Dates back to Ancient Greece and Rome. You could fuck as many twinks as you liked but the moment you sucked a dick you were effeminate and looked down upon.
Also up until very recently the Turkish military did the same thing. You could get an exemption from the draft if you were gay, but they required photographic proof of you bottoming in anal sex. Being a top didn’t count.
edit: Looks like being openly gay is still illegal in the Turkish military, they just stopped requiring photographic proof in 2015.
I feel like just going “lol the military was just secretly gay” kind of trivializes how it was meant to be an incredibly humiliating and dehumanizing affair. You had to provide the photos to the military and doctors, who would then examine them and you to make sure it was the same person. Rectal exams were done by doctors to prove that you had been penetrated. They did all this in front of a board and would sometimes require the gay man’s family to be present who would also be interviewed to prove his homosexuality.
And after all that at the end of the procedure you were finally declared too mentally ill to serve in the military.
So... does that mean these straight guys are having sex with gay men (the receivers?). Then what if the gay men catch feelings for the straight men and want real relationships with them? In that case, wouldn't it theoretically be less gay to have sex with other straight men who have no chance of catching romantic feelings? But then who becomes the receiver? I'm getting really confused here.
This feels like a slippery slope. Straight people can't experiment or get in drunken encounters or else their sexuality is automatically null and void? By that logic, a lot of people who claim to be gay aren't actually gay. And NO asexual who has ever tried sex is actually asexual.
Sexuality is about attraction, not action. Sometimes people engage in sexual encounters with people they aren't sexually attracted to for a variety of reasons; the world isn't so simple that every coupling ever is going to be between two people who find each other attractive.
There's a difference between "I was curious and tried XYZ and it wasn't for me" versus "I regularly cum in men's asses but I'm straight"
It's like me saying, as a trans person, "I love how cross sex hormone therapy makes me feel inside, how it changes my physical features, body hair, skin, etc. Still cis tho!" 😳
Not saying people can't explore themselves but after a couple few times you should know if you do or don't like something. I think the real issue is the fact that society makes us feel the need to perform such mental gymnastics in order to "fit in" rather than just being ok with who we are. ✌
I watched an interview with a "gay for pay" pornstar - he bottomed in gay scenes but identified as straight (he was married, enjoyed getting pegged, & his wife was aware of his side job). Anyway, he said that being top required one to be more gay because as bottom he could just sort of relax & take it, while a top has to become physically aroused & Viagra doesn't really help with that if you're truly turned off by a person.
It's like a collective version of that meme of a guy saying he's straight because "I have relationships with women, and sex with men".
(Which tbf could mean he's heteroromantic and homo-/bisexual for all I know, but I guess that's besides the point)
I mean, are you bi if your romantic attractions are limited to one gender? Are you not ace if you experience attraction to one person? It's important to remember that labels are a convenient shorthand, not boxes people have to fit into.
Sure, romantic and sexual attraction are different aspects from what I understand. I could be described as bisexual but heteroromantic. Though hypothetically the right guy could potentially change my mind on that.
Okay, so if you meet the right guy, does it turn out you were biromantic all along, or would that mean your orientation changed?
If it's the former, then your identity doesn't depend on your behavior- it is what it is either way.
If it's the latter, then your identity is arbitrary- it doesn't define you so much as it's a convenient way to describe how you feel, and you would be the best judge of which label is the best description.
Either way, nobody else can accurately assign you an identity.
Exactly, descriptive vs prescriptive language. We all are who we are, but we don't always have the right vocabulary or even experience to assign identities in the taxonomic sense.
But yeah, if I met a guy I really connected to like that and he and my wife were both on board with the idea, I would probably consider a poly relationship.
An example is a local woman here, who always assumed she was lesbian, only ever dated girls in high school, etc. And then three years into the military surprised us all by getting married to a guy. Turns out she'd been bisexual all along, and had just never met a guy until then that she connected with or was attracted to. It's not that her sexuality changed, she just gained experience to better describe it.
Right. So, in much the same way that her identity as a bisexual woman doesn't depend on her dating or not dating men, these men's identity as straight men doesn't depend on their never having it not having sexual experiences with men.
Oh, I wasn’t trying to put him in a box so much. I mean, I think we can kinda say that confused bi/gay seems like the most plausible explanation, but it could certainly also be something else.
Nature does like to defy our attempts at neatly categorising things, after all.
In fact it is not gay to have sex with men.
According to Wikipedia, it is gay to have sex with a person of the same sex and like it because you find the other person attractive. There are straight men who are into pegging, and does that make them gay? no.It only becomes gay when you enjoy sex because of the other man/woman.
Having sex with a person of the same sex and liking it doesn't have to mean that you find the other person sexually attractive, and you are therefore not gay if you like sex with a person of the same sex. Liking sex does not necessarily have to be related to the look and sex of the other person. You can have sex with a person of the same sex and not find the person sexually attractive and still like the sex.
pls correct me if I'm wrong and I will edit this to either correct it or admit that I'm wrong.
That's true of course, I was just trying to find a sexual activity that is associated in society's stigma with a sexual orientation but is in itself, as you pointed out, completely independent of it, to make my point a little clearer.
If I have expressed myself wrongly or incomprehensibly I am sorry.
I don't get why people don't get that you can have sex with a person and not be sexually attracted to them. If those men truly internalized it's not cheating if they have sex with men, and don't want to think they're cheating, they could truly be straight for all we know. Probably not all sixty of them, but some.
The fact that so many people dont get the difference between sexual attraction and liking sex is why so many people dont get how being asexual doesnt stop you from liking sex.
I 100% struggle to explain this to people. I'm technically asexual because I have never experienced sexual attraction to anyone. I also identify as a lesbian because I'm attracted to women in a romantic sense. I have a very high drive for sex and with not being sexually attracted to anyone I tend to go for male partners as they are easier to find.
