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

Contents:

• HOW TO MAKE GAY FRIENDS: AN LBGT FRIENDSHIP GUI
• MEETG YOUR FIRST GAY FRIEND
• I’M 35 AND MY BT IEND IS 64. HERE’S WHY OUR AGE DIFFERENCE AS GAY MEN IS A GIFT
• GAY MEN AND STRAIGHT MEN AS FRIENDS
• 15 STEREOTYP THAT LIM OUR PERCEPTNS OF GAY MEN
• HOW TO MAKE GAY FRIENDS
• HOMOPHILY, CLOSE FRIENDSHIP, AND LIFE SATISFACTN AMONG GAY, LBIAN, HETEROSEXUAL, AND BISEXUAL MEN AND WOMEN
• MEN AND WOMEN AS FRIENDS – WHEN ONE IS GAY OR LBIAN
• WHAT THE WORLD CAN LEARN FROM GAY-STRAIGHT FRIENDSHIPS
• CAN GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN REALLY BE FRIENDS?

HOW TO MAKE GAY FRIENDS: AN LBGT FRIENDSHIP GUI

" He gave me the permissn to be myself when I didn't even know who that, on DeanI grew up a small nservative town and didn't know anyone gay at school, so I met my first gay iends through social media. I was ved by some new acquatanc to stay at his beach hoe Fire Island P, a sandbar off the ast of Long Island that sce the 1950s has been a storied enclave for the LGBTQ muny of Gay Gotham.

MEETG YOUR FIRST GAY FRIEND

I asked Gil about this and he said there are numero benefs to beg iends wh younger gays like me — for starters, we keep him on top of all the ways the world has changed when to technology and social teractn. So a msage to my fellow gay men: The next time you’re at a bar and someone a few s olr than you occupi the stool next to you, don’t jt turn a shoulr. Sex the Cy, Will and Grace), though a lot ls has been said about how gay and straight men regnize and negotiate the distct challeng, plitns, and rewards of their iendships.

S., before there was such a thg as a gay inty, some straight men would, wh ltle shame, engage sexual ntact wh other men (ually allowg themselv to be fellated) when female partners were otherwise unavailable (see Gee Chncey’s semal book, Gay New York: Genr, Urban Culture, and the Makg of the Gay Male World 1890-1940) and there is good reason to believe this still occurs other untri and cultur. Gay men have suffered physil, social, and psychologil abe at the hands of heterosexually intified mal who, thanks to homophobia and heterosexism, felt fully jtified flictg the terrors. This legacy of vlence, both physil and psychologil, flicted by straight men toward those of who are gay naturally fuels our utn and distst at the thought of beiendg them.

After years of only spendg time on my reer, this year I opened up about the ia of gettg to know more gay people and maybe even tryg to fd some gay iends. Stereotyp about gay men are stctive to both how society views , as well as to how we view society mak fun of and gras gay men for thgs that are patently unte, young gay men are left whout proper role mols, failed by a society that scrib them wh generalizatns.

I’M 35 AND MY BT IEND IS 64. HERE’S WHY OUR AGE DIFFERENCE AS GAY MEN IS A GIFT

Stereotyp may be ground the tth or be plete and utter falsehoods, but they are dangero regardls of where they e opprsn and reprsn of gay men throughout history — om ancient tim and early Christiany to the morn AIDS crisis — has been rooted fear and falsi. One of is always the top, and one of is always the I am sure some gay male relatnships operate on this dichotomy, 's jt damn wrong to generalize all gay relatnships. Gay men are all wild sex maniacs who are pable of men have a reputatn for beg promiscuo and sex-obssed, which probably stems om the wispread and public populary of hook-up apps like Grdr.

