Their preferences neither repulse nor excite me. Whatever you do and whoever you choose to love is your business, not mine.
Speaking as a straight man, I must admit most of my gay acquaintances can build circles around me in Minecraft. They make me feel damn talentless. 
They also seem to be really nice guys.
You don’t see the contradiction here? Either it’s cultural conditioning OR it’s instinctive. You put that word in quotes, but the word itself is misleading, and I don’t think that is the way that @Velocity used it (but they should speak for themselves). Instinctive means it’s built in to being a human, and I completely disagree with @Velocity that that is the case. I think @thorny_locust had the best response to that idea. And I think @Velocity’s message is very damaging to anyone who is questioning their own sexuality.
Why are you and I gay? Why are other people straight or bi-sexual or pan-sexual or asexual? The answers to all of those are exactly the same.
A lot of us never really gave a shit one way or another … plus, we are inculcated by virtue of ubiquitousness (like that? big words, huh?). My son is gay. My daughter is bi. The pub I hang out at host drag shows on the weekends. Most of the people I jam with at that place identify as some stripe of homo-, bi-, pan-, omni-, a-, whatever- and it’s just not a thing.
Yes, that’s why I used “instinctive” in quotes. It’s a cultural reflex, like when I might titter at an old, racist, sexist, or homophobic joke that I first heard in the time period I referenced, then thought better of it.
That shit is generally below the rational/thinking levels, so I could have said a “trained reflex” just as easily. It’s again, not something I’m proud of, but I am very aware of of. And I want to make the point that a lot of people DON’T distinguish between the two - they assume that “ewwww!” comes because of some intrinsic ‘evil’ of the other, NOT that it’s been taught by so many direct and indirect means that they’ve assimilated it at said unthinking level.
As such, it’s important to realize that it is the level of sub-rational conditioning to the point that some people consider it instinct.
For a while, before I retired, my immediate boss was a woman in her early 30’s who persisted in showing a lot of cleavage at work. I found it distracting and also very difficult to keep my eyes away from that area when talking to her. I still don’t know why, it certainly wasn’t sexual, and she wasn’t the flirtatious type either. Mysterious, at least to me.
Now that’s a real stereotype, and she probably likes spending time with you (even if she is not consciously aware of why) because she can relax and be herself, without worrying about what you are thinking about.
I don’t.
To be honest, I don’t think about gay guys a lot. They’re just a fact of life.
Yes, actually. I do wonder how that is possible, while recognizing that that’s how it is.
No, I don’t.
Not at all. Frankly, I don’t think about gay sex because I personally don’t find it arousing but I don’t find it disgusting either.
The same as non-gays. If you’re not an a******, chances are I’ll like you.
My best friend in college came out to me a few years after we met. I just said “ok, so what? Does that mean we can’t go fag bashing anymore?” And he laughed his ass off. He said it was the best response he’d heard from anyone.
Just to be clear, we had never went nor condoned “fag bashing.” It was just an over the top ridiculous joke that I knew he’d understand and appreciate. I knew being victimized by the rednecks he lived near was a very real fear he had that kept him in the closet for so long. I wouldn’t recommend saying the same thing to anyone who didn’t already know and appreciate your/that style of bullshit.
Sidenote, he died young to complications from diabetes. RIP, Jason. I miss you, pal!
There is, supposedly, research to support the notion that people who openly express a disgust reaction over things like food, are also prone to being intolerant in other ways (including intolerance of other people’s freedoms at a more fundamental level than food). Adam Ragusea discusses it a bit here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h18Z8HnEoU
I agree - largely because, from observing other cultures with different attitudes to various taboos (nakedness, overt sexual activity, displays of affection, etc), we can find there is significant variation between cultures - more variation when you compare culture vs culture than when you compare individual vs individual within culture.
Thus, I don’t think it can be argued that any specific set of norms is ‘built in’ - there might be a biological tendency for us to want some kind of norms - that’s a social animal thing, I guess, but it seems the specifics of those norms are pretty configurable.
I was brought up in the UK in the 1970s and 80s - a time in which prejudice against gay people was pretty normalised and accepted in everyday society; I started out life with this as my internalised version of ‘normal’ and as a result, for me, homosexuals were to be mocked and ridiculed at a distance, and feared up close. This stuck with me a long time, I’m sad to say, but eventually was broken down as attitudes changed in general, and as I was exposed more and more to the real world, where I eventually accepted that the people I had been brought up to mock and fear, were just other people trying to live their own lives.
I still don’t want to see two men kissing, but only to the same degree that I don’t really want to see two (or any number of) anyones kissing. I’d prefer not to watch that sort of display of affection. Get a room! (this attitude is also a societal norm, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a harmful one).
I don’t, personally.
Occasionally I wonder whether gaydar is real or a myth. I don’t have it either way.
~Max
I agree with this.
I will say I think the US has become a lot better and safer for gay men over my lifetime (57 years). It’s better now than it was.
In particular, I think younger generations (Millennials, Gen-Z, Gen-X is not bad) really don’t give a shit. You do you. If you are a cool person great. If not, go away. But it has nothing to do with your sexuality.
Of course, as mentioned, unsafe places certainly still exist so be aware of where you are and be careful (it is usually obvious I think). And even if safe there can be a few assholes around who will give you a hard time. Ignore them. Not