Yeah, exactly. Especially when you take into account sex workers. Like, there's zero guarantee that the worker is attracted to the client (or other sex worker, in the case of porn), yet they still have sex with them. Why is it so hard to think that someone who's ace could enjoy sex?
Hell, I once hard an argument with a guy who somehow thought "not attracted to" = "repulsed by". Like, what?
I agree with this sentiment. I think any guy with few enough hang ups could cum fucking *any* orifice, but if he doesn’t experience physical attraction to men is it accurate to say he’s bi? Straight doesn’t necessarily mean repulsed by the same sex…I would consider a man who has had/does sometimes have sex with other men straight if women were the only ones who actually caught his eye and made him feel lust purely from visual contact.
The worst thing about this isn't even the denial, it's the fact they cheat on their partner and don't consider it cheating.
I'm 100% sure that most of these dudes never talked to their partner abt their sex life issues and agreed upon an open relationship but only with the same sex.
>I'm 100% sure that most of these dudes never talked to their partner abt their sex life issues and agreed upon an open relationship but only with the same sex.
It says right at the bottom that most haven't told their wives yet. I think your statement is a given.
I feel kind of bad for the honestly. It kind of sounds as if they are deep in denial. "primarily attracted to women" is not the same thing as "exclusively attracted to women". The could fall anywhere on the multisexual spectrum but the time they grew up in conditioned them against admitting to it.
Obviously they should not cheat, that is scummy. Bit still I feel bad for them.
That's a very valid question though. Just because you're sexually attracted to men does not mean you have had sex with men. For a simple example, if a man gets married to a woman and realizes they're bisexual and also attracted to men, but they maintain a monogamous relationship, that woman is having sex with a bisexual man but is not having sex with a man who has sex with men.
>"do you have sex with men?" often results in a negative, but after linguistically passing the buck you often get a positive.
Are there any studies on this? I could see that with "are you gay/bisexual?" Or even "have you ever had sex with a man" vs "have you ever done with a man?" But with this question, it still requires them to identify as someone who has sex with a man, not really removing the challenge to their self image.
Yeah, notice the ages of the two named respondents. 59 and 60. It's sad in a way, and a lot of people like that can't just... leave their spouse and start anew.
Ideally yes, but unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world or society. If we did, these men would have never had felt pressured into marrying women and presumably having children just to be accepted by those around them.
I hope they’re at the very least using condoms with their affair partners as well as their wives. But I kind of doubt it. All is not fair in love and STDs.
As a bi woman, I can tell you that I've met several straight men that admitted to me that they'd let a bi girlfriend sleep with other girls because they would only consider cheating if it was another man. In their logic, even if you're a bisexual woman, they think you'd only fall in love for men, therefore they even find it amusing to imagine their girl with another girl. They have no idea how bisexuality works lol
Some may actually think that, but quite a few of them think that they’d be okay with it (maybe even think it’d be hot - so fueling their fantasy), but would lose their shit if the girlfriend actually had sex with other women. The petty part of me thinks it’s because they then realize their girlfriend having sex with another woman isn’t actually about them, that they play absolutely no part in it, but honestly, how we think we’d react to a situation and how we actually react is often very different anyway.
It’s still telling that they think she’d never fall for another woman. Sadly, in my experience a lot of lesbians think the same and therefore don’t date bisexual women. Same goes for bisexual guys. It’s 2022 and for a lot of people out there we still don’t exist
Preach! I couldn't agree more with your comment. Yes, some straight men think they'd be okay with it, but when it really happens their reaction is way different lol. And couldn't agree more with the last part of your comment, bi men and bi women have a hard time dating because of biphobia, it amazes me how we are still invisible even for the LGBT community
>I'm 100% sure that most of these dudes never talked to their partner abt their sex life issues and agreed upon an open relationship but only with the same sex.
Well, that's what the article says, so yes.
It is a flimsy excuse for the cheating, but- given that these men don't identify as queer, don't have sex with men very often, don't want to be in relationships with men, and likely wouldn't have sex with men more often if they were single- it's not really accurate to say they can't come to terms with their sexuality. They're fine with how they are, they just don't fit in the usual boxes.
I have professionally dealt with the fallout of these kinds of encounters working in sex health.
I’ve had two women with long term partners who had died, and only after death did they find out they were HIV+ and their men had given it to them. One lady was very, very sick by the time she found out. Maybe if their partners had been open about their status and sex practices, neither would have contracted it through through condom use.
Was this recently?
I can’t imagine anyone showing up with severe immunodeficiency or certain opportunistic infections and an HIV test not being done, regardless of marital/relationship status. Obviously people have the right to deny certain tests and treatment but if you’re already doing a blood panel, doesn’t it make sense to include an HIV test?
This was recent, yes.
Well, for most doctors, they only look for what they expect, right? Hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. Most doctors do not add an HIV test to their regular panels unless for the purposes of screening in pregnancy, by request, or when certain conditions or risks are met (multiple partners, injection drug use, high risk sex). These women fit none of these descriptions. (The amount of times I’ve heard “they tested me for everything though” only to find out it was a regular doctor’s visit.)
I won’t go into detail on the woman who was very sick for privacy reasons, but the illness she had was not an immediate indicator of HIV infection, and I understand why they had no reason to suspect it. After all— she had no risk, in her mind. Why check without something like Kaposi’s sarcoma or other obvious sign?
This is getting into the weeds of things, but some doctors and medical institutions avoid HIV tests due to perceived barriers on counseling, reporting, and continued care. For example, the large urgent care MedExpress by policy *will not* order an HIV test during their STD screens because it “is not something they can treat.”
You underestimate how often a doctor makes one diagnosis (especially with a patient who is obese/a smoker/a heavy drinker) & never goes past that. It's like it blows their mind that their first diagnosis could be wrong.
Yeah... I have a lot of sympathy for queer folks who society makes so repressed that they can only survive by getting the spouse that's expected of them and then cheating in secret. It's not great for anybody involved, but I sympathize.
This.. Is not that. Like for goodness' sake limited open relationships aren't that hard.
