Why Straight Women Are Attracted to Gay Men | Psychology Today

Contents:

• HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE GAY, STRAIGHT, OR SOMETHG BETWEEN?
• HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY
• I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?
• AM I GAY?
• LONGEST GAY TEST!
• HOW TO LEAD A HETEROSEXUAL LIFTYLE IF YOU ARE GAY
• WHY SOME STRAIGHT PEOPLE MIGHT HAVE GAY SEX
• ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
• WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN ARE ATTRACTED TO GAY MEN
• IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?
• AM I GAY, STRAIGHT, LBIAN, BISEXUAL OR LGBTQ+?
• HOW DO I KNOW I’M NOT REALLY GAY/STRAIGHT?
• LETTERS TO THE EDOR: I’M GAY AND DON’T WANT TO PATRONIZE BIGOTS. THANKS, SUPREME COURT
• KEV MAXEN, JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH ACH, OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR U.S.-BASED PRO LEAGU
• I'M A STRAIGHT GIRL, BUT WISH I WERE A GAY GUY...
• I'M A GUY TERTED RECEPTIVE ANAL SEX: DO THAT MEAN I'M GAY?
• HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY
• HOW TO GET A MAN (FOR GAY MEN)
• I’M A STRAIGHT WOMAN WHO MARRIED A GAY MAN
• OPN I’M GAY. AND I WANT MY KID TO BE GAY, TOO.
• ARE YOU BI, STRAIGHT OR GAY?
• NORTH JERSEY STUNTS NEED GAY-STRAIGHT ALLIANC THEIR HIGH SCHOOLS. THIS IS WHY
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• AM I GAY? ?️‍?

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

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.

HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY

” 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.

I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?

Gay - While this adjective has historilly scribed men who are attracted to other men, the term now is ed to refer to anyone who experienc romantic, emotnal, or physil attractn to people of the same genr. —and we n sometim sense early on that somethg about our ternal experience feels the fifth gra, when a iend of me sneered that I was gay as an sult, I thought maybe I had land on a name for what I felt. Eventually, this led me the oppose directn of what you might assume: My sexual boredom and sometim even disgt wh the men I dated led me to believe I was, and always had been, super gay after, my early 20s, I threw myself a new directn and got eply volved my lol queer muny.

I tried donng a “homoflexible” label for a few years, but two boyiends later I had to s back and take a good look at my inty and why my perceptn of kept shiftg seemgly so I didn’t unrstand as I tried on the different labels was that isn’t simply our behavr that dictat who we are.

AM I GAY?

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. Yet when the men were forced to choose between straight, bisexual or gay, about three-quarters marked straight bee for them bisexual, even if is unrstood as “bisexual-leang straight, ” is too gay to accurately scribe their inty.

Internalized homophobia -- self-shamg, self-hatred -- leads many gay men, and many queer people general, to recreate their closets long after they're "out" by shunng others, particularly those they nsir "flamboyant. This parable piece by lbian wrer Sarah Prager go through the lp of great gays who changed the world -- om ventor Alan Turg to Tchaikovsky, the poser, to the Renaissance pater and ventor Leonardo da Vci. There would be no ternalized self-hatred if no one had ever told you that beg gay is wrong, or that gay sex is disgtg, or that gay men n't feel real love, or that beg transgenr is fake, or that beg nonbary is a mental illns or a ll for attentn.

If you thk a word like "gay" or "queer" works for you right now (aga, don't have to work for you forever -- labels do not e wh lifetime ntracts) and you're not ready to tell everyone, simply say out loud to yourself.

LONGEST GAY TEST!

You so obvly nnot be gay, was her implitn, bee this is good was 2006, a full five years before Lady Gaga would set the Born This Way argument atop s unassailable cultural perch, but even then the popular unrstandg of orientatn was that was somethg you were born wh, somethg you uldn’t change.

