recent s, rearchers have tend to reject Ksey’s sexual-orientatn ntuum, stead preferrg to view sexual orientatn as a three-way distctn between straight, bi, and gay.

In a society where most of are expected to be straight, n be difficult to take a step back and ask whether you’re gay, straight, or somethg ’re the only person who n figure out what your orientatn tly is. You don’t have to fulfill certa “creria” to qualify as gay, straight, bisexual, or anythg is an aspect of your inty, not a job applitn — and you n intify wh whatever term fs you!

” Plenty of people thought they were one thg for the first half of their life, only to fd that wasn’t ’s also possible to thk you’re gay when you’re actually bi, or thk you’re bi when you’re actually gay, for example. 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.

IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

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.

“ARE YOU GAY, STRAIGHT, OR SOMETHG BETWEEN?”

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. ” Beg “gay” means that you have a strong clatn towards people who are of the same genr, whereas beg “straight” means that you are attracted to people of the oppose genr.

Regardls of why someone intifi as somethg other than straight or gay, is important to remember that everyone is different and there is no one right way to be gay, straight, or between. The llectn clus Espac Dos (Spa) In the Name of the Father (Brazil), My Straight Boyiend (US), Tth or Consequenc (Brazil), Coffee Date (US), Poprn & Coke (UK), and productn, box office & pany PhotosMore like thisReview Half hearted llectn of gay short filmsThis is by far the poort llectn of gay shorts that I've seen marketed.

GAY, STRAIGHT, OR SOMEWHERE BETWEEN: ACCURACY AND BIAS THE PERCEPTN OF BISEXUAL FAC

Although participants uld intify straight and gay men at above-chance levels a trichotomo tegorizatn task, bisexual men were tegorized only at chance (Study 1). For example, allows gay dividuals to intify group members whout needg to publicly disclose their own sexual orientatn (Nicholas 2004; see also Rieger et al.

Some scholars have also suggted that bisexualy may be a transient stage, wh bisexuals beg eher gay and lbian dividuals who have not accepted their sexualy, or straight dividuals experimentg wh or nfed about same-sex relatnships (for a review, see Blumste and Schwartz 1977; Goo and Haber 1977; MacDonald 1981). Fally, Study 3, we examed the accurate perceptn of bisexual women g the same method as Study 1MethodPhotos of 45 gay and 44 straight men were borrowed om an -hoe database of fac ed prev rearch (e.

Footnote 1 Participants were stcted that they would be seeg a seri of men’s fac on a puter screen and that they should tegorize each face acrdg to the target’s probable sexual orientatn as gay, straight, or bisexual via key-prs.

DIFFERENC AND SIARI BETWEEN GAY AND STRAIGHT DIVIDUALS VOLVED THE SADOMASOCHISTIC SUBCULTURE

E., gay targets, straight targets, and bisexual targets)’s (1993) method also provis a means for nstctg dividually-based chance levels for each participant that acunt for the perceiver’s unique distributn of tegorizatns. Valu on the diagonal dite the raw h rat for each stimul class and the off-diagonal valu are the participants’ mistegorizatn rat for the other stimul 1 Confn matrix of participants’ mean judgments percentag for each of the three stimul typ (gay, straight, and bisexual) Study 1Full size table. Participants’ accuracy tegorizg men as gay, straight, and bisexual om their fac was tted by parg each participant’s unbiased h-rate agast the perceiver’s dividual chance level for each stimul tegory.

GAYS VS. STRAIGHTS: ANY DIFFERENC SEXUAL SATISFACTN?

2 Means and standard viatns for participants’ unbiased h rat and chance levels for their tegorizatns of gay, straight, and bisexual men’s sexual orientatns Study 1Full size table. The data therefore suggt that although perceivers are pable of distguishg gay and straight targets, as reported prev work, they are ls able to accurately tegorize men scribg themselv as bisexual.

CAN GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN REALLY BE FRIENDS?