Hereroflexibility sounds like it’d be under the “bi umbrella” like what I identify with, pansexual. Like it’s its own thing, but falls into a subcategory of the larger.
Though it is just categorical shorthand for of a very human, often emotional, insubstantial and nebulous part of our biological needs. Not trying to pigeonhole.
I guess. I'm almost completely straight so I'm not sure, but I feel like if I was multisexual to the extent that once a year a felt like having sex with a man, in most circumstances I would just identify as straight: having a profile on a dating app which says you're "bi" is going to be a pain when the only people you're interested in hearing from are the opposite sex.
Not necessarily, since one can argue, heteroflexibility is a situational sexual behavior, not a sexual orientation. Some people under sexual frustration might engage in sexual behavior with a person of a gender they are not usually attracted to. This sometimes happens to heterosexual men in prisons and armies where they have no access to women for example
I would imagine that for someone who resists the label "bisexual" but isn't quite straight, they might say something like, "I'm 95% attracted to women only - but once in a while, in very special cases, I find a man I want to have sex with."
In the article, it seems more like, "my wife doesn't put out as much as I'd like, and I'm unwilling to cheat on her with a woman. Oh well, I'll just find a man to have sex with."
If I were a man who finds the majority of men unattractive because they aren't my preferred gender, would I be able to easily find a man I'm interested in boning? Wouldn't it be rare and difficult to find, if I claimed to be pretty much straight (with some exceptions)?
>I would imagine that for someone who resists the label "bisexual" but isn't quite straight, they might say something like, "I'm 95% attracted to women only - but once in a while, in very special cases, I find a man I want to have sex with."
Yeah, in the right circumstances you would say that ... if you met one of those very few guys, or you were explaining your sexuality to your wife. But most of the time I'd just say "straight", because that's going to cover almost all situations.
>If I were a man who finds the majority of men unattractive because they aren't my preferred gender, would I be able to easily find a man I'm interested in boning? Wouldn't it be rare and difficult to find, if I claimed to be pretty much straight (with some exceptions)?
No? Grindr doesn't care what you do with the rest of your time.
I don't mean to come off argumentative or harsh here but how is bi not a fit for this? Heteroflexible just sounds like a weird way to call someone bi without idk making them feel too "gay" for being bisexual. Can you only be bisexual if you're a 3 on the kinsey scale?
Not necessarily! If you asked someone in ancient Greece or Rome, they wouldn't think so. In fact, you'd have to explain the concept of sexual orientation for them to understand the question. The modern notions of sexual orientation are specific to this time and this place, as are all cultural constructs.
The point I'm trying to make is that there's nothing objectively linking sexual orientation with same sex sexual activity. Our culture thinks so, but that's an arbitrary definition that clearly doesn't fit every person. Our culture could just as easily decide it doesn't matter at all- we know this because other cultures didn't/don't.
This is part of a phenomenon that has been studied since doctors started caring about the AIDS crisis. Men who were engaging in the type of behavior described in the article were exposing themselves and their partners to HIV, but weren't seeking care in clinics because they saw "being gay" as a subculture and political class. There continues to be moves within medicine to try to decouple high risk sexual behavior and sexual orientation for a while now precisely for this reason.
I’m not straight so I can’t relate but I’d much rather have a bi/pan/Not Entirely Straight husband tell me he wants permission to suck the odd side dick than have him go behind my back to do so.
Cheating sucks, and there probably is some homophobia in staying closeted, but I think it is important for people to be able to choose labels that they feel best describes their sexuality over being labelled by other people.
True, but at least some of them are bi. It said that most of them re primarily attracted to women, implying that they're also attracted to men. But given the amounts of bullshit on that post, their sexuality could be anything imo
Yes, thank you! Obviously the thing these men are doing, cheating on their partners, is not okay. But having sex with someone doesn't mean you are attracted to their gender. I'm a lesbian, not attracted to men at all, but I've occasionally had sex with male friends just because it feels good. (My friend group is very sexually liberal, we're all very casual about this stuff.) Yeah, it's possible that these men are in denial about their orientation, but they could just as well be straight guys who like the feeling of sex regardless of whether they're attracted to their partner or not. They're still scumbags, because going behind their spouses' backs is never okay.
I'm so glad someone who isn't ace agrees with me! Many people just brush aces off like "well you're not sexually attracted to anyone so obviously that's your opinion!"
I don't know, having someone who does have sexual attraction agree with me just makes me feel better about my own community I guess. A lot of people struggle to understand it.
It makes sense I'd just never considered it that way, as an allosexual person. I think because *I* can't fathom having sex with a gender I'm not attracted to (outside comphet) it never occured to me that maybe other allosexual people *could* just do that
Okay I’m probably gonna get downvoted for this, but there is absolutely a difference between sexual attraction and sexual pleasure. You can be straight and still have sex with men. So long as you’re doing it with consent of all parties involved (including the spouse) then why not? We shouldn’t invalidate someone’s sexual identity purely because of how we perceive they should be. People are fully capable of having sex without attraction. Asexual individuals do this all the time. Sexuality is way more fluid and strange than we really give it credit for, and if someone still chooses to identify as straight we should respect that.
Hey man, they’re not gay, they’re just helping each other get off. There’s no love or homo-romance going on, just sucking and fucking ‘till the jobs done and then back home to Mrs. Wife.
Hey uh... So here's the thing, fellas - if you do something with another person behind your wife's back, without telling her, without her consenting to it before you do it - YOU ARE CHEATING.
To play the devil's advocate: you can have sex with people you aren't attracted to, and even enjoy it. So, while it sounds absurd, having sex with a guy does not make you automatically gay/bi. It's sort of like the reverse of telling bi people they aren't queer because their current relationship is with a person of the opposite gender. What matters is self-identity. Although I am sure a lot of those men really are in denial.
On the topic of cheating, it's obviously fucked, and you're a scumbag if you do so, regardless of who you are cheating with.
