Straight and gay men

It seems that whenever there is the potential for sexual attraction, we question the possibility of a truly platonic relationship.

After finding that so many of the men in the study’s sample already held cross-orientation friendships, McKie decided to pursue the area of research further to learn about these unique friendships: bromosexual friendships.

The Ultimate Wingman

A bromosexual friendship is a nonsexual friendship between two men, where typically one friend is gay (or bisexual), and the other is straight.

(They are completely off on Michael Fassbender and why did they use a mediocre photo of him?)

Moving one step along, in this video, buddies see each other naked for the first time, followed by the most awkward bearhugs ever.

The growing acceptance of homosexuality, however, has allayed some of these fears.

There are still barriers. Straight men also reported having more emotionally vulnerable conversations with their gay friends because they felt safer to do so, relative to attempting to discuss similar topics with other straight men.

Some of the straight men in the study also reported that having a close friend come out to them helped change their attitudes towards the LGBTQ community writ large, even to the point of becoming advocates for equality themselves.

You Won’t Find These Special Friendships Everywhere.

Despite the positive outcomes of bromosexual friendships, their prevalence still varies greatly across different geographic locations.

Gay men who disclose their sexual orientation to their straight male friends earlier in life may be able to build more open and honest friendships with them into adulthood.

Second, recent research has argued that gender and sexual orientation might not be as black and white as previously thought, which opens up new avenues for exploring how gay and straight men can relate to one another.

If a straight guy and his gay male friend are less rigid about their masculinity and sexuality, they’ll probably be more likely to discuss details about their sexual and romantic lives openly with one another. Along with his supervisor, Robb Travers, he launched a study that surveyed 350 straight men and 275 gay or bisexual men from across North America.

Homophobia was likely one reason; another was that straight men probably assumed they didn’t have much in common with gay men. In the case of bromosexual friendships, it appears that many in such relationships view each other as the ultimate wingman, particularly when cruising for potential dates in a bar setting (presumably in pre-COVID times)!

McKie’s research reported that straight participants felt that a gay friend made for the ultimate wingman because the gay friend could help to attract prospective partners for the straight friend.

Other research has shown that women prefer friendships with gay versus straight men, partly because the threat or looming question of sexual attraction is rendered moot.

For example, a gay friend could vouch for his straight friend’s good intentions to women. The lack of competition for the same prospective partners allows the friendship to flourish in a way that may be hindered to some degree for gay or straight men in friendships with men who share the same sexual orientation.

If they’re open-minded about befriending gay men and make the effort to try to forge friendships based upon common interests, gay men should feel more comfortable reciprocating.

So which straight men are the most likely to befriend gay men, and vice versa?

In North America, male affection is often regulated and restricted with homophobia and other social regulations, including fears of effeminacy.

After all, women commonly engage in many of the above activities with other women without any hangups or homophobia, particularly when it comes to recognizing the hotness of other women.

But as some of the men conclude at the end of the kissing video, all the taboos surrounding same-sex male affection can pretty much be chalked up to much ado about nothing.