Gay and 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 fresh 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 relish hunting, fishing and shooting guns – are not closeted, bisexual or just experimenting.
After interviewing 60 of these men over three years, Dr. Silva set up that they relish a range of relationships with other men, from hookups to sexual friendships to secretive loving partnerships, all while strongly identifying 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
As a gay gentleman, the majority of friends I’ve had throughout my life have been women, and most of them are straight. I spent my primary and secondary school lunchtimes with them, my birthday celebrations were – and still are – an all-female affair (with the exception of my boyfriend), and I even have a tattoo dedicated to the special bond I have with the women in my life.
I’ve always felt an affinity with women, and I find it far easier to build relationships with them than I do with straight men. But since I came out at 16, a common accusation has cropped up again and again, and it’s always coming from a straight man: I’m ‘faking’ my sexuality, and I actually fancy my female friends.
The first noun I can recollect it happening was just before we went on a girl’s holiday when I was 18, with a companion of a comrade joking: “I bet Jordan’s actually straight and loves the idea of sharing a hotel room with two girls!” I laughed at it the first few times, but it got more serious – and annoying – as my friends got into relationships.
One boyfriend (now an ex, thankfully) had convin
Straight men don’t need gay friends
Content Note: mention of homophobia
It’s my first week at Cambridge and I am walking to a lecture with the other people from my course at my college. We form the casual, monotonous small talk of freshers’ week. Except, I have no idea what they’re talking about. I try to request, but I am met with smirks, half-explanations and at worst I am ignored. Any attempt to change the conversation, about an artist I’ve never listened to, is likewise ignored. I soon learn to smile along with the others, smirk and snort as they do. I end up talking to the only girl of the group. We contain nothing in usual except she is equally as bored with the conversation as I am.
Now, this event would not have irritated me much, except that it is part of a trend that I have been experiencing my entire life. Being excluded by straight men is not unfamiliar territory for me - by this signal it’s to be expected. I recall being called gay in the playground as early as 9; at age 13, a noun I considered a good friend suddenly started mocking my apparent effeminacy; and just this ye
By Karen Blair, Ph.D., and Trent University Students Laura Orchard and Bre O'Handley
“We fell into each other’s arms because of our similarities in our career and because of our age and because we enjoy the same sort of things.” This quote could quite likely be the beginning of a wonderful romance story, but instead, it is a quote about friendship delivered toThe Huffington Post by Sir Ian McKellen about his decade’s long friendship with Sir Patrick Stewart.
The two men first came to know each other well on the set of the first X-Men film in , and although the duo played adversaries on the silver screen, offscreen, they were developing a verb friendship. On the set, the two men had adjoining trailers, where they spent more second getting to understand each other than in front of the camera. By the end of filming, they had discovered how much they had in common, and to this day, they share one of Hollywood’s most well-known friendships.
Both actors are often photographed together doing mundane things, such as walking a boardwalk while deep in conversation. Perhaps one of the reaso