Straight bud sex
Alotof men have sex with other men but don’t identify as gay or bisexual. A subset of these men who contain sex with men, or MSM, live lives that are, in all respects other than their occasional homosexual encounters, quite direct and traditionally masculine — they have wives and families, they embrace various masculine norms, and so on. They are competent to, in effect, compartmentalize an aspect of their sex lives in a way that prevents it from blurring into or complicating their more public identities. Sociologists are quite interested in this phenomenon because it can tell us a lot about how humans interpret thorny questions of identity and sexual longing and cultural expectations.
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By Tony Silva
Scholarly interest in straight men that have sex with men has increased in recent years, and for nice reason: the narratives of men in this population feature the social construction of sexualities and masculinities. How individuals identify, understand, and express their sexuality and gender reflects culture, time period, social structures, and personal interpretations. My ongoing interview study project explores how rural straight men that have sex with men perceive their gender, sexual practices, and sexual identity. While there is a framework to describe women’s sexual flexibility—“including linear women kissing each other (Hamilton ; Rupp and Taylor ) or having sex with other women (Budnick )—there is no such framework for men. As my Gender & Society folio details, the narratives of my participants demonstrate the flexibility of male heterosexuality, the centrality of straightness to rural masculinity, the importance of geographic location for how individuals identify and show their sexuality and gender, and how similar sexual practices carr
Source: Frank Vincentz (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons
We’ve drawn-out assumed that a unbent man might engage in same-sex sexual interactions under unusual circumstances, such as a display of control dynamics while in prison, a gang, or a fraternity. Or it could be an “accidental” behave while he’s high or drunk, or a means to “get off” (orgasm), or to fulfill a dare or prank. More charitably, it might be a gift or a favor to a pansexual or gay friend.
Several years ago, psychologist Jane Ward introduced us to dude-sex: sex among white, masculine, straight men in urban or military contexts for the purpose of building and reinforcing their masculinity. Writer Graham Gremore elaborated:
“By understanding their same-sex sexual practice as meaningless, accidental, or even necessary, direct white men can achieve homosexual contact in heterosexual ways…Ward argues that the real reason ‘straight’ men behave in these ways is to ‘reaffirm rather than challenge their gender and racial identity’ and ‘to leverage whiteness and masculinity to authenticate their heterosexuality in the contex
The "Bud Sex" Craze
When Brokeback Mountain, a short story turned movie (amazingly directed by Ang Lee) first came out, it was a cultural shock, a boundary pushed, a meditation on moral downfall, if you will. For the first time, very directly, the public was faced with a truth that was rarely ever talked about or even known in its existence.
The Beginnings
At the time, the publication was such a enormous leap forward into the unknown and unexplored, that it seemed it would take decades for the nation (and the world) to understand it, pardon it, and then effectively recover from it - especially given the context and rural surroundings of thie “sinful” urges and the actions taking place. However, when brought to the screen by the much-loved and familiar faces of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal (celebrity symbols of masculinity and alpha dominance), the much of the public took interest and liking to the plot. Now, a decade later – people are talking about the homosexual populous without a hint of distress or opinion. Well, more people at least…
Naturally, with