Jesse Ford is a PhD student in sociology at New York University. She recently conducted a study where she interviewed men who say they’ve had unwanted, nonconsensual sex with women.
“The goal was to dig deeper into the experiences of these men: how the sex unfolded, why they didn’t want it in the first place and why they didn’t just say, ‘No.'” Ford explains.
The study, which was published by Oxford Academic, was inspired by the #MeToo movement and the lack of male voices coming forward to take about their experiences. Ford interviewed a total of 39 college-aged men from various ethnic background who all reported having unwanted sex with women.
Ford explains:
It’s important to clarify the difference between “unwanted sex” and “assault.” With sex that’s unwanted (but not assault), a person makes a choice to have sex even though they could have stopped it. In contrast, with sexual assault or rape, the sex is both unwanted and forced. In other words, all sexual assault is unwanted sex, but not all unwanted sex is sexual assault.
The men that I interviewed felt they could have stopped the encounter, but didn’t for various reasons. These men were reluctant to call their experiences sexual assault, and were more comfortable with terms such as “unwanted” and “nonconsensual.”
Ford quickly noticed a pattern as to why the men said they engaged in unwanted sex with women: pressure.
“(T)here is this social pressure that men like sex a lot and women can choose yes or no,” one man told him. “So I guess it makes you unmanly if you don’t want to have sex.”
“When a girl comes on to you, you’re just like ‘OK, I’ll accept this’ because that almost never happens,” another said. “That was a lot of why I went ahead with it.”
A third man added: “I even said ‘thank you’ afterwards even though I didn’t really want to have sex. I was still playing the role of someone who wanted to be in that moment … I didn’t want to give off any impressions of weirdness.”
Ford writes:
Many described having unwanted sex in order to project an image and to take advantage of a sexual opportunity. They worried that saying “no” to sex might be strange, immature, offensive or emasculating. A looming fear was ridicule, and they didn’t want to be talked about as the kind of man who rejects sex with an attractive woman, lest others might see them as a “virgin,” an “idiot” or someone who’s “gay.”
“I do think it’s important to understand how and why it happens,” she concludes. “And it does make me wonder if it’s a missing piece in the overall debate over sex in our culture.”
Related: Why do people have so much trouble believing male victims of sexual assault?
Chrisk
More and more. Are you kidding me? Normal heterosexual men don’t obsess on what others are thinking about their sexuality anymore then I do as a gay man.
Chrisk
I think culture should be examined here. The more oppressive it is the weirder guys become about sex.
GetReal101
Unless you are a pushover or a doormat, why is it hard to say no? Most of our problems appear to be saying Yes, not No. It’s easy to say No. Just man up.
Donston
Here we go with this “be a man” nonsense. That pov obviously is not working for a great percentage of people. When something’s not working there needs to be other avenues. And yes, this “be a man” thing is as much of a “cultural” issue as anything else. Also, again, the article isn’t strictly about gay men but all men. I know the articles here are typically nonsense. But because the headlines are often clickbait-like you need to actually read the content.
Donston
It is true that men all over the spectrum have unwanted sex just to “prove” things to themselves and others. Sex is supposed to be about “conquering” for guys, which does put greater pressure on them to indulge it even when they don’t want to. Hell, even some openly gay/homo-leaning men have sex with women not for fun or to try something different but just to “prove” that they aren’t scared of lady parts or to prove that they’re not misogynists. Sociological pressures are abound.
Record Man
Maybe I’m missing something here, but I don’t understand how a gay man can have unwanted sex with a woman. If he’s not aroused, how can he do the deed?
Donston
First, there are people who see “gay” not as inherently and completely homosexual but as having overall same-sex romantic, sexual and emotional instincts, fullfillment and contentment. Second, “sex” doesn’t always mean traditional intercourse. And lastly, the article is about men in general having sex with women to “prove” their orientation. It’s not strictly about gay men.
Heywood Jablowme
“When a girl comes on to you, you’re just like ‘OK, I’ll accept this’ because that almost never happens,” another said. “That was a lot of why I went ahead with it.”
If “that almost never happens,” how are “more and more” men doing this?
Donston
That person is talking about their personal experience only. But people having sex with individuals that they don’t really want to due to ego, sociology, money, convenience, etc. is really nothing new and isn’t some big revelation.
Billy Budd
I was very attractive, actually extremely cute as a boy, and I lost count of how many girls tried to take me to bed -or even have me for a nice make out session-. I always, always said, explicitly or implicitly, that NO was the answer. My fear of women was greater than my shame. Only during Brazilian Carnival festivities, when I had a lot of alcohol in my head, I engaged in softcore heterosexual activities. But my dick was limp as a noodle, all the time. I guess MOST, probably more than 90% of truly gay guys would not get hard enough to penetrate a women in normal circumstances.
Donston
Once again, the article isn’t about gay men.
Donston
Also, most famous men who are gay-identifying have admitted to having sex with women, having some type of sexual activity with women, having some type of attraction to women and/or having relationships with women. This would include Elton John, Neil Patrick Harris, Gus Kenworthy, Ian Mckellen, Zachery Quinto, Colton Haynes and so on and so forth. So, people need to update their idea of “truly gay”, or there perhaps eventually won’t be any famous gay-identifying men.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
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RobtheElder
What difference would it make if a gay man was known to be a gay man? I’ve never made a fuss about it, nor has it ever mattered to me. What do these gay men think will happen if they’re known to be gay. It’s certainly not as damning as not having a spontaneous erection when a likely female presents the opportunity to engage her sexually. This seems like a tempest in the proverbial teapot to me… RobtheElder
DCguy
1. NOTHING in the study said that “More and More” men are having sex with women to prove they are gay. She interviewed one group and did no examination of whether or not things had changed.
2. Gay men have been doing this forever…..how many gay men are divorced or currently stepping out on their wives.
How does doing a “Study” on something that is practically the norm constitute not only a headline but an incorrect one?
draven
I’m black gay. 57 years old. I think Black guys do this a lot. I attract a lot of ultra straight alpha black men. It’s very interesting.
DHT
the only thing that has changed is that more and more men are willing to admit that they unhappily have to give their dicks to their “wives” and girlfriends” when what they really want to do is give it to any guy they see instead.