Friday, November 9, 2007

Conversations with Straight Guys

Once I heard of a study that was done on how different straight men reacted towards gay men. I am not sure if this is an actual study or one of those myths that gets started in the gay community. If true the results were as follows, guys that had gay male friends when tested showed no signs of being sexually attracted to men in any way. The thinking was that because they were sure and confident in their heterosexuality, they felt completely comfortable around gay men. On the opposite side, men that were convicted of gay bashing, and were asked to take part in the study as part of a lighter sentence, showed signs of sexual excitement towards other males, especially to wrestling or fighting scenes. The thinking was that these men had some levels of bisexuality maybe some even gay and they could not deal with it. We often have heard this, the man can not deal with his same sex attraction so to convince others around him he is not gay, he becomes the most violent person against them. I think there is probably a lot of truth to that and if not, well I think we should spread that around anyway, what a perfect revenge for us to have everyone thinking gay bashers just really want to smoke pole!

In coming out, so far it has been going well. To be honest with everyone, I keep saying over and over this is no run of good luck. I have been reading my friends for a while now and know who will take it alright and who to hold off on telling for now. I say this so as not to give someone a false sense of everything being rosie and have them expose themselves to a bad situation. Thinking of which straight guys to tell, I looked to the ones that seemed the most comfortable with themselves. As of now not many male friends know, mostly because I just never had the right moment to tell some of them but it is not out of fear of rejection. The only reason that I have told a lot of my women friends is because they dropped in so I had the chance to sit down with them and talk. Thinking of which guys to tell first, made me think of the funny, strange and down right kinky conversations that I have had with these guys, that shows me how comfortable they are with themselves. The following conversations were with 100% straight guys, some even married with kids, I know what you are thinking but trust me they are straight.

Guy #1 does not know I am gay, says "men have much nicer feet than women".
Me, asks "huh, wha, wha, what did you just say?"
Guy #1, "men have much more attractive feet than women, the shoes women wear make their toes curl, get pointy and gnarly".
Me, "uhm yeah OK what ever." He is right when I think about it, I am not a foot fetish person but I do notice guys who have nice feet and I do find it attractive, however the top view only, the bottom of a person's feet does nothing for me.

Guy #2 does not know I am gay, says "I always check other guys out in the gym shower."
Me, asks "What! Why?"
Guy #2 says, "hey I'm just being honest here, no big deal and you can't tell me that most other guys don't do that, I want to see how I compare to other men."
Me, laughs and asks, "so how do you measure up?"
Guy #2 "ooh those really tall guys over 6'1 are hung like donkeys!"
Me, laughing my ass off and also wishing I went to his gym.

Guy #3 says "I think you are gay Steven and I don't care if you are, but if I was gay also I would not pick you for a boyfriend."
Me, surprised asks, "why not?"
Guy #3 says "you are too picky and I would never feel comfortable in our home because you would get mad at me for being messy!"
Guy #4 who was also there says, "oh great he would pick me for a boyfriend because I'm messy!"
Guy #3 says "no way I would pick you for a boyfriend because you wear a size 12 shoe, so you are not coming near my backside with that thing!"
Me laughing so hard and thinking if they only knew!

Guy #5 does not know I am gay but suspects strongly and tells me constantly to trust him and come out to him. One day he says to me "I tried tasting myself."
Me, shocked asks, "Whoa! What? What do you mean?"
Guy #5 "I tasted myself one day while masturbating, I wanted to see what it tastes like for my girlfriend when she gives me head."
Me, stunned says "wow that is really open minded of you." I was really thinking that is pretty hot, plus for a straight friend to trust me enough to tell me that is kind of awesome as well.

Guy #6 knows I am gay, says while watching spiderman "do you think Tobey Maguire is cute?"
Me, answers "yes, very cute, I have a thing for him."
Guy #6 says "nah not me, I don't really think he is good looking but you know I could see you two together."
Me, smiles at how cool that conversation was with a straight friend.

This is one of the reasons I believe there is truth to the statement that guys who are OK with having gay friends are totally straight. They are comfortable with their sexuality and so do not need to hide their true feelings or prove anything to anyone. On a final thought to that, I remember once being at a wedding and a guy kept making loud anti-gay comments, they were directed towards one of the servers there who was almost certainly gay. Years later the same guy that was making the rude comments, came out to his friends and family, yep he was a closet case! Probably this is not the same with every anti-gay behaviour or situation that comes up but from now on when ever I see anyone that really struggles with and is hostile towards gays and lesbians, I will switch on my gaydar and scan more closely! This is because I will wonder what are they trying to hide by using hatred to divert attention away from themselves.

8 comments:

Paul said...

Great conversations. I'm glad you're so comfortable talking about shoe sizes in mixed company.

Pete said...

Great post. I totally agree with your point here: the greatest homophobes are the worst closet cases, even though I can't ever remember being like that.

TWISI said...

Straight guys are cool for the mostpart.

Steven said...

I agree with your viewpoint as well. I think it may also depend on the "setting" or if there is a group of men. Peer pressure plays a big part on how homophobic some people are. Or maybe not homophobic if that person was by himself. Although I can say like Pete said, I can never remember being like that.

Wayne said...

Interesting observation. I think you're probably right about straight men. If they're comfortable with themself, they're okay with you being gay.

Sooo-this-is-me said...

Paul, I think we all know that the shoe size thing does not really hold true but it was really funny that they brought it up and not me!

I can't believe none of you caught onto the little fib I told the other day about myself! Me an eight, ha, only if I had an accident with the vacuum cleaner!

Pete, thanks buddy, as for myself, I was not really mean but I did tell gay jokes to hide the fact.

Kendall, I will agree, when actually given the chance to know a gay guy, most are ok with it.

Steven, so true, guys that maybe would never say anything may do it more in a group just so as not to be singled out.

Wayne, I am really finding that out, makes sense to, if you are totally straight then why worry what a gay may do or say.

K, true also, some guys are just into causing trouble and it does not matter who they make fun of, gays, race, religions, even handicapped people! Yep they can suck a big one!

Bill, glad to hear you have straight male friends like this. Like I keep saying I never thought that my most supportive friend would be a straight man.

Anonymous said...

I've found that most of my best friends, male or female, are straights. There's just something about the gay culture/community that involves too much posturing and living up to ridiculous self-imposed expectations. I have no time for it and have found time and again that after you've finally peeled back all of those layers to find the "real" person, there isn't all that much there. This is of course a generalization as I do have gay friends but I don't go out of my way to find any either.

Dave Batton said...

You're right on-track here. I'm completely straight, and very comfortable with my sexuality. What you suspect, I think many straight men see very clearly: Most homophobic men are afraid of their own sexual thoughts. Sad for them.

The straight men I know have no problem with gay men. Leaves more cute women for us to chose from. ;-)