Gay straight male friendships
By Karen Blair, Ph.D., and Trent University Students Laura Orchard and Bre O'Handley
“We fell into each other’s arms because of our similarities in our career and because of our age and because we appreciate the same sort of things.” This quote could quite likely be the beginning of a wonderful romance story, but instead, it is a quote about friendship delivered toThe Huffington Post by Sir Ian McKellen about his decade’s long friendship with Sir Patrick Stewart.
The two men first came to know each other well on the set of the first X-Men motion picture in 1999, and although the duo played adversaries on the silver screen, offscreen, they were developing a shut friendship. On the set, the two men had adjoining trailers, where they spent more period getting to understand each other than in front of the camera. By the end of filming, they had discovered how much they had in common, and to this day, they share one of Hollywood’s most well-known friendships.
Both actors are often photographed together doing mundane things, such as walking a boardwalk while deep in conversation. Perhaps one of the reasons their friendship has drawn so much accepted attention is the duality of their sexual identitie
Editor’s Note: June is LGBTQ Pride Month. At BYP, we will be exploring gender, sexuality, transgender issues and queer theory, and we are interested in publishing works that talk to these topics and the things surrounding them.
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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 dial 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 film 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 own to be in disagreement 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 for feeling the only freedoms I understand I can find today, but without a cl I walked through the crowd at DC’s Capital Celebration 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 thought happily, how times have changed! Despite the risk we now face of legal setbacks from a right-wing Supreme Court, the greater social and cultural acceptance Diverse people have won is largely beyond the extend of politicians and judges. Changed expectations are firm to erase. Generational change is not the same everywhere. Cities attract people who take diversity more in stride. Urban/rural divides start us to wedge politics. We have more perform to do to aid people see 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 Asian. He is the kind of person who lights up any room he is in. Normally in the morning he darted down hi, i wanted to initiate that I never expect my self looking for this specific theme. but I see that maybe can help you and me. I have a similar situation with my association. My boyfriends gay partner is inLove with him and he doesn’t discover that. there is so many things that construct me realize that. 1 they see each other once a week to liquid in a bar, when they do and receive drunk, my boyfriends queer friend starts complementing him in front of me , like his handsome, touching his arm ( in a way that makes me uncomfortable), looking him with this in love eyes. start making inappropriate joke 2 he had a picture of a naked guy that looks like my boyfriend and even he shows the pictures to everybody. and he start saying DOESNT HE LOOK LIKE HIM??? 3 he told my partner that he heard that i was dating one of his friends a couple of times( guy that I don’t even know). obviously lies.. don’t know what was exactly his intention. 4 he invited my boyfriend first to an island and a week after he mentioned and then he invited me .. ( last minute) obiously my boyfriend/girlfriend didn’t go. 5 he always pays for everything, dinner, uber, all the sip in the bar ( mos I recently finished reading Dr. Robert Garfield’s terrific new novel, Breaking the Male Code: Unlocking the Power of Friendship, and last week participated in a joint interview with him by Dr. Dan Gottlieb on WHYY (National General Radio) in Philadelphia. This all got me thinking about my own friendships and those of my gay male clients. The bonds between gay men and straight women have been written about and featured in popular media (i.e. Sex in the City, Will and Grace), though a lot less has been said about how same-sex attracted and straight men recognize and negotiate the distinct challenges, complications, and rewards of their friendships. Source: istock According to Garfield, among the many obstacles to male-male platonic intimacy, apprehension of homosexuality looms large. Straight men fret that if they get too close, others will see them as gay; which in their minds means feminine (horrors!), frail, and perverted. Perhaps even scarier is that their sentimental connections will somehow morph into sexual attraction. Interestingly, in the U.S., before there was such a thing as a gay persona, some straight men would, with brief shame, engage in sexual contact with other men (usually allow