The participants were stcted that they would be seeg a seri of men’s fac on a puter screen and that they should rate each face along a 7-pot sle via key-prs, rangg om 1 “Defely gay” to 7 “Defely straight” at a self-paced rate (M = 1, 879 ms, SE = 108 ms) as quickly and accurately as possible. Th, to asss the overall effect of sexual orientatn on facial tegorizatns, we first rrelated participants’ judgments wh a trichotomo vector reprentg the targets’ actual sexual orientatns: -1 = straight, 0 = bisexual, and 1 = gay.

The data therefore suggt that, although participants perceived bisexual men to be different om straight men, they were unable to distguish between bisexual and gay targets. Study 2B therefore tted the differenc between gay vers bisexual, and straight vers bisexual male targets 2BMethodNety unrgraduat (n = 73 femal) received partial cred an troductory psychology urse or moary pensatn for their participatn.

Hence, the bisexual men were perceived to be jt as “gay” as the gay targets, ditg that photos of bisexual male fac uld not be reliably distguished om that of gay male fac. The rults, as well as those om Study 2A, therefore suggt that the abily of perceivers to accurately tegorize bisexual men Study 1 might have been due to mistegorizatns of bisexual targets as gay rather than 3Havg tablished that bisexual men were rated differently only om straight men, we vtigated whether a siar effect might be prent among women.

BRAS OF GAY PEOPLE REMBLE THOSE OF STRAIGHT PEOPLE OF OPPOSE SEX

In Study 1, we found that although both gay and straight men uld be accurately tegorized acrdg to their sexual orientatns, bisexual men were not intified at higher-than-chance levels.

In Study 2, we found that bisexual men were nsistently perceived to be different om straight men; however, there were no differenc between the ratgs of gay and bisexual men, even when straight targets were not clud the experiment. The pattern of rults across the studi therefore nsistently suggts that although bisexual men and women n be differentiated om straight dividuals, they are not perceived to be different om gay-lbian perceptn of rmatn om nonverbal cu has often been attributed to evolutnary advantag (e.

Siarly, homosexual dividuals would benef om an abily to intify group members that have not openly revealed their sexual orientatns and to distguish the people om outgroup members, who may pose a threat (Nicholas 2004; Rieger et al. Rather, the rults of the prent study showed that bisexuals were nsistently mistaken as gay and there were no sex differenc judgments, neher at the level of targets nor perceivers.

PEOPLE N INTIFY WHETHER A MAN IS GAY OR STRAIGHT BY THEIR VOICE. BISEXUALS? NOT SO MUCH

Instead, both male and female participants rated the groups dichotomoly, illtratg a difference the perceptn of straight and non-straight targets; but showed no difference the perceptn of gay and lbian vers bisexual targets. This uld be due to a few mutually non-exclive : there may be no differenc between the fac of bisexual vers gay and lbian dividuals; participants may not be payg aquate attentn to the subtle cu that differentiate bisexual om gay and lbian fac; or, alternatively, participants may be relyg excsively on the socially salient straight-gay dichotomy to make their cisn (Weberg et al. Further studi should th vtigate the motivatns and bas for makg judgments of sexual orientatn, pecially wh regard to tegori outsi of the perceived gay-straight would also be tertg to observe how perceivers arrive at such nclns.

2008) and that bisexual vers gay and lbian targets are not differentiated, seems plsible that perceivers might arrive at siar judgments even if only a specific feature of the face is are not only ditive, they are also predictive (e. Furthermore, addn to s predictive powers, social perceptn also fluenc behavr, and beg perceived to be gay or straight by others uld affect the velopment of sexual orientatn (Ambady et al.

2009a), due to the stigma associated wh bisexualy (Eliason 2001), is nceivable that bisexual targets may sometim pose or act differently to pass as straight or gay a non-datg environment (see Goffman 1963; Yosho 2006). Given s termediary nature, future studi should also vtigate whether bisexual dividuals may be able to better nceal their sexual orientatn than straight, gay, and lbian people. Future rearch to the qutns may therefore prove summary, we found that fac of bisexual men and women were effectively perceived as gay and lbian; however, bisexuals uld be differentiated om straight dividuals on the basis of their fac alone.