Straight male friends
Friendeavours: Why Every Woman Needs A Platonic Straight Male Friend
Sing hosannas, for I have a male friend! A male friend without benefits. This has never happened to me before. I know, I realize – it’s primitive in this day and age to be so gendered. And there hasn’t been a huge gaping hole in my life because my female friends grant me everything I deserve. And I’ve got excellent gay male mates, but straight males have always eluded me. It’s more of a niggling curiosity as to why I have been so incapable, when so many of my female friends come across to have perfectly platonic friendships with members of the opposite sex.
I’ve tried to have male friends in the past, but something has always gone wrong when they got close (we’ve ended up kissing). And then the friendship has become untenably awkward. Both times, the romance wasn’t something I wanted to pursue, but it was impossible to get the simple friendship back. And I had to ask myself – painfully, guiltily – whether it was ever friendship at all? Or was there some kind of agenda, on one or both sides? But then, I do really yearn one of thos
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I have always been queer as fuck, but when I was younger I somehow also managed to be what those invested in the gender binary might contact a “boy’s boy.” I loved sports and fighting and discovering new ways to find myself covered in filth. I’m not quite sure how much of that can be attributed solely to the gender conditioning that was very much a feature of my growing up, and how much of it was just me. I am still struggling to figure that out.
I&#;ve long been divesting from the gender binary, so I know that my queerness doesn&#;t inherently have to be in opposition to sports and a lack of regard for hygiene simply because I was assigned male at birth and no longer identify with maleness, but gender conditioning really fucked me up. Rejecting that conditioning is unquestionably a necessity I walked through the crowd at DC’s Capital Pride on June 8 as groups were lining up to set off on the Pride parade. Walking down a crowded side street, I saw one of the loveliest men in town, a vertical ally. He greeted me warmly, hugged me, and kissed me on the cheek. I idea happily, how times have changed! Despite the risk we now encounter of legal setbacks from a right-wing Supreme Court, the greater social and cultural acceptance Homosexual people have won is largely beyond the reach of politicians and judges. Changed expectations are hard to erase. Generational change is not the same everywhere. Cities attract people who take diversity more in stride. Urban/rural divides open us to wedge politics. We have more work to do to help people notice that differences are not a threat. Something I have experienced more frequently in recent years is straight men who enjoy the company of gay men, and even flirt with them. They are not interested sexually, but neither are they threatened in any way. I find it refreshing. I have had straight neighbors like that. One was a mix of Anglo and Asia On a recent episode of Male Up, a gay bloke, Sam, wants to construct more straight male friends. Aymann Ismail tries to find out what’s behind that mindset with the help of Alex De Luca, founder of Gaybros, a subreddit for same-sex attracted men. This transcript of their conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity. Aymann Ismail: What is it exactly that you expect to get out of a straight male friendship that you wouldn’t otherwise get from someone else, like maybe a gay friend? Sam: I consider we find ourselves more comfortable with people who are similar to us, so having a friendship with a gay dude, I am going to automatically have conversations that are diff
Why Straight Bros Are Crucial to Gay Guys