These loopholes are always there, but they shift and evolve over time.ĪTTN: You have said you have a problem with the "born this way" argument. There have always been loopholes in the dictate to restrict oneself to procreative sex, if that’s what you mean. JW: Straightness itself is a very recent notion, only about one hundred years old. Women experience much more leeway and in fact are often subject to the opposite assumption straight men tend to think that anything women do sexually is about them! Even when you identify as a lesbian, like I do, straight men think you just haven’t found the right man yet.ĪTTN: Was there ever an era in which homosexual practices among straight men were less stigmatized? Even just one homosexual experience is automatically interpreted to mean that a man is bisexual or gay, unless the contact happens in one of the ways that the dominant culture has prescribed for straight men. JW: Unlike women, men are subject to a “one drop rule” when it comes to homosexual contact. But that’s not something to celebrate it’s something to examine with a close feminist eye.ĪTTN: Why do straight men face such enormous pressure to rationalize or deny their same-sex experiences? Do women face the same pressure? JW: From the perspective of heteronormativity, the benefit is that these kinds of homosexual activity often bolster men’s heteromasculinity.
How many men? Well, if we think about the number of men who have served in the military… I think that’s a good place to start.ĪTTN: Are there benefits, in your opinion, to straight men dabbling in homosexual behavior? It’s about participating in longstanding hetero-masculine rituals that incorporate homosexual contact as part of the work of building heterosexual men. JW: It’s not about “experimenting,” because this implies, at least to me, a conscious choice. They are often doing it as an expression of homophobia, or to prove exactly how hetero-masculine they are.ĪTTN: How large a percentage - based on your research- of the straight male population would you predict has experimented with same-sex relations? Instead, I’m shedding light on the fact that straight men touch each other’s penises and anuses a lot, often in hyper-masculine environments like fraternities and the military, and in many cases they don’t understand this touching to be sexual.
I am not saying that straight men are sexually fluid at their core, or that straight men are actually bisexual or pansexual but they just don’t know it yet. Many people posit that sexual fluidity is a capacity we are either born with or we’re not.
So the actual mechanics of the behavior are basically the same (for men and women), but the cultural narratives that justify it are different.ĪTTN: Do you hypothesize that the sexuality of most straight males is more fluid than we realize? For straight-identified women, hooking up with another woman is often a show for male spectators, but for straight men homosexual contact is typically expressed as a form of vulgar and homophobic joking, hazing or initiation, or as drunken stunts. Just as mainstream culture allows for straight women to have sexual contact with women and maintain a straight identity- straight men also have these opportunities, but they look different from women’s opportunities. JW: Because touching other people’s bodies is fun! And because people are curious. ALSO: Why Do Men Use The Word "Fag?"ĪTTN: As simply as you can put it, why do straight men have sex with each other? Her new book, Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men, is available now through the NYU Press. Professor Ward spoke with ATTN: about why many straight men engage in sexual activity with each other and their frequently homophobic rationalizations of why. Jane Ward is an associate professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of California Riverside, where she teaches courses in feminist, queer, and heterosexuality studies.