Many of us have met men who identify as straight but have experimented sexually with other guys.
It’s an unusual trend and difficult to get to the root of. Are these guys secretly bisexual, pansexual, or queer? Are they gay and in the closet? Or are they just straight and wanted to try something… a little different?
The research backs up the anecdotal evidence about straight-identifying men who have gay sex. A survey of 24,000 undergraduate students released last year found that one eighth of men whose last hook-up was with a man actually identified as straight.
When similar figures were released by the CDC in 2016, LGBTQ Nation spoke to some of the “straight” men who have gay sex to try and get to the core of the question. They changed their names to protect their identities.
One of those men was a 46-year-old man living in California. Rob is married to a woman and identifies as “straight with bisexual tendencies.” He has been having sex with other men since he was 19-years-old.
Speaking to the news outlet, he explained: “Hooking up with other men, to me, is a non-complicated way of releasing sexual steam. It’s simply a physical release with no pressure.”
He also revealed that he prefers to have sex with other married men in secret and he meets them through dating sites and Craigslist.
“I do not want to jeopardize my marriage. Another married man can understand that. Other married men are not willing to take as many risks.”
The main risk is of “falling in love,” he said.
One of the men has a ‘casual girlfriend’ but meets up with ‘buddies’ for sex.
Meanwhile, Tony said he has a “casual” girlfriend and only recently started to identify as bisexual. He occasionally meets up with “buddies” for sex.
He explained that he first started having sex with other men when he was 21 and started off sleeping with a married man.
I’ve messed around with about a dozen guys since then. It isn’t often, usually when it feels like my marriage is in a slump or getting boring. It actually invigorates me.
“My challenge is that New York City is a very feminine gay city, and that’s not my type. I’m only into guys who are DL, not being noticed as gay. That’s my protocol. When I find someone who’s a match I keep him as a regular.”
He also revealed that he would be “afraid of telling someone” that he was in a relationship with a man.
Elsewhere, Andrew – who lives in New Orleans – has been married to his wife since he was 21 and identifies as totally straight. However, he started feeling the urge to “try something different” two years after they tied the knot.
“I’ve messed around with about a dozen guys since then. It isn’t often, usually when it feels like my marriage is in a slump or getting boring. It actually invigorates me.”
Last year’s statistics around “straight” identifying men who have sex with other men were published in Archives of Sexual Behaviour. The study found that men who identify as straight but have gay sex had “more conservative attitudes.”
Many ‘straight’ men who have gay sex have strong religious beliefs.
The researchers also found that there were distinct types of straight people who would engage in gay sex.
“Three types,” they explained, “comprising 60% of students, could be classified as mostly private sexual experimentation among those with little prior same-sex experience, including some who did not enjoy the encounter.”
But, Kuperberg and Walker continued, “the other two types in this group enjoyed the encounter, but differed on drunkenness and desire for a future relationship with their partner.”
Meanwhile, 28 percent of the students reported having “strong religious practices and/or beliefs that may preclude a non-heterosexual identity, including 7 percent who exhibited ‘internalised heterosexism.’”
So, maybe the answer about straight-identifying men having gay sex is even more complicated than we originally thought.