My weekly column at the Good Men Project came as the site focuses on gay men (in honor of Pride month.) My piece, Our Other Brothers: Gay and Straight Men as Friends, focuses on male friendship across the boundaries of sexual identity. Excerpt:
There seem to be two predictable obstacles to friendship between gay and straight men. First, of course, is the “sex thing.” Many straight guys worry that their gay friends are or might be sexually attracted to them. My friend Cole is straight, and often played basketball with a group of buddies, of whom two were gay. They changed and showered in the same locker room after their games. Cole often wondered how his gay buddies handled seeing so many naked men. “I know if I were in the women’s locker, seeing a lot of good-looking women naked, I’d be turned on. I figured it had to the same for gay guys, and the thought creeped me out.”
But as Cole found out when he finally asked, most gay men in our culture grow up surrounded by naked male bodies. They tend to learn to separate nudity from sexuality in a way that straight men don’t. (Ask anyone who grew up in a nudist family, and they’ll tell you the same thing.) Though some gay men are attracted to their straight friends, many aren’t. And those that are are usually very good at keeping that attraction boxed away so that it cannot hurt the friendship.
Gay men have their own fears about straight men. Boys who come out as gay—or are suspected of being gay—are often mercilessly tormented, with the worst of the abuse coming from heterosexual guys. Because American culture sets up masculinity and homosexuality as polar opposites, boys who want to prove their manhood must reject the “faggot” label and all that comes with it. That rejection often shows up in verbal and physical violence against anyone suspected of being gay.
Read the whole thing.
I’d basically agree on everything, but since you mention the locker room, one of my first experiences with gay people was, similar to yours, during an acting/singing workshop. And it was one of the gay guys in the workshop who voiced your heterosexual friend’s concerns: “I’m not showering with all those hets”, he said.
I also totally agree that there’s nothing odd about a friendship between a heterosexual and a gay guy – but then again one of my best friends is woman (whom I do find sexually attractive but who I still don’t want to have sex with, even if she weren’t in a relationship).
The one thing that’s always eluded me is this: Girls have their gay guy friend – and boy *they do talk about men in ways heterosexual men never talk about women, seriously* – but there’s really not a lot of friendships between heterosexual men and lesbian women, in my experience. I know quite a few lesbian women, but I can’t think of any of them having a male friend in the way gay guys have female friends, or even lesbian women and straight men talking about women like gay men and straight women talk about men all the time. I think I remember a total of two conversations with a lesbian friend about women, and they were brief compared even by male standards of talking about emotional stuff.
So, to me, when it comes to “other” siblings, the “other” sister is the more elusive candidate for friendships, and I’m not sure why.
Any idea?
Sam, can you really not think of any reason why that might be?
mythago, you mean because men are less open to such friendships? Why?
el, why are you asking me? Sam is a smart guy and I find it hard to believe he is completely at a loss for theories.
Mythago,
well, the only thing I can think of is that lesbians don’t trust their potential male friends since male sexuality is considered dangerous. But somehow I doubt you were trying to make that point…
What point did you think I was trying to make, Sam?
Because frankly I found it hard to believe that you had really given the matter a lot of thought and found yourself utterly baffled and at wit’s end to find a single reason. More that you were looking for reasons to say that gay men are decent and lesbians are man-hating bitches, which in fact you just did. Thanks for being predictable.
Myathago,
I don’t know which point you were going to make, but I doubt it was the one I was referring to. Honestly, I’m baffled by the aggression you’re projecting here. At no point did I suggest lesbians are man hating bitches (some may be, but I don’t know any). Wondering about whether they may trust men as friends was more about making the point that male sexuality is portrayed as at least potentially sociopathic (as an extension of what Hugo calls the myth of male weakness). What has that to do with lesbians being man-hating bitches?
I had only 1 theory that culture teaches men to view lesbians badly in a way it doesn’t influence women’s view of gay men. But since I have zero personal experience, I have some difficulty to identify why it would be different to such extent. I’ve certainly seen homophobic women too! They are hardly an exception to the rule.
When a person I know to be intelligent and thoughtful suddenly poses as Captain Clueless, it reeks of concern-trolling. That makes me shirty.
When you say that “male sexuality is considered dangerous” – carefully using the passive – you’re implying that the reason lesbians don’t hang with straight men more is that they, like their straight sisters, think all men are voracious rapists.
Look, Sam: you’re a straight man, correct? Do you have lesbian friends? If not, why not? Have you tried to become friends with lesbians only to be rebuffed? Do you just not know any lesbians? For that matter, how is your pool of non-lesbian female friends?
There’s a dynamic I see with lots of out gay men – though not myself and more on that later – in which they come out, they start dating and make gay friends and very shortly find themselves living in a social world inhabited by mostly gay men. They go to dinner with gay friends, they go to happy hour with gay friends, they go on vacation with gay friends. And they form stable relationships with gay men. Their social world includes family and some friends from “before” but they inhabit a largely gay male world. And frankly they seem happier because of it – the warp and woof of such a life is defined by people who “get it.” The “it” of course being what it means to be gay in society. They get less crazed about things in general and within a circle of gay men, even the butchest man can act queeny and sashay down the sidewalk no one says a word. Try that in front of . . . almost any straight man. These gay men keep straight men – and even straight women – at a considered distance. Not out of hostility but frankly out of common sense. It’s not uncommon from even the most supportive straight people to have the end of a relationship treated as unserious; amongst one’s gay friends, you can mourn the end of a relationship and they will support you.
