Well I’m a straight man who, once or twice in my life, has kissed another man.
Crap, does this mean I’m an actor?
my mother will be so ashamed
Anyone remember the movie Deathtrap? When Christopher Reeve and Michael Caine kissed it just totally blew a lot of women’s minds. How could the Man of Steel play a gay man? Nowadays it would be like Brad Pitt and George Clooney kissing.
I remember an interview where Caine said, “I told Chris that we could do the scene but if I felt a tongue I was going to deck him.” Apparently it took a little booze to convince them.
I didn’t say you claimed to speak on behalf of men. I was careful to quote the person who did.
As far as your uncle is concerned, why don’t you ask him how he dealt with it? I’m gay and kiss women on the lips all the time and doesn’t bother me one iota. In fact I like it. It’s a nice expression of friendship.
As far as sitting at Lover’s Point and making out for awhile, I’ve done that too. Didn’t like it. Didn’t throw up either. I just psyched myself into it and acted like I was into it. As others have said, it’s just another person with lips. And a tongue. But really if you’re going to play the role, then you just play the role. I didn’t pretend I was making out with a guy. I psyched myself into pretending I enjoyed making out with a gal.
I hope those women saw the recent Superman movie. 
“Attraction to other men” does not equal “repulsed by kissing women.” As a man who thoroughly enjoys kissing other men, I have not gone “Kiss a girl? Eeew!” since approximately third grade. I don’t excuse people who are “repulsed” at the idea of kissing someone of the same sex nor do I believe that it’s “natural” to have a reaction as violent as “repulsion.” Antipathy, sure, no problem, but if you have crossed from being uninterested in kissing someone of the same sex to being actively grossed out at the thought of it then you’re a little bit messed up.
Some of us tried and are still being told to lighten up (presumably that is being directed at me). I questioned only the comparisson of “eating dog shit” to the OP, since it seemed neither relevent or particularly fair.
I have several friends who work professionally as actors in the film and theater industries. As I said above, when asked they all say roughly the same thing: Any dislike they have for their co-star (inlcuding natural sexual preferences/aversions) is far, far down on the list of things that go through their minds, during their performance. They have devoted days or weeks to developing their characters - getting inside their heads as well as the character’s physicality. They defer to the character study because it’s part of their job.
A role that had elements they really object to is a role they would not take. Example: A friend’s agent wanted her to audition for a role that required sexual violence and she didn’t feel comfortable with that and declined. Although as an audition piece, sometimes she does a monolog from “White Biting Dog” – it’s about eating vomit.
You don’t? Because this sort of sounds like you do:
Being straight doesn’t automatically mean that you’re disgusted at having to kiss another guy. It’s entirely possible to be straight and to consider kissing another man to not be a big deal. It’s not like you have to either totally lust after someone, or be completly repulsed by them. There is, in fact, quite a bit of middle ground there, and that’s without even taking issue with the traditional dualistic approach to sexual identity you’ve employed in this thread. It is, in fact, possible to be straight and still kind of enjoy kissing another guy.
I don’t know if I agree. I think it’s a perfectly natural reaction for many men. I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m repulsed by the thought of myself kissing another man, but I would be squeamish about it, yes. I’m also squeamish about the thought of kissing a girl I’m not attracted to. I doubt any person would consider me homophobic on any level.
Funny you should mention that, because the first time I saw Ocean’s Twelve, there was a scene with those two where my very first thought was, “Man, they really need to make out right about now.”
Yeah, like, every scene. Hot man-on-man action is the only thing that woulda saved that shitty movie.
I do community theater acting, so while I’m not an expert, I can say a little bit about the craft from that standpoint, though I’ve never been called upon to kiss another man on stage.
But whatever it is, you just … you just do it. That’s what acting is. I find it easy to do things on stage that are in service to the plot, because that’s what has to happen next. You do what you have to do, and then afterward, it’s over. It’s not permanent. It’s just a thing you did. So what?
What would I worried about? I know who I am. To paraphrase Seuss, “The people who mind don’t matter, and the people who matter don’t mind.”
As I have mentioned a couple times on this board, in my youth I was an actor and made a decent living at it. No, I am nobody you would know. I retired from that profession not long after I got married. Most of my (read virtually all) took me away from home and that is no way to start a family.
Three or four years ago an actor and producer I had worked with contacted me and asked me if I would step in for a few months in a rep company because the person I would be replacing was injured in a car accident.