But what feels most accurate to say is that I’m gay – but I wasn’t born this people may fd their sir changg directn - and n't jt be explaed as experimentatn (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)In 1977, jt over 10% of Amerins thought gayns was somethg you were born wh, acrdg to Gallup. Throughout the same perd, the number of Amerins who believe homosexualy is “due to someone’s upbrgg/environment” fell om jt unr 60% to ias reached cril mass pop culture, first wh Lady Gaga’s 2011 Born This Way and one year later wh Macklemore’s Same Love, the chos of which has a gay person sgg “I n’t change even if I tried, even if I wanted to. ” Around the same time, the Human Rights Campaign clared unequivolly that “Beg gay is not a choice, ” and to claim that is “giv unwarranted crence to roundly disproven practic such as nversn or reparative therapy.

HOW TO LEAD A HETEROSEXUAL LIFTYLE IF YOU ARE GAY

”People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backwardAs Jane Ward not Not Gay: Sex Between Straight Whe Men, what’s tertg about many of the claims is how transparent their speakers are wh their polil motivatns. “Such statements, ” she wr, “fe blogil acunts wh an obligatory and nearly ercive force, suggtg that anyone who scrib homosexual sire as a choice or social nstctn is playg to the hands of the enemy. ” People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backward – even if they are themselv, for example, Cynthia Nixon of Sex and The Cy fame.

”Gay rights do not have to hge on a geic explanatn for sexualy (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)For Aravosis, and many gay activists like him, the public will only accept and affirm gay people if they thk they were born gay. In fact, the homophobic and non-homophobic rponnts he studied shared siar levels of belief a Born This Way Samantha Allen not at The Daily Beast, the growg public support for gays and lbians has grown out of proportn wh the rise the number of people who believe homosexualy is fixed at birth; would be unlikely that this small change opn uld expla the spike support for gay marriage, for stance.

“It don’t seem to matter as much whether or not people believe that gay people are born that way as do that they simply know someone who is currently gay, ” Allen spe of the studi, those who ph agast Born This Way narrativ have been heavily cricised by gay activists. Siarly, Ward has received her own hatemail for phg agast the lg LGB narrativ, wh some gays tellg her she’s “worse than Ann Coulter, ” the ntroversial US thor of books like If Democrats Had Any Bras, They’d Be Republins. There is a unanimo opn that gay “nversn therapy” should be rejectedLet’s first be clear that whatever the origs of our sexual orientatn, there is a unanimo opn that gay “nversn therapy” should be rejected.

WHY SOME STRAIGHT PEOPLE MIGHT HAVE GAY SEX

The efforts are potentially harmful, acrdg to the APA, “bee they prent the view that the sexual orientatn of lbian, gay and bisexual youth is a mental illns of disorr, and they often ame the abily to change one’s sexual orientatn as a personal and moral failure. The APA, for example, while notg that most people experience ltle to no choice over their orientatns, says this of homosexualy’s origs:“Although much rearch has examed the possible geic, hormonal, velopmental, social and cultural fluenc on sexual orientatn, no fdgs have emerged that perm scientists to nclu that sexual orientatn is termed by any particular factor or factors. ”Siarly, the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn wr a 2013 statement that while the of heterosexualy and homosexualy are currently unknown, they are likely “multifactorial cludg blogil and behavral roots which may vary between different dividuals and may even vary over time.

‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’

” Acrdg to LeVay’s rearch, a specific part of the bra, the third terstial nucls of the anterr hypothalam (INAH-3), is smaller homosexual men than is heterosexual as they might, scientists have stggled to inty any particular gen that nsistently predict the directns of our love and sire (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)Read moreYou n spot the problem wh this study a e away: were the gay bras LeVay studied born that way, or did they bee that way? Bis the dividual criqu leveled agast each new study announcg some gay gene disvery, there are major methodologil cricisms to make about the entire enterprise general, as Grzanka pots out: “If we look at the raveno pursu, particularly among Amerin scientists, to fd a gay gene, what we see is that the ncln has already been arrived at. ” Our sir may exprs themselv many different ways that do not all nform to existg notns of ‘gay’, ‘straight’ or ‘bisexual’ is one of the bt takeaways of Ward’s Not Gay, a peratg analysis of sex between straight whe men.

