Gays vs. Straights: Any Differenc Sexual Satisfactn? | Psychology Today

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. 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.

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

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.

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

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.

IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

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. 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. 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).

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

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.

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

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.

GAYS VS. STRAIGHTS: ANY DIFFERENC SEXUAL SATISFACTN?

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.

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.

CAN GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN REALLY BE FRIENDS?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.