I am pretty lite, and my glut were a wee b sore after my first pilat class wh my sister last, this is hardly te of all gay you seen those gays who bench prs 300 pounds the gym? Gay men are tryg to stroy your marriag, take the Christ out of Christmas and brg the wrath of God upon our, Rh Limbgh, but we are not tryg to value your fourth marriage (That actually might be you, Mr. If gay men are more accepted, mak straight men not feel as uptight about beg emotnally exprsive as their fathers or grandfathers would have McKay: That’s an tertg pot.

” The soclogists who had done this stuff, they said, “Well, the reason why they were able to do that is bee there wasn’t … Like homosexualy or gay didn’t really exist, like the ia of as an inty didn’t exist. ” They weren’t worried about that, but as that change happened the late 19th early 20th century, that’s when men beme, “Okay, I n’t be that bee I don’t want people to thk I’m gay. ”Geofey Greif: Yeah, of urse I wre about that the book, but borrowg the rearch of other people, the other historil rearch, and I didn’t know that the term homosexual didn’t exist until the end of the 19th century.

GAY MEN AND STRAIGHT MEN AS FRIENDS

A subtext all of this is that there were a signifint mory of men my book who said they were aaid to appear gay by approachg men to be their iends.

We currently have a survey vtigatn unrway that explor some of the posive out of “bromosexual” iendships, cludg our theory that gay men and straight men n be optimal wg men for one another. At the same time, many straight men still doubt that they’ll be able to relate to gay men any meangful way and, for this reason, may not try to iate a iendship. If they’re open-md about beiendg gay men and make the effort to try to fe iendships based upon mon terts, gay men should feel more fortable reciprotg.

Gay men who disclose their sexual orientatn to their straight male iends earlier life may be able to build more open and hont iendships wh them to adulthood. Send, recent rearch has argued that genr and sexual orientatn might not be as black and whe as prevly thought, which opens up new avenu for explorg how gay and straight men n relate to one another. If a straight guy and his gay male iend are ls rigid about their masculy and sexualy, they’ll probably be more likely to discs tails about their sexual and romantic liv openly wh one another.

15 STEREOTYP THAT LIM OUR PERCEPTNS OF GAY MEN

In short, women are able to tst the datg advice om gay male iends bee they know their gay iends don’t have any ulterr motiv: They’re not tryg to hook up wh them or pete wh them for guys. Jt as a gay man might be able to pass on advice about women to his straight iend, a straight man uld nnect his gay male iend wh another sirable gay man, sce neher the gay man nor his straight iend are petg for the same person.

We believe that havg a tstworthy nfidant to help wh romantic pursus is one of the major reasons straight and gay men are leavg the fort of their same-sex, same-orientatn iend groups to form “bromosexual” iendships.

HOW TO MAKE GAY FRIENDS

Young adult gay and bisexual men, and to some extent bisexual women and olr bisexual men, did not nform to genred expectatns that people affiliate primarily wh their own genr. We examed whether gay, lbian, and bisexual (GLB) dividuals reported more iends than heterosexuals and whether they were ls likely than heterosexuals to engage iendships fed by genr homophily (i. There has been an upsurge rearch on how close iendship relat to the well-beg of gay men and lbians, while bisexual iendship rearch remas nspicuoly absent [3–4].

Much of this rearch has emphasized the importance of close iendships for gay men and lbians bee they are at a greater risk for velopg adverse mental health out pared to their heterosexual unterparts [2, 5] and iendship may migate risks to mental health [6–7] men and lbians particular receive more substantial social support om iends than heterosexual men and women [5, 8]. E., dividuals who affirm their mory inty) pared to their heterosexual rearch has suggted that gay and lbian dividuals have more iends than heterosexuals [13], but ls is known about bisexuals. ” Biphobia impli that bisexual dividuals endure a unique suatn regardg iendships, given that many gay men, lbians, and heterosexual men and women regard the bisexual inty as an unstable one pared to more “legimate” inti—the dichotomo tegori of “gay” and “straight” [4, 10].