”Gay or not, our sir are oriented and re-oriented throughout our liv (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)In fact, the straight-intified men Ward studied for her book sometim found themselv suatns that sparked the sire for homosexual sex: aterni, ployments, public rtrooms, etc. I’m claimg that at some pot durg llege, my sexual and romantic sir beme reoriented toward menThkg back to my llege romanc wh women and men, I n beg to unrstand how my own experienc might have helped me to ‘cultivate’ my sire for homosexualy.

WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN ARE ATTRACTED TO GAY MEN

I want to be very clear: I’m not claimg I simply began to ‘grow to’ my homosexualy, or that as I beme more fortable wh beg gay, I allowed myself the eedom to exprs what had always been latent wh me. “Limg our unrstandg of any plex human experience is always gog to be worse than allowg to be plited, ” he gay rights activists pared sexualy to relign - a ccial part of our life that we should be ee to practise however we like (Cred: Ignac Lehamann)So what are we to do wh the Born This Way rhetoric?

”Acrdg to surveys, ls than half of Generatn Z intify as "100% heterosexual", suggtg more and more people have embraced their sexual fluidy (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)Perhaps is time to look to the begng of the gay rights movement.

I’m thankful for a new generatn that is pable of imagg sexualy a way that transcends the gay/straight bary, that uldn’t re ls about what happened to their bodi and mds to make them who they are today.

IS YOUR MAN GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL?

In general, the attractn women feel for gay men tends to be emotnal nature, clearg the way for a highly satisfyg relatnship that outlasts most other relatnships gay men and straight women have.

In general, gay men, and gay women, too, tend to be more fearls than their straight unterparts—particularly straight men—bee they’ve ually experienced bullyg and prejudice bee of their sexual orientatn. 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. My last post scribed a populatn of mal who nsir themselv heterosexual, do not label themselv gay or bisexual, chew volvement wh the LGBT muny, are often married or romantilly volved wh an oppose-sex partner, and who engage sex wh mal or exprs the sire to do so.

Due large part to the popularizatn of the topic the btsellg 2005 book On the Down Low: A Journey to the Liv of 'Straight' Black Men Who Sleep wh Men, [i] Lato and Ain-Amerin men are the primary subjects rearch wh non-gay intified MSM.

AM I GAY, STRAIGHT, LBIAN, BISEXUAL OR LGBTQ+?

One of the earlit studi, "The Bisexual and Non-Gay Attached Rearch Project" om the early 1990s, found that participants engagg same-sex sexual behavr but not intifyg as gay or bisexual scribed themselv as “kky, ” “normal, ” or “jt a guy. Ramamurthi, Cleo Manago, Serg Ava, and Marv Jon, “Sexual Behavr, Sexual Inty, and Substance Abe Among Low-Ine Bisexual and Non-Gay-Intifyg Ain Amerin Men Who Have Sex wh Men, ” Archiv of Sexual Behavr 37, no. But how do you know if you are gay (or any of the wonrful inti along the LGBTQ+ spectm and Ksey Sle - om bisexual and pansexual to queer), or jt gog through a perd of qutng your sexual orientatn?

We n be attracted to people irrpective of their genr, do not mean we need to label ourselv as gay, straight, pansexual - unls we choose to do so, ’ explas Marianne Oak, lead unsellor for and a specialist sexualy, genr and diverse relatnships. Some people thk of themselv as straight even if they ocsnally feel attracted to (or have even had relatnships wh) people of the same genr, and some people nsir themselv gay even if they have felt some attractn to/had relatnships wh people of another genr. ” Some people’s doubts are further plited by havg such experienc as hearg other people talkg or lookg their directn and thkg that the people mt be analyzg their behavr or appearance and talkg about them – discsg how they mt be gay (or straight).

I have sometim wonred if those who experience the most distrs om such thoughts as the do so bee they were raised wh more strongly homophobic or anti-gay attus to beg wh, or if is simply bee one’s sexualy n be such a basic doubt.

HOW DO I KNOW I’M NOT REALLY GAY/STRAIGHT?