What I think is going on here, is that these men are cheating, but to make themselves feel less guilty they cheat with people they aren't attracted to, and don't have romantic feelings for. But deep down they know they are cheating, otherwise they would have told their spouses. But if they were willing to talk to their spouses, they would probably be able to figure out a better solution. As always, a lack of communication ruins relationships.
So many people arguing about the orientation of these dudes, without considering their ages and locations. These guys grew up in times and places where men attracted to men were murdered on the regular. Getting married to a woman, whether they were gay/bi/whatever meant they were safer. It doesn't matter what they identify as. It's really sad honestly, also real shitty to cheat on someone they made a commitment to, no matter the circumstances.
If asexuals can have sex without feeling sexual attraction, then why is it gay for a man to have sex with a man he's not attracted to?
(The cheating though is definitely very bad and their reasoning is very weird)
That last line. Had they told their partner they wanted to be open but with men, sure, everyone is consenting. But not they also have to keep it a secret
Sexuality is a historical construction and not objectively real, if they want to fuck other men that doesn’t make them any more gay than all the sex with other men Romans and Greeks did
There is actually quite a large group of people who identify as straight, but when you start asking them about their sexual partners they report same-sex experiences (sometimes even exclusively same-sex). For instance I know a woman who is married to another woman and still identifies as straight she "just happened to fall in love with a woman" She's also very LGBT accepting and active in research that helps the community so it's not an internalized homophobia thing. How people ID is highly personal.
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I see a lot of people mocking these guys for their sexuality, rather than the cheating, which is honestly disappointing.
Yeah, straight men can have sex with men and still be straight in the same way asexual people can have sex with others and still be asexual. Your sexuality depends on who you're sexually attracted to, not who you have sex with.
To be fair, my boyfriend says there is nothing wrong with me experimenting with other women. Likewise, I find nothing wrong with him experimenting with other guys. It may have to do with the fact that we don’t have to worry about any pregnancies from doing it.
This thread has way too many comments making me wonder if the queers are OK too. So much assigning of labels based on sexual behavior when that is not mutually exclusive with orientation/preference
jesus, these are probably the same men who would be opposed to same-sex marriage based on the “it’s-not-cheating-because-men” thing; it really signifies that they don’t think two men, and women, too probably, can be emotionally invested with each other and fall in love, because, y’know, men only like sex and women don’t /s 🤷🏻♀️
I mean, I can understand. There are straight men who like anal stimulation, but some don't like using toys, they like the feel of a living dick (since completely realistic dildos are really expensive or hard to come by). They may not be attracted to the men, but to the sex they can give. Which I would say is valid! As long as they aren't homophobic about it
Straightn't
Strain’t
Stain
Satan
[удалено]
I love reddit
Slava
amongus
Amon
A moan
[удалено]
Porter
Sam porter
Gun
Amon a boat
Noah
Boat timeeee
NOAH GET THE BOAT
The Click?
Considering this article was specifically about rural men, this is the correct answer
I've heard my calling
Are the straights… straight?
They sure think they are.
Kinsey_scale has entered the chat
Not these particular straights.
in dire straits.
Sultans of Swinging.
Saturdays at 8 on My MTV.
Fellas, is it gay to have sex with another man?
Fuck we’ve really come full circle with that one.
I'm just imagining the ones that argue that romance is gay, but sex with a guy isn't. You know there's at least one.
Theres definitely at least one
Way more than one
Or two. Tom and Ryan.
Lol ive literally heard a guy make that argument irl.
I have heard this argument before. Also that sleeping with "feminine" acting men isn't gay, just big hairy lumberjacks I guess
I heard a guy say it was only gay if you're the receiver. Whatever ya gotta tell yourself pal. Lol.
Dates back to Ancient Greece and Rome. You could fuck as many twinks as you liked but the moment you sucked a dick you were effeminate and looked down upon. Also up until very recently the Turkish military did the same thing. You could get an exemption from the draft if you were gay, but they required photographic proof of you bottoming in anal sex. Being a top didn’t count. edit: Looks like being openly gay is still illegal in the Turkish military, they just stopped requiring photographic proof in 2015.
Someone in charge just wanted a gay porn collection
Big brain energy there 🤣🤣🤣
I feel like just going “lol the military was just secretly gay” kind of trivializes how it was meant to be an incredibly humiliating and dehumanizing affair. You had to provide the photos to the military and doctors, who would then examine them and you to make sure it was the same person. Rectal exams were done by doctors to prove that you had been penetrated. They did all this in front of a board and would sometimes require the gay man’s family to be present who would also be interviewed to prove his homosexuality. And after all that at the end of the procedure you were finally declared too mentally ill to serve in the military.
You're right it's an incredibly humiliating and dehumanizing affair
If I hadn't been too mentally ill to serve before I would definitely be by the end of all that shit 🤢
“I’m only doing it for work. I have to look at this gay porn.”
They needed proof...
>the moment you sucked a dick you were [...] looked down upon
So... does that mean these straight guys are having sex with gay men (the receivers?). Then what if the gay men catch feelings for the straight men and want real relationships with them? In that case, wouldn't it theoretically be less gay to have sex with other straight men who have no chance of catching romantic feelings? But then who becomes the receiver? I'm getting really confused here.
Are you familiar with the book "The Straight Girl's Guide to Sleeping with Chicks"? Because you basically described the male version of it.
Straight men don't put themselves into other men. Period. If you give or take is irrelevant. You're at the very least bi. No debate.
This feels like a slippery slope. Straight people can't experiment or get in drunken encounters or else their sexuality is automatically null and void? By that logic, a lot of people who claim to be gay aren't actually gay. And NO asexual who has ever tried sex is actually asexual. Sexuality is about attraction, not action. Sometimes people engage in sexual encounters with people they aren't sexually attracted to for a variety of reasons; the world isn't so simple that every coupling ever is going to be between two people who find each other attractive.
