With a very rigid idea of what sexuality should be, American men are taught to be disgusted by even the slightest thought of two men engaging in any sort of sexual activity. The effect this indoctrination has on men usually manifests into self-hate for gay men and absolute homophobia for straight men, because if you’re told something long and hard enough, it becomes truth. But as the culture continues to shift and “gay” becomes less demonized by society, straight men are slowly realizing that gay guys can make okay friends, and gay men are realizing that not every straight man are repulsed by them. And with this epiphany, comes another set of problems.
Like many gay men, I grew up with mostly female friends as other guys, not having dealt with my own sexuality, freaked me out and made me feel unlike them. So when I did give up the ghost and identified gay, my shift came to befriending other gay men to share collective experience, and get a sense of male bonding that I had never gotten in my youth. As I navigated through this transition, and dealt with my own masculinity (which was in opposition to the nelly queen I had been told I must be) I began to see the complicated balance that can be the straight guy/gay guy relationship.
As unfortunate as is it that straight men are taught to abhor the sissy, it is equally unfortunate that there is a sense of bragging rights to bagging a straight guy, which has also helped pushed away the fact that yes… gay guys and straight guys can be friends. When I used to hear gay me discuss their attempts and/or successes with hooking up with a guy that identified as straight, my immediate thought was… well, all you’ve really done is hooked up with a gay guy that hasn’t dealt with it yet. And while I think that is sometimes, or maybe mostly the case, I realize now that it’s not a hard and fast rule, and only serves to distance ourselves from one another more.
As gay men, it’s hard to see where the straight man is coming from because we ourselves put so much on their interest in friendship. Why on earth would a straight guy want to hang out with a gay guy? We act like the most ignorant straight homophobe when we jump to the conclusion that his straight label is nothing more than a figment of his closet, and his interest in us MUST be sexual. How on earth are we to form positive “normal” friendships with straight guys if we ourselves challenge their sexuality or even worse… try to get some? Because straight guys (real straight guys) don’t like being hit on by men. At all. It’s not the same when we have a woman into us as again, men are taught very very early to be absolutely repulsed by dude on dude action. We can’t change that, but we are in control of our own actions.
So why do we do this? Why must we attack the overly friendly straight guy that just wants another buddy? Well, after we have traveled our own path of self-hate, there is a sense of pride with men that got past all of that and said, “Yeah, I’m gay.” It’s a profound emotional breakthrough that we as out gay men have dealt with an overcome and therefore, have a sense that we “get” things a little more than our brothers and sisters that haven’t quite gotten there yet. So we meet a guy that says he’s straight, yet inexplicably wants to hang out so we say to ourselves, “here’s a great story I can tell the boys…” (Men, despite their sexual preference love a conquest. It’s just how we’re built.)
When I was younger I fell hard for a straight boy I was very close to. This yearning for something that my straight friend had no intention of giving into unquestionably put emotional damage on our friendship and even just myself. I would question his actions and tortuously ponder any glimpse of remote intimacy we had as a sign that yes, he felt like I did. Well… he didn’t. He never did, and never was going to. I thankfully never pushed the envelope too much and we have remained friends (I got over my futile crush) but many gay men do not restrain themselves, and damage friendships that could have been. And what kind of sign does that send to the straight guy? Don’t try to be friends with a gay guy, they’ll just try to sleep with you and get weird.
As I became more comfortable with myself and masculinity, I simultaneously fell in with a group of straight guys and formed a pseudo-fraternity that involved all-guy weekends camping, away from woman and society, and where sexuality was completely put on hold. As it evolved, and I was comfortable enough to be who I was without injecting my sexuality into the situation, something dynamic happened… I experienced male bonding that didn’t involve any aspect of sex. It became very clear that straight men do have a magical bond with each other that lets them relax a bit and be who they are with each other. Without women around whom they feel they need to impress or prove their masculinity with, these guys just chilled out. And what really cracked me up, was their interest in getting very very drunk and dancing. Just like us! Without woman around, they were open enough to be free from the shackles that our sexual rigidity forces them to. And that helped me become one of them, and not just “the gay guy.”
This is not to say that things haven’t happened to me that got a little sticky with “straight boys.” Yes I too have had a curious guy come onto me, and as I mature I realize that there is weight and responsibility that comes with another man opening up to you in this way as it is most likely their first time. I have run the gamut from accusing these guys of being gay, to just being a sounding board for them to express themselves. And as I become more centered myself, I realize the leap that many of these guys are taking with me, and respect that. But another major hurtle we as gay men need to get past, is realize that a little same-sex attraction isn’t necessarily a lay-over to gay-town. It can, despite a lifetime of being told to hate, be just like a girl that’s interested in making out with another girl sometime, which is more socially accepted. But given what we’ve been told, it’s hard to wrap our heads around that for gay and straight men alike. But I’ve hooked up with guys that have since gotten married and had children, and at this point find nothing wrong with that. Am I supposed to question their sexuality for the rest of their lives when it seems they have made up their own minds for themselves? How is that fair? And who are we to make those rulings just because we successfully, and enthusiastically, got our same-sex on? Does it mean we know who they are more than they do?
There is an obvious sense of brotherhood that resides in a group of male gay friends, and the same goes for a group of straight men. As the views on sexuality continue to shift culturally, maybe we will realize that these groups don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Sure there are things I can do with my gay buddies I can’t with my straight, and I suppose vice versa, but those are barriers that we, as gay men, need to help slowly break down. We’d come further faster if we helped to change what straight men think of us as men and as friends… versus us thinking of them as fresh meat.