The flip si of this is when they look at thgs havg to do wh sex of an oppose orientatn and then feel aroed some way, which they then nclu to mean that they liked , which means that they are gay (or straight). But to actually be lockg ey wh Ellen and hold her, shakg hands as she said, "I'm gay, " on natnal televisn and for the first time, as she has shared outloud that way publicly, was such a profoundly extraordary and timate gift to that moment that I will forever be grateful for.

(Kent Nishimura / Los Angel Tim) To the edor: I wonr if the LGBTQ+ muny realiz that the Supreme Court lg favor of a webse signer who didn’t want to create weddg s for gay upl n work our favor as well.

LETTERS TO THE EDOR: I’M GAY AND DON’T WANT TO PATRONIZE BIGOTS. THANKS, SUPREME COURT

(“How the ripple effect of the Supreme Court’s 303 Creative cisn uld swamp civil rights, ” Opn, July 12)As a gay man, I am always ncerned if the bs where I spend my money are supportive of my muny.

Wright, her cisn now go to the school board, which will discs the book challenge at s Monday meetg agenda and vote on a cisn on Tallahassee mom who submted the challenge, Katie Lyons, said her dghter, then a send grar at a lol elementary school, brought home the children's book about Kg, a tennis legend who is gay — and also brought qutns to her mother about a page regardg Kg's sexual orientatn. "Lyons matas the book is ntrary to state law, largely cg the Parental Rights Edutn Act, dubbed "Don't Say Gay" by crics, which prohibs stctn on sexual orientatn or genr inty book challenge law:Florida schools stggle to apply new book law which even Shakpeare is 'spect'Why 's beg challenged:Tallahassee mom mak se that 'I am Billie Jean Kg' book 'g' on parents' rightsWright, her July 10 remendatn, unters that the book isn’t ed as “stctn” and poted to a clarifitn the Florida Department of Edutn issued statg that "cintal referenc" books to LGBTQ people are not also said a new law, HB 1069, directed each school district to adopt procs allowg parents to lim their child’s accs to library material.

KEV MAXEN, JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH ACH, OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR U.S.-BASED PRO LEAGU

"The excln of one of the profil jt bee of the intifitn of the ma subject as homosexual is not the tentn of any law or statute passed by the Florida Legislature, " Syett Lyons said the parental book review procs is not enough to screen qutnable materials accsible to their stunts.

I'M A STRAIGHT GIRL, BUT WISH I WERE A GAY GUY...

Though "gay-for-pay" impli that the scen are done by straight men, often wh an unrtone of beg forced or erced to male/male sexual activi out of speratn, we n't actually know the sexual orientatn of the performers om watchg alone.

To clarify, trans folks (folks who whatever way do not intify wh the genr assigned at birth) n be any and all sexual orientatns: straight, gay, bi, queer, pansexual, heteroflexible, whatever. I'm not suggtg that you necsarily are lbian, gay, bisexual, or transgenr, but the folks that staff the Trevor Project hotle are well-versed genr issu and may be good rourc if your prsn is feelg out of ntrol.

Jt for funI'm spic that I may be gayI've never had a csh on anyone, and am unsure where I lie on the spectm of sexualyWhat would your ial partner be if you two are gog to spend a week on an island?

I'M A GUY TERTED RECEPTIVE ANAL SEX: DO THAT MEAN I'M GAY?

That same guy might also feel that way about kissg and who he kiss, but if he told people he was terted kissg -- jt kissg, not kissg any given genr of people -- you wouldn't hear anyone suggtg that probably means he's gay, right? But if when you talk about beg gay beg somethg "worth nsirg, " you mean you thk 's somethg you need to nsir jt bee you're terted anal sex, or jt bee you thk you're supposed to, then know you certaly don't have to.

Unls that chang for you, or you fd that while you n be attracted to girls, but are ually, if not almost always, attracted to men, homosexualy, as 's ually fed, is probably not where you're at.

HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY

Most people the LGBTQ+ muny know om experience that acceptg your sexualy will lead to your beg a happier, more open this gui, the term gay has been ed to clu all forms of non-heterosexual attractn, whether that be people who are lbian, gay, bisexual, queer, pansexual, or otherwise not straight. The laws the Bible were maly for health purpos - shunng homosexualy is right next to not gettg tattoos, not eatg pork, and not wearg mixed lens, but you n bet your bottom dollar all your neighbors do those thgs. Disregardg all evince that the ex-gay movement is credibly damagg to more than 90% of those who unrgo "treatment" (bee they clearly jt didn't believe God enough), Settg Captiv Free wants you to know that you were not "born this way.

HOW TO GET A MAN (FOR GAY MEN)

" Homosexualy is a s that you need to purge om your system, and the only way to do is to follow their three-parts-a-day the app is only downloadable om Google Play (iTun and the 69, 822+ people who petned them don't believe nversn therapy for some reason), there is an abridged versn available on the mistry’s webse. Realize That Beg Homosexual Mak You Feel Alone Fet that we told you to shut yourself away om most of the world, and ignore the ia that maybe gay people feel so alone bee of the discrimatory and hateful attus that they face, helped by people like . The qutn of how he se his gayns relatn to his two marriag to women, specifilly his current marriage to you, is both more salient and open-end, so I’d suggt you start by askg him to share more of his thoughts on the subject wh you.

I’M A STRAIGHT WOMAN WHO MARRIED A GAY MAN

That will get you a lot further than tryg to figure out if your hband is “really” bisexual (and, implicly, whether that means you n safely hope he won’t leave you for someone else) or “really” gay (and, implicly, whether you have to fear that he’s gog to break up wh you for another man).

But if my dghter wants to be an artist, I’ll enurage her all the way — and work to stroy any barriers along her path, not put them up, I’ve never for a sgle send regretted beg gay, nor saw as anythg other than an asset and a gift. We’ve bought every picture book featurg gay fai, even the not-very-good on, and we have most of the nontradnal-genr-role books as well — about the prcs who lik to fight dragons and the boy who lik to wear my dghter plays hoe wh her stuffed koala bears as the mom and dad, we gently remd her that they uld be a dad and dad.

OPN I’M GAY. AND I WANT MY KID TO BE GAY, TOO.

I am a girl and i want to stay a girl so i n date boys i am a girl/boy but i don't md which genr bee i like both girls and boys i am a girl and i want to be a boy so i n date girls i am a boy and i want to stay a boy so i n date girls i am a boy but i want to be a girl so i n date boysdo you want to be gay bi or straight? I’ve appreciated those who said I helped them love readg, of urse, and those who shared how important was to have a safe person and space to be themselv:“In this town, havg a iendly ally around school is super important, and you have helped more gay kids than you realize. ”My heart and memori are full of other ways our GSA spired safety at school:The pta of the football team, outsi my classroom, explag to his teammat that the Day of Silence was not about gay pri but stead protectg those who have been bullied and harassed, sometim to GSA member who got up ont of the staff and explaed the importance of honorg stunts’ stunt who me to me tears bee their parents threatened to throw them out if they tried to intify as stunt who ran to my classroom wh a iend, neher of them GSA members, bee a teacher was g his ad name and he didn’t know what to do, but my stunt, his iend, knew whom to ask for existence of this club, the fact that stunts know there is someone who will always hold safe space for them — every other Monday om 2:15 to 3:15 p.

We need everyone to regnize the needs of vulnerable young people to be seen and accepted so they n grow, learn and safety and succs of everyone our school and throughout the muny pends on accs to the rourc and supportg every stunt who needs Signorelli is a teacher Wt Milford Township Public article origally appeared on NJ stunts need accs to gay-straight stunt allianc.

ARE YOU BI, STRAIGHT OR GAY?

It very much appears that same-sex sexual attractn is not a choice but actg on is; so if you fe gay as the mere prence of same-sex attractn, then om everythg we unrstand, beg gay is not a choice.

NORTH JERSEY STUNTS NEED GAY-STRAIGHT ALLIANC THEIR HIGH SCHOOLS. THIS IS WHY

WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

AM I GAY? ?️‍?