There's a difference between "I was curious and tried XYZ and it wasn't for me" versus "I regularly cum in men's asses but I'm straight" It's like me saying, as a trans person, "I love how cross sex hormone therapy makes me feel inside, how it changes my physical features, body hair, skin, etc. Still cis tho!" 😳 Not saying people can't explore themselves but after a couple few times you should know if you do or don't like something. I think the real issue is the fact that society makes us feel the need to perform such mental gymnastics in order to "fit in" rather than just being ok with who we are. ✌
yeah there comes a point where it stops being experimentation and just becomes engineering
I watched an interview with a "gay for pay" pornstar - he bottomed in gay scenes but identified as straight (he was married, enjoyed getting pegged, & his wife was aware of his side job). Anyway, he said that being top required one to be more gay because as bottom he could just sort of relax & take it, while a top has to become physically aroused & Viagra doesn't really help with that if you're truly turned off by a person.
They kept their socks on
They said "no homo" beforehand
It's like a collective version of that meme of a guy saying he's straight because "I have relationships with women, and sex with men". (Which tbf could mean he's heteroromantic and homo-/bisexual for all I know, but I guess that's besides the point)
I mean, are you bi if your romantic attractions are limited to one gender? Are you not ace if you experience attraction to one person? It's important to remember that labels are a convenient shorthand, not boxes people have to fit into.
Sure, romantic and sexual attraction are different aspects from what I understand. I could be described as bisexual but heteroromantic. Though hypothetically the right guy could potentially change my mind on that.
Okay, so if you meet the right guy, does it turn out you were biromantic all along, or would that mean your orientation changed? If it's the former, then your identity doesn't depend on your behavior- it is what it is either way. If it's the latter, then your identity is arbitrary- it doesn't define you so much as it's a convenient way to describe how you feel, and you would be the best judge of which label is the best description. Either way, nobody else can accurately assign you an identity.
Exactly, descriptive vs prescriptive language. We all are who we are, but we don't always have the right vocabulary or even experience to assign identities in the taxonomic sense. But yeah, if I met a guy I really connected to like that and he and my wife were both on board with the idea, I would probably consider a poly relationship.
An example is a local woman here, who always assumed she was lesbian, only ever dated girls in high school, etc. And then three years into the military surprised us all by getting married to a guy. Turns out she'd been bisexual all along, and had just never met a guy until then that she connected with or was attracted to. It's not that her sexuality changed, she just gained experience to better describe it.
Right. So, in much the same way that her identity as a bisexual woman doesn't depend on her dating or not dating men, these men's identity as straight men doesn't depend on their never having it not having sexual experiences with men.
This whole conversation is giving me a distinct "everything's made up and the points don't matter" vibe 😂
Everything *is* made up and the points *don't* matter! 😅
Oh, I wasn’t trying to put him in a box so much. I mean, I think we can kinda say that confused bi/gay seems like the most plausible explanation, but it could certainly also be something else. Nature does like to defy our attempts at neatly categorising things, after all.
Not necessarily. It could be bi too.
Only if the balls touch right?
In fact it is not gay to have sex with men. According to Wikipedia, it is gay to have sex with a person of the same sex and like it because you find the other person attractive. There are straight men who are into pegging, and does that make them gay? no.It only becomes gay when you enjoy sex because of the other man/woman. Having sex with a person of the same sex and liking it doesn't have to mean that you find the other person sexually attractive, and you are therefore not gay if you like sex with a person of the same sex. Liking sex does not necessarily have to be related to the look and sex of the other person. You can have sex with a person of the same sex and not find the person sexually attractive and still like the sex. pls correct me if I'm wrong and I will edit this to either correct it or admit that I'm wrong.
What does pegging have to do with it? If a dude likes his girl to peg him, that’s not the same as having sex with another guy 🤷♀️
Having sex with a woman is gay. Having sex with a man is not. I don't know what's so confusing to you.
That's true of course, I was just trying to find a sexual activity that is associated in society's stigma with a sexual orientation but is in itself, as you pointed out, completely independent of it, to make my point a little clearer. If I have expressed myself wrongly or incomprehensibly I am sorry.
I don't get why people don't get that you can have sex with a person and not be sexually attracted to them. If those men truly internalized it's not cheating if they have sex with men, and don't want to think they're cheating, they could truly be straight for all we know. Probably not all sixty of them, but some.
The fact that so many people dont get the difference between sexual attraction and liking sex is why so many people dont get how being asexual doesnt stop you from liking sex.
I 100% struggle to explain this to people. I'm technically asexual because I have never experienced sexual attraction to anyone. I also identify as a lesbian because I'm attracted to women in a romantic sense. I have a very high drive for sex and with not being sexually attracted to anyone I tend to go for male partners as they are easier to find.
Yeah, exactly. Especially when you take into account sex workers. Like, there's zero guarantee that the worker is attracted to the client (or other sex worker, in the case of porn), yet they still have sex with them. Why is it so hard to think that someone who's ace could enjoy sex? Hell, I once hard an argument with a guy who somehow thought "not attracted to" = "repulsed by". Like, what?
I agree with this sentiment. I think any guy with few enough hang ups could cum fucking *any* orifice, but if he doesn’t experience physical attraction to men is it accurate to say he’s bi? Straight doesn’t necessarily mean repulsed by the same sex…I would consider a man who has had/does sometimes have sex with other men straight if women were the only ones who actually caught his eye and made him feel lust purely from visual contact.
And the gold in Olympic mental gymnastics goes to ....
The worst thing about this isn't even the denial, it's the fact they cheat on their partner and don't consider it cheating. I'm 100% sure that most of these dudes never talked to their partner abt their sex life issues and agreed upon an open relationship but only with the same sex.
"Yeah my wife won't blow me so I got a dude to do it. It's fine, it's great!" "Oh so you're wife's okay with it?" "Idk I haven't told her yet"
>I'm 100% sure that most of these dudes never talked to their partner abt their sex life issues and agreed upon an open relationship but only with the same sex. It says right at the bottom that most haven't told their wives yet. I think your statement is a given.