Sce rearch dit that the celebratn of birthdays is pecially important among women [20], and that sharg posive events is an important ponent of pannate close iendship [1], we asked rponnts how many people they would “expect to do somethg” wh them to celebrate their Homophily by Sexual OrientatnThe send objective of our study was to exame if genr homophily—a well-tablished phenomenon heterosexual iendships—exists to a lser gree among GLB men and women. Homophily is the notn that people affiliate wh others who are siar to themselv [21], and homophily the form of same-genr relatnships may be mon among heterosexuals part bee cross-genr iendships n add the plitg factor of possible romantic or sexual tensn or the jealoy of one’s partner [22–23], which may be ls mon among gay men and lbians.

HOMOPHILY, CLOSE FRIENDSHIP, AND LIFE SATISFACTN AMONG GAY, LBIAN, HETEROSEXUAL, AND BISEXUAL MEN AND WOMEN

Gay men and lbians already do not nform to tradnal genred expectatns for romantic relatnships, and may be more fortable transgrsg agast genred expectatns for iendship [24] is a stereotype that gay men and heterosexual women equently pair together for iendships and this is possible, part, due to the supposed asexual nature of the iendships [25–26]. Heterosexual women tend to exprs ls prejudice than heterosexual men towards gay men [27], and th cross-genr iendship for gay men may provi an opportuny for a larger social support work. Consistent wh this proposal, past rearch has found that heterosexual women are more likely than heterosexual men to report havg gay male iends who have e out to them [28].

Friendship and Well-BegHavg a wi work of close nfidants to affirm one’s inty may offset the adverse effects of mory strs, such as alg wh homophobic attus and discrimatory social stctur and norms [29]. We hypothized that heterosexual participants would report fewer iends than gay men, lbians, and bisexual men and women, but the effect size might be larger between heterosexual vs. The 25, 185 participants who pleted the survey nsisted of 11, 924, heterosexual men, 387 bisexual men, 343 gay men, 220 lbian women, 511 bisexual women, and 11, 800 heterosexual women.

Homophily measur We lculated homophily for iendship type (exprsive, stmental, pannate) by takg the number of same-genr iends for each participant and subtractg the number of cross-genr iends for each participant. For example, if a participant had 5 same-genr iends and 3 cross-genr iends on whom they uld unt to celebrate their birthday, their birthday homophily sre would be a “2.

MEN AND WOMEN AS FRIENDS – WHEN ONE IS GAY OR LBIAN

As shown Table 2, sexual orientatn differenc number of iends were generally small, as were the teractns between gay men, lbians, and bisexual men and women wh the mographic variabl (all βs < |.

0 more same-genr iends than cross-genr iends across the different iendship qutns (see top of Table 3) 3Same-Sex Homophily by Genr and Sexual Orientatn (Hypothis 2) Number of Same-Genr m Cross-Genr FriendsHeterosexualGay/LbianBisexualMenWomenMenWomenMenWomen.

WHAT THE WORLD CAN LEARN FROM GAY-STRAIGHT FRIENDSHIPS

To tt Hypothis 2 regardg sexual orientatn differenc homophily, we nducted a seri of regrsn analys wh each of the homophily measur as the oute variable (Table 4). When lookg at the sexual orientatn parisons, a posive beta would dite that GLB participants reported more same-genr iends than heterosexual participants (reference group), whereas a negative beta would dite that GLB participants reported fewer same-genr iends than heterosexual 4Degree of Homophily by Genr, Sexual Orientatn, and Demographics (Hypothis 2) of Homophily (number of same-sex m cross-sex iends)Full SampleMenWomenTalk SexCall at NightCelebrate BirthdayTalk SexCall at NightCelebrate BirthdayTalk SexCall at NightCelebrate Birthday. Lookg at the ma effect of sexual orientatn, most parisons of heterosexual to bisexual participants, and heterosexual to gay/lbian participants, were not signifint.

CAN GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN REALLY BE FRIENDS?

Adult bisexual men also did not nsistently exhib homophily by genr, reportg more same-genr than cross-genr iends on only one of the three iendship variabl.