Why some gay men only attracted to straight men
Why do some straight men have sex with other men?
According to nationally-representative surveys in the United States, hundreds of thousands of straight-identified men have had sex with other men.
In the new book Still Straight: Sexual Flexibility among White Men in Rural America released today, UBC sociologist Dr. Tony Silva argues that these men – many of whom enjoy hunting, fishing and shooting guns – are not closeted, bisexual or just experimenting.
After interviewing 60 of these men over three years, Dr. Silva found that they adore a range of relationships with other men, from hookups to sexual friendships to secretive loving partnerships, all while strongly detecting with straight culture.
We spoke with Dr. Silva about his book.
Why do straight-identified men have sex with other men?
The majority of the men I interviewed reported that they are primarily attracted to women, not men. Most of these men are also married to women and prefer to have sex with women. They explained that although they loved their wives, their marital sex lives were not as active as they wanted. Sex with men allowed them to contain more sex. They don’t consider sex with men cheating and s
LastweekI took to my Facebook wall to repost this HuffPost article about 13 straight male German stars kissing for a GQ photo shoot to complain homophobia and intolerance. Some gay men posted and sent me messages stating that they found it erotic to watch two straight men kiss -- sometimes more so than watching two gay men kiss. Some said they found this as erotic as two women kissing might be to a straight guy. This got me wondering: Why are some gay men sexually turned on by vertical men? Some even select straight men over male lover men!
Before I get readers insisting that not all gay men are attracted to straight men, permit me say I recognize that. I know, too, that it's politically incorrect to admit that there are gay men who are attracted to and pursue straight men, thanks to the myth that we gay men will pursue anyone who's male, ignoring social norms and acceptable etiquette. Of course this is ridiculous. In fact, it's so ridiculous that I performed some stand-up comedy on the topic, which you can see here:
Because of the projection from many a threatened straight male -- that every gay guy is going to wish to hit on him -- gay men possess silenced themselves on this topic
What kind of porn do gay men watch most often? According to Pornhub’s stats from last year, “straight guys” was the unpartnered most-viewed category on its gay site. The word “straight” was also among the top five searches made by visitors. Generally speaking, the porn they’ve searched for consists of a mix of straight men having sex with other men, and straight men masturbating.
Now, this isn’t to suggest that all men who sleep with men are into vertical guys. As tantalizing as Pornhub’s annual insights are, we shouldn’t draw sweeping conclusions about what any group of people want on the basis of what happens on a single porn site.
That said, these stats act tell us that a lot of gay men come across to be eroticizing heterosexual men. So why is that? Here’s a glance at the major theories.
The attraction to masculinity
Research into the partner preferences of gay men suggests that, on average, they tend to be drawn to masculinity. For example, gay men care for to be attracted to masculine-looking faces and to other signs of masculinity, such as muscularity. Gay men also rate prospective partners who describe themselves as masculine more favorably than those who describe themselve
10 Reasons Gays Run after Straights
We've all done it, and some of us perform it over and over again. What leads lesbian and gay grown-ups to abandon reason and pursue the sexually unobtainable?
1 EVERYONE IS STRAIGHT To paraphrase Harvey Fierstein in Torch Song Trilogy, we live in a world where every movie, every TV show, and every billboard tells us we're linear. Heck, even the flagrantly homoerotic Abercrombie & Fitch ads toss in a bikini-clad woman for every 10 buff shiftless dudes, lest we think the fellas aren't hankering for female companionship. With such a thick coat of heterosexual whitewash splashed over every sexual image, it takes a powerfully gender non-conforming imagination--and sometimes many nights at Irrational Nanny's or the Spike, or years in therapy--to construct an object of desire that's truly our own, fully hetero-free.
Every time some gossip rag talks about how "no man can resist" J. Lo's derriere or how "women everywhere" are swooning over Ashton Kutcher, it's a reminder that for a shocking number of people in this culture, gay people just don't occur. Who else are we supposed to find attractive when we're living in a gay-free zone?
2 EVERYONE CAN BE HAD Straight
Irecentlywrotea blog post about the music video for singer-songwriter Steve Grand's song "All-American Boy," in which a gay man falls in love with a unbent man and they give a quick kiss. In that post I addressed why gay men might be attracted to direct men, but that ask raises another: Why might a straight man be romantically or sexually attracted to other men? Why did the straight guy in the video embrace the gay guy assist, after all?
The following scenario happens many times: A man comes into my office, referred by his own therapist and clutching coming-out literature that the therapist has given him. He explains that his therapist has tried, unsuccessfully, to help him approach out as gay or bisexual, but even though he's had sex with other men or gone to gay porn websites, he insists that he isn't gay. He says that he isn't homophobic either; if it turns out that he is indeed gay or double attraction, he'll accept it and move on with his life, but the label just doesn't feel right to him.
During the last three decades, in reaction to prejudiced and destructive anti-gay attitudes, we've seen the pendulum swing so far in the other direction that it's now become almost a thera