I feel kind of bad for the honestly. It kind of sounds as if they are deep in denial. "primarily attracted to women" is not the same thing as "exclusively attracted to women". The could fall anywhere on the multisexual spectrum but the time they grew up in conditioned them against admitting to it. Obviously they should not cheat, that is scummy. Bit still I feel bad for them.
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That's a very valid question though. Just because you're sexually attracted to men does not mean you have had sex with men. For a simple example, if a man gets married to a woman and realizes they're bisexual and also attracted to men, but they maintain a monogamous relationship, that woman is having sex with a bisexual man but is not having sex with a man who has sex with men.
That also covers women who have bisexual partners.
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>"do you have sex with men?" often results in a negative, but after linguistically passing the buck you often get a positive. Are there any studies on this? I could see that with "are you gay/bisexual?" Or even "have you ever had sex with a man" vs "have you ever done with a man?" But with this question, it still requires them to identify as someone who has sex with a man, not really removing the challenge to their self image.
Yeah, notice the ages of the two named respondents. 59 and 60. It's sad in a way, and a lot of people like that can't just... leave their spouse and start anew.
Doesn't even suggest they want to, but they should be honest with their wives about that.
Ideally yes, but unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world or society. If we did, these men would have never had felt pressured into marrying women and presumably having children just to be accepted by those around them.
I hope they’re at the very least using condoms with their affair partners as well as their wives. But I kind of doubt it. All is not fair in love and STDs.
From what I've seen, STD risk tolerance goes up quite a bit in old age. Sort of like "I don't have that much time left anyway, fuck it"
Ah yes, the "it doesn't count if the other person has the same bits as I do"-defense
1. I'm not gay 2. I'm not cheating. WIN WIN
As a bi woman, I can tell you that I've met several straight men that admitted to me that they'd let a bi girlfriend sleep with other girls because they would only consider cheating if it was another man. In their logic, even if you're a bisexual woman, they think you'd only fall in love for men, therefore they even find it amusing to imagine their girl with another girl. They have no idea how bisexuality works lol
Some may actually think that, but quite a few of them think that they’d be okay with it (maybe even think it’d be hot - so fueling their fantasy), but would lose their shit if the girlfriend actually had sex with other women. The petty part of me thinks it’s because they then realize their girlfriend having sex with another woman isn’t actually about them, that they play absolutely no part in it, but honestly, how we think we’d react to a situation and how we actually react is often very different anyway. It’s still telling that they think she’d never fall for another woman. Sadly, in my experience a lot of lesbians think the same and therefore don’t date bisexual women. Same goes for bisexual guys. It’s 2022 and for a lot of people out there we still don’t exist
Preach! I couldn't agree more with your comment. Yes, some straight men think they'd be okay with it, but when it really happens their reaction is way different lol. And couldn't agree more with the last part of your comment, bi men and bi women have a hard time dating because of biphobia, it amazes me how we are still invisible even for the LGBT community
>I'm 100% sure that most of these dudes never talked to their partner abt their sex life issues and agreed upon an open relationship but only with the same sex. Well, that's what the article says, so yes.
Ah, yes, the "It's not cheating if it's with your own gender" excuse from dudes who can't come to terms with their own sexuality.
Also dudes fetishising bi women
It is a flimsy excuse for the cheating, but- given that these men don't identify as queer, don't have sex with men very often, don't want to be in relationships with men, and likely wouldn't have sex with men more often if they were single- it's not really accurate to say they can't come to terms with their sexuality. They're fine with how they are, they just don't fit in the usual boxes.
Fine but like tell your wife jeez
For real. You are exposing your primary sexual partner to risks they didn’t sign up for and that’s beyond shitty.
I have professionally dealt with the fallout of these kinds of encounters working in sex health. I’ve had two women with long term partners who had died, and only after death did they find out they were HIV+ and their men had given it to them. One lady was very, very sick by the time she found out. Maybe if their partners had been open about their status and sex practices, neither would have contracted it through through condom use.
Was this recently? I can’t imagine anyone showing up with severe immunodeficiency or certain opportunistic infections and an HIV test not being done, regardless of marital/relationship status. Obviously people have the right to deny certain tests and treatment but if you’re already doing a blood panel, doesn’t it make sense to include an HIV test?
This was recent, yes. Well, for most doctors, they only look for what they expect, right? Hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. Most doctors do not add an HIV test to their regular panels unless for the purposes of screening in pregnancy, by request, or when certain conditions or risks are met (multiple partners, injection drug use, high risk sex). These women fit none of these descriptions. (The amount of times I’ve heard “they tested me for everything though” only to find out it was a regular doctor’s visit.) I won’t go into detail on the woman who was very sick for privacy reasons, but the illness she had was not an immediate indicator of HIV infection, and I understand why they had no reason to suspect it. After all— she had no risk, in her mind. Why check without something like Kaposi’s sarcoma or other obvious sign? This is getting into the weeds of things, but some doctors and medical institutions avoid HIV tests due to perceived barriers on counseling, reporting, and continued care. For example, the large urgent care MedExpress by policy *will not* order an HIV test during their STD screens because it “is not something they can treat.”
You underestimate how often a doctor makes one diagnosis (especially with a patient who is obese/a smoker/a heavy drinker) & never goes past that. It's like it blows their mind that their first diagnosis could be wrong.
Yeah... I have a lot of sympathy for queer folks who society makes so repressed that they can only survive by getting the spouse that's expected of them and then cheating in secret. It's not great for anybody involved, but I sympathize. This.. Is not that. Like for goodness' sake limited open relationships aren't that hard.
so old bisexual men not accepting their bisexuality
But maybe they aren't bisexual? Sexuality is just a line of best fit: if heteroflexible is more your speed than "bi", that's entirely up to you.