I asked what shows we were doing and in what parts were they looking at me for. The shows were Deathtrap as Sidney, Barefoot in the Park as Victor Valasco, a Russian piece called (as I remember) The Bride where I would be playing the father of the male lead and one other where I was basically scenery.
Sidney in Deathtrap is or at least pretends to be gay and kisses a guy in the show. But more to the point, it is a wonderfully malicious role. Sidney has so many subtle levels that I jumped at the part. I think most actors are more concerned about the part being a good part rather than if the character is gay or straight, smart or stupid, etc.
I know that I am not gay merely because the part is gay any more than I am a good-natured letch as Victor was in Barefoot. I was not really concerned with the kiss - well, I was concerned that it had to work for the character. As I said, He had so many levels.
I had a good time and I have done a couple of more shows since then since then when my real employers felt I could leave without major disruption.
When it comes to the internal process too, aiming for accuracy of what you’re portraying, you don’t think “Ew, I’m kissing a dude!” instead you draw on your experiences that most closely fit the scene.
For example, if it’s supposed to be a “first kiss”, you remember the emotions of the first time you kissed someone you loved. You remember how your heart was pounding in your chest, you remember the rush of andrenalin, the sweat of your palms, and how you peeked a little even though you were supposed to have your eyes closed, and how you could hear your blood rushing in your ears.
You’re busy focusing on that so that your performance can reflect the nuances of all those things. If you think “Oh, ick, I cna’t believe I’m kissing this person!” it draws you out of the headspace required to fulfill the role. It unmasks you and you become You Pretending, instead of Well-Rounded Character.
Someone who has been working diligently with a director will have created that artificial persona to fit the alternate reality they are presenting. You don’t think about the things you wouldn’t do, you remember the feelings of the things you would do.
Boy, some of you fellows sure are touchy.
It is not at all unusual for a straight man to feel revulsion at the thought of kissing another man. I can tell you that I feel revulsion at the idea of me kissing another man. If you want to kiss another man…meh, doesn’t bother me in the least.
Maybe my feelings are innate. Maybe they are a conditioned response. Either way, they’re there.
I thought the bug-eating analogy was pretty apt, actually. The idea of eating a bug is gross to me, but in some cultures a grasshopper is a delicious part of a nutricious breakfast. More power to the people of those cultures. I don’t dislike them for eating bugs. It’s just not my thing.
Same deal with kissing a man.
Now, Miller suggests there’s a continuum of feeling on this subject, and I’m sure that’s so. I’m sure there are plenty of straight men who don’t feel revulsion at the idea of a man-smooch. But the OP is not incorrect to believe that there are those who do.
“nutritious,” I meant
Certainly there are plenty of men who feel that way. But odds are that those actors who take roles which involve a lot of dude-kisses probably do not find the idea of kissing a man to be as revolting as the OP does. Which makes his question kind of moot. “How do straight actors overcome their revulsion towards kissing another man?” Easy answer: “They aren’t revolted in the first place.” The OP’s question really only makes sense if one assumes that anyone would be repulsed at having to kiss someone of a gender to which they are not normally attracted.
Not to hijack completely, but I have read that the kiss is not in the original play. Were you working from the original script or were there alterations made following the film?
It may not be unusual for straights to feel revulsion at the thought, but that doesn’t make it acceptable. Not to pull out an overplayed analogy, but if someone came in here and posted something like “I don’t mind if Jews like kissing other Jews, but I’m a Gentile and the idea of kissing a Jew puts me in mind of eating dog shit” there would be no end to the Pitting.
Oh, come down off your cross, Otto. I don’t give a damn if you kiss a man. Really, I don’t. It’s just not for me. If you don’t find that “acceptable,” then your offense-o-meter is set way too high.
To bring back the bug analogy, it’s like someone who loves eating grasshoppers insisting that there will be no justice until we live in a world where everyone thinks bugs are delicious.
Can’t we have a middle ground here? I agree that somebody who’s filled with abject revulsion at the idea of kissing a member of the same sex is probably a little messed up, but what about mild squeamishness? Kissing anybody is an emotionally charged action (at least for me), and I’d hardly expect anybody to feel apathetic about it. I feel the same way about kissing another man as I would a particularly unnatractive woman. Squeamish.
I think it’s normal, and nobody should be compelled to feel guilty about.