But I’ve seen in my own life there’s a price you pay in the gay community for choosing to spend most of your time with straight people and to count them as friends and colleagues and to want to not get trapped in a gay subculture. I’m not sure I can explain it well, as we’re not always the best at understanding our own lives, but almost all my friends are straight and have been for years and years. It’s oddly as if I don’t know how to act with other gay men when I date. So, I find myself rather marooned in the straight world. And, my straight male friends are amazing people but there’s always that unspoken fear with them that what if I say the wrong thing? I know other gay men who are in the same boat so I know it’s not just me.
There’s another aspect to it, as well. My straight friends appreciate me for my skills, my abilities, my brain, in a way that most of my gay friends can’t or don’t or won’t. I can be competent and professional with straight people and that’s not something I’ve experienced with other gay men – who as often as not are either intimidated by those aspects or who are just uninterested. I have a small circle of gay men almost all of whom are partnered and with whom I can be professional, I am respected for my skills.
There was a scene in Will and Grace where Will is hugging Grace, Jack walks in and says “Do you ever touch men?” The problem is at a certain point if you are up to your ears in the world of being gay then sometimes it feels as if, no, you never touch men.
It’s entirely possible I’m simply in an odd and somewhat dysphoric mood tonight.
Mythago,
“When you say that “male sexuality is considered dangerous” – carefully using the passive – you’re implying that the reason lesbians don’t hang with straight men more is that they, like their straight sisters, think all men are voracious rapists.
not necessarily rapists, but that “men and women cannot be friends”, with the unspoken addendum “as long as there’s at least potential sexual interest on the part of the man” – which is why gay-male/heterosexual-female friendships are exempt from that rule, as the male friend isn’t the one with potential interest in that case.
“Look, Sam: you’re a straight man, correct? Do you have lesbian friends? If not, why not? Have you tried to become friends with lesbians only to be rebuffed? Do you just not know any lesbians? For that matter, how is your pool of non-lesbian female friends?”
Friends is a complicated word these days. I have a significant number of lesbian women who are friends on facebook (almost as many as gay men), a smaller number of whom I’d consider actual friends, including one whom I just helped get her new job and who may become a closer friend in the future, but I don’t yet have *truly close* lesbian friends. I’ve once fallen in love with a lesbian woman, and it wasn’t easy, but while I’d still say she’s a friend, we were never *close* friends, before or after. Do bisexual women count? The woman responsible for my dopamine high during our last discussion is bisexual, and she’s (now at least) a closer friend. I also have a pretty big pool of (straight) female friends. At my last birthday party the female/male ratio was almost 2:1. As for my *closest* friends, there’s two (straight) women and three (straight) men…
I’m not saying lesbian women don’t interact with men. But I hardly ever see the kind of close personal relationship between lesbian women and men that I can see on an ongoing basis between gay guys and women, and not just on tv. Both my sister and my best female friends have their close gay friend. The only close friendship between a guy and a lesbian woman I ever came across was between the lesbian woman I had fallen in love with and her flatmate.
I don’t know, maybe it’s just odd personal statistics, but in my world, there’s a significant gender-asymmetry in gay/straight-friendships, and I don’t really understand why.
Sam, “male sexuality is considered dangerous” is not quite the same as “men are uninterested in friendships with women unless those friendships lead to sex.”
If you have lesbian friends, have you asked them? Have you considered why you don’t have lesbian ‘buddies’? Is it simply that for you, friendship is not as easy as it might be for another person, and so making friends with lesbians is not any less complicated than for other friendships?
I ask this because, to be blunt, I’m not interested in playing the game where I suggest reasons that straight guy/gay girl friendships might be less common (or at least, less common as a meme) so that you or some Angry Guy can turn each reason into See, Bitches Are Mean To Us.
Hugo, you could be an expert on being friends with lesbians. You always had this weird chaste harem of girls who liked girls who followed you around.
Mythago,
again, I’m baffled by the aggression.
“Sam, “male sexuality is considered dangerous” is not quite the same as “men are uninterested in friendships with women unless those friendships lead to sex.””
Not quite, sure. But in most discussions the latter seems to be treated as a subset of the former.
“Have you considered why you don’t have lesbian ‘buddies’? Is it simply that for you, friendship is not as easy as it might be for another person, and so making friends with lesbians is not any less complicated than for other friendships?”
Again, it’s not just that I don’t have any lesbian buddies, it’s that – in my perception – the number of guys with lesbian buddies is minuscule compared to the number of women with gay friends. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t think making/being *close* friends with a lesbian woman would be different from making friends with a heterosexual woman.
“I ask this because, to be blunt, I’m not interested in playing the game where I suggest reasons that straight guy/gay girl friendships might be less common (or at least, less common as a meme) so that you or some Angry Guy can turn each reason into See, Bitches Are Mean To Us.”
See Bitches Are Mean To Us??? I’m not sure what you’re talking about/worried about – I mentioned an asymmetry I note in my personal life and I stated that I have no good reason for that. It seems to me that asking the lesbians I know about their male friends the next time it’s appropriate is going to be more productive than continuing this conversation, particularly if you’re worried about something I don’t understand, which is likely to lead to more miscommunication.
“To be treated” by whom? “Most discussions” involving whom?
Are those two sterotypes related? Well, duh. Patriarchy. Are they the same thing? No. “Male sexuality is dangerous” is about men being some kind of innate and unchangeable threat, like thunderstorms or wasps. the latter touches on the stereotype of man-as-horndog, but also on the idea that women are only good for one thing, and if you’re not getting that, what’s the point.
First, I’m not sure why you didn’t ask them in the first place; second, I’d be interested in a good-faith discussion about this, but I’m not at all confident that’s what would happen. *shrug*