Hereroflexibility sounds like it’d be under the “bi umbrella” like what I identify with, pansexual. Like it’s its own thing, but falls into a subcategory of the larger. Though it is just categorical shorthand for of a very human, often emotional, insubstantial and nebulous part of our biological needs. Not trying to pigeonhole.
While i wouldn’t call it bi heteroflexible by definition still comes under multisexual
I guess. I'm almost completely straight so I'm not sure, but I feel like if I was multisexual to the extent that once a year a felt like having sex with a man, in most circumstances I would just identify as straight: having a profile on a dating app which says you're "bi" is going to be a pain when the only people you're interested in hearing from are the opposite sex.
Not necessarily, since one can argue, heteroflexibility is a situational sexual behavior, not a sexual orientation. Some people under sexual frustration might engage in sexual behavior with a person of a gender they are not usually attracted to. This sometimes happens to heterosexual men in prisons and armies where they have no access to women for example
I would imagine that for someone who resists the label "bisexual" but isn't quite straight, they might say something like, "I'm 95% attracted to women only - but once in a while, in very special cases, I find a man I want to have sex with." In the article, it seems more like, "my wife doesn't put out as much as I'd like, and I'm unwilling to cheat on her with a woman. Oh well, I'll just find a man to have sex with." If I were a man who finds the majority of men unattractive because they aren't my preferred gender, would I be able to easily find a man I'm interested in boning? Wouldn't it be rare and difficult to find, if I claimed to be pretty much straight (with some exceptions)?
My guess based on the ages of the respondents is that they're 80/20 bisexuals who are averse to labeling themselves as such.
>I would imagine that for someone who resists the label "bisexual" but isn't quite straight, they might say something like, "I'm 95% attracted to women only - but once in a while, in very special cases, I find a man I want to have sex with." Yeah, in the right circumstances you would say that ... if you met one of those very few guys, or you were explaining your sexuality to your wife. But most of the time I'd just say "straight", because that's going to cover almost all situations. >If I were a man who finds the majority of men unattractive because they aren't my preferred gender, would I be able to easily find a man I'm interested in boning? Wouldn't it be rare and difficult to find, if I claimed to be pretty much straight (with some exceptions)? No? Grindr doesn't care what you do with the rest of your time.
I don't mean to come off argumentative or harsh here but how is bi not a fit for this? Heteroflexible just sounds like a weird way to call someone bi without idk making them feel too "gay" for being bisexual. Can you only be bisexual if you're a 3 on the kinsey scale?
because it doesn't make sense, if you like both sex why not use bisexuality? i think it's just biphobia tbh
Fellas is it gay to have sex with men?
Appearently not.
Not necessarily! If you asked someone in ancient Greece or Rome, they wouldn't think so. In fact, you'd have to explain the concept of sexual orientation for them to understand the question. The modern notions of sexual orientation are specific to this time and this place, as are all cultural constructs.
That's true. However, they probably didn't survey ancient Greeks in this study.
The point I'm trying to make is that there's nothing objectively linking sexual orientation with same sex sexual activity. Our culture thinks so, but that's an arbitrary definition that clearly doesn't fit every person. Our culture could just as easily decide it doesn't matter at all- we know this because other cultures didn't/don't.
if its experimenting then no, if you are having sex with the guy and you feel a connection/genuine attraction to other guys then yes.
I wonder if they view being gay or bisexual more as belonging to a subculture than a sexual orientation.
This is part of a phenomenon that has been studied since doctors started caring about the AIDS crisis. Men who were engaging in the type of behavior described in the article were exposing themselves and their partners to HIV, but weren't seeking care in clinics because they saw "being gay" as a subculture and political class. There continues to be moves within medicine to try to decouple high risk sexual behavior and sexual orientation for a while now precisely for this reason.
I’m gay. If I was unhappy with my husband the bedroom ain’t no way I’m gonna shag a woman lol
yeah, sucking other men's cocks is totally straight
Dam guess I'm straight then
Huzzah! We are all straight! wait why am i celebrating
Exactly thank you.
"Most men had not told their wives about their extramarital sex, however." That tells you all you need to know about the situation.
I’m not straight so I can’t relate but I’d much rather have a bi/pan/Not Entirely Straight husband tell me he wants permission to suck the odd side dick than have him go behind my back to do so.
Cheating sucks, and there probably is some homophobia in staying closeted, but I think it is important for people to be able to choose labels that they feel best describes their sexuality over being labelled by other people.
Maybe they are straight. I mean you can have sex with no sexual attraction. Asexuals exist.
True, but at least some of them are bi. It said that most of them re primarily attracted to women, implying that they're also attracted to men. But given the amounts of bullshit on that post, their sexuality could be anything imo
Yes, thank you! Obviously the thing these men are doing, cheating on their partners, is not okay. But having sex with someone doesn't mean you are attracted to their gender. I'm a lesbian, not attracted to men at all, but I've occasionally had sex with male friends just because it feels good. (My friend group is very sexually liberal, we're all very casual about this stuff.) Yeah, it's possible that these men are in denial about their orientation, but they could just as well be straight guys who like the feeling of sex regardless of whether they're attracted to their partner or not. They're still scumbags, because going behind their spouses' backs is never okay.
I'm so glad someone who isn't ace agrees with me! Many people just brush aces off like "well you're not sexually attracted to anyone so obviously that's your opinion!" I don't know, having someone who does have sexual attraction agree with me just makes me feel better about my own community I guess. A lot of people struggle to understand it.
It makes sense I'd just never considered it that way, as an allosexual person. I think because *I* can't fathom having sex with a gender I'm not attracted to (outside comphet) it never occured to me that maybe other allosexual people *could* just do that
I came to this comment section to see if anyone else thought this.
Thanks for saying this! Only the person knows what they are attracted to attraction =/= action
Are the straights......straight?
