Slate writer Kyle Mustain conducted an informal study of nearly 87,000 Bateworld users, a website known as “Facebook for masturbators,” to better understand the site’s self-proclaimed “straight” men who nonetheless enjoy masturbating with other dudes.
Mustain estimated that 15 to 30% of Bateworld’s users probably identify as straight: This includes some of the site’s bisexuals who might publicly be closeted and identify as straight offline, as well as some of the 5% of users who’d “rather not say” their sexual orientation.
He then used Bateworld’s user-created polling questionnaires to ask questions like, “Is mutual masturbation gay?,” “Which of the following actions make a person gay?” and “How important are straight adult videos when jerking off with another dude?”
For his first question, 82% of 565 respondents said that mutual masturbation isn’t gay. For his second question, most men said that “kissing another guy” and “becoming emotionally involved with a male sex partner,” are the most gay things you can do with another man. For his third question, only 1% said “[straight adult videos are] the sole focus” when masturbating with other men — the other respondents ascribed varying degrees of importance to adult videos during their whack-off sessions.
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“According to these responders,” Mustain wrote, “touching a c*ck isn’t gay; lips touching lips is gay; and for that matter, heart touching heart is really gay.”
He continues, “It can be frustrating, seeing straight men debate the infinitesimal difference between touching your own c*ck and someone else’s, hearing each one hand-wring about ‘how far he’ll go,’ and whether double penetration or using a Fleshlight on a friend is gay.”
In his article, Mustain references the 2015 book by sociologist Jane Ward, Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men, in which Ward says that straight white men who have sexual encounters with other men often employ “props, costumes and dialogue” that seemingly uphold their heterosexuality rather than threaten it.
“They get drunk and stoned, watch heterosexual porn, and they talk about ‘p*ssy,’” Jane writes. “The [personal] ads draw heavily upon the model of adolescent friendship, or the presumably meaningless and proto-sexual circle jerk. [They also mention] nostalgic commentary about being buddies or ‘bros’ and sharing ‘legit’ male bonding experiences…”
Mustain concludes, “What I have found on BateWorld is that these lines between ‘just fucking around’ and ‘kinda gay’ and ‘OK, that’s really gay’ are indeed superficial and imaginary.” He says they’re also based upon a heterocentrist world where “straight” is seen as the default.
Related: Author of “dude sex” study talks about straight men hooking up with straight men and much, much more
Mustain isn’t the first person to delve into this topic.
In 2016, a University of Oregon sociology doctoral student interviewed 19 men who used the M4M casual encounters section of Craigslist about their sexual habits and identities. He found they used terms like “dude sex,” “heteroflexible,” “bud-sex,” “helpin’ a buddy out” and relieving “urges” to frame their desire.
He also found that these men often sought out “straight-identifying” and married men, rejecting effeminate or “flaming” men to avoid any romantic or emotional entanglements that might complicate their daily lives.
In 2017, Ritch C. Savin-Williams, a professor emeritus of development psychology at Cornell University, described a rising group of “mostly straight” men who feel more comfortable with their same-sex attraction. Nevertheless even these men refuse the “bisexual” label as “too gay” for their predominantly heterosexual orientations.
It’s important to remember that a guy can have a same-sex experience without having to identify as gay or bi, just as many gay men have had experiences with women without identifying as straight. Rather, our preoccupation with solid sexual identities might entirely result from societal heterocentrism and homophobia rather than an inherent need to identify as one way or another.
Even animal behaviorists avoid assigning sexual orientations to animals, preferring to say that some creatures exhibit same- or different-sex sexual behaviors for a set time. This allows greater flexibility and accuracy than allowed by rigid sexual orientations.
mr guy
I see Daniel V has been put on the Graham Gremore str8guy beat (off)
OzJosh
These surveys – which seem to come along every month or so – are wonderfully superficial. The conclusion is always “guys can have sex with guys and be not even a little bit gay”. But having met and had sex with many of these guys I’m willing to bet my own personal survey is way more nuanced. And when you delve deeper into these guys attitudes and behaviours a very different picture frequently emerges. Some of these “straight” guys who just like “dude sex” turn out to like “dude sex” on a weekly or daily basis and haven’t been anywhere near a vagina in years or decades. Exactly how “straight” is that? Others have a wife or girlfriend, but clearly get more of a buzz from their “buddy sex” encounters and spend half their lives pursuing these encounters on the down-low. Exactly how “straight” is that? Others will maintain the fiction that they’re only interested in mutual masturbation or in “being serviced”, but in the throes of sex will go down on you and display astounding expertise at it, or beg to be screwed – “just to see what it’s like”. Yeah, right. Exactly how “straight” is that?
barkomatic
There are undoubtedly men who are having sex with other guys who just can’t admit they are gay and maybe that’s even the majority. However, I think there are legitimately *mostly* straight guys who will fool around with other men just to get off because it’s so easy. If a straight guy doesn’t have a girlfriend it can be much more complicated for him to get sex with a woman. Combine that with a young man’s strong sex drive and it’s actually feasible that he’ll just open up Grindr and get sex in minutes–even if it’s not exactly what he wants it’s good enough. Or, they are just curious to see what they’re missing with all the gay couples on TV and movies.
It goes the other way too kinda. I met a gay guy who admitted to me he was pretending to be straight because he wanted to have children with a future girlfriend and then get married. His plan was to divorce after about 5 years and “come out”. It’s strange how some people manage their lives.
LARRY
Did you by any chance ask if keeping your socks on means it aint gay? A friend who is a teacher has told us the current thing in highschool is if you keep your socks on it aint gay! ROFLMAO have never understood why Americans are so gawddog puritan when it comes to sex…who I F**K has nothing to do with whether I am gay or not.