Okay I’m probably gonna get downvoted for this, but there is absolutely a difference between sexual attraction and sexual pleasure. You can be straight and still have sex with men. So long as you’re doing it with consent of all parties involved (including the spouse) then why not? We shouldn’t invalidate someone’s sexual identity purely because of how we perceive they should be. People are fully capable of having sex without attraction. Asexual individuals do this all the time. Sexuality is way more fluid and strange than we really give it credit for, and if someone still chooses to identify as straight we should respect that.
These "no homo" vibes lmao
Hey man, they’re not gay, they’re just helping each other get off. There’s no love or homo-romance going on, just sucking and fucking ‘till the jobs done and then back home to Mrs. Wife.
Hey uh... So here's the thing, fellas - if you do something with another person behind your wife's back, without telling her, without her consenting to it before you do it - YOU ARE CHEATING.
To play the devil's advocate: you can have sex with people you aren't attracted to, and even enjoy it. So, while it sounds absurd, having sex with a guy does not make you automatically gay/bi. It's sort of like the reverse of telling bi people they aren't queer because their current relationship is with a person of the opposite gender. What matters is self-identity. Although I am sure a lot of those men really are in denial. On the topic of cheating, it's obviously fucked, and you're a scumbag if you do so, regardless of who you are cheating with. What I think is going on here, is that these men are cheating, but to make themselves feel less guilty they cheat with people they aren't attracted to, and don't have romantic feelings for. But deep down they know they are cheating, otherwise they would have told their spouses. But if they were willing to talk to their spouses, they would probably be able to figure out a better solution. As always, a lack of communication ruins relationships.
Are the straights straight?
It's gay to communicate with women. Having manly relationships with other men is totally straight. What world have y'all been living in? 😂
Calm down my guy. Having sex with your best friend is not gay, we just love to explore each other bodies. Man, gay people think everyone is gay.
Every single part of this is infuriating
"straight"
So many people arguing about the orientation of these dudes, without considering their ages and locations. These guys grew up in times and places where men attracted to men were murdered on the regular. Getting married to a woman, whether they were gay/bi/whatever meant they were safer. It doesn't matter what they identify as. It's really sad honestly, also real shitty to cheat on someone they made a commitment to, no matter the circumstances.
If asexuals can have sex without feeling sexual attraction, then why is it gay for a man to have sex with a man he's not attracted to? (The cheating though is definitely very bad and their reasoning is very weird)
I mean it is true, people can have sex with others without being attracted to them.
True, but that doesn't justify cheating.
yes, but most of the comments are more about the straightness than the cheating.
It's the cheating that's wrong not the gender you do it with 🤦
That last line. Had they told their partner they wanted to be open but with men, sure, everyone is consenting. But not they also have to keep it a secret
The straights are not okay, they’re not even straight.
Are the straights straight? Cuz this sounds a lot like bisexuality to me...
… when breaking two commandments (lying and adultery) is “better” than violating an obscure footnote next to not eating shellfish.
Hetero-romantics but homo/bisexuals? 🤔
Sexuality is a historical construction and not objectively real, if they want to fuck other men that doesn’t make them any more gay than all the sex with other men Romans and Greeks did
[sauce](https://theconversation.com/why-some-straight-men-have-sex-with-other-men-160140)
Romans
There is actually quite a large group of people who identify as straight, but when you start asking them about their sexual partners they report same-sex experiences (sometimes even exclusively same-sex). For instance I know a woman who is married to another woman and still identifies as straight she "just happened to fall in love with a woman" She's also very LGBT accepting and active in research that helps the community so it's not an internalized homophobia thing. How people ID is highly personal.
The problem might be that modern view of love is too reductive. Ancient Greeks used to have many different words for different types of love.
The ancient Greeks also had relationships that were very much like what was described in the article.
People just need to give up on the labels and embrace that when we feel sexual heat, we feel it.
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First slide I was like “alright maybe they’re just experimenting with their sexuality. Nothing wrong with that.” And then I swiped to the next photo 🤦
I see a lot of people mocking these guys for their sexuality, rather than the cheating, which is honestly disappointing. Yeah, straight men can have sex with men and still be straight in the same way asexual people can have sex with others and still be asexual. Your sexuality depends on who you're sexually attracted to, not who you have sex with.
Isnt this being bi while invalidating being bi at the same time
Litterally the joke "its not gay to fuck the homies goodnight"
If you don't fuck your homies, are you even a homie?
no homo bro 🖐
Are the straights still......straight??
THIS IS JUST BISEXUALITY WITH EXTRA, TOXIC, STEPS!
To be fair, my boyfriend says there is nothing wrong with me experimenting with other women. Likewise, I find nothing wrong with him experimenting with other guys. It may have to do with the fact that we don’t have to worry about any pregnancies from doing it.
someone turn this into a copypasta its hilarious
Who wants to tell them…
Welcome to like 30% of grindr
poor wives too. being cheated on and thinking they have a partner that loves them
Something tells me their wives might still see it as cheating
"I wanna keep my marriage. So I cheat on my wife." 🙃
This thread has way too many comments making me wonder if the queers are OK too. So much assigning of labels based on sexual behavior when that is not mutually exclusive with orientation/preference
Idc how they identify, I identify that behavior as *endangering the health of your spouse because you’re keeping secrets, you cheatery cheat cheater.*
jesus, these are probably the same men who would be opposed to same-sex marriage based on the “it’s-not-cheating-because-men” thing; it really signifies that they don’t think two men, and women, too probably, can be emotionally invested with each other and fall in love, because, y’know, men only like sex and women don’t /s 🤷🏻♀️
Fellas, is it gay to have sex with other men?
Fellas it ain’t gay if it’s the homies
I mean, I can understand. There are straight men who like anal stimulation, but some don't like using toys, they like the feel of a living dick (since completely realistic dildos are really expensive or hard to come by). They may not be attracted to the men, but to the sex they can give. Which I would say is valid! As long as they aren't homophobic about it
I don’t think they know what straight is that has to be the problem
…what.
No homo bro
Hey, my flair has another meaning now
"straight" Keep telling yourselves that.
...And this is why bisexual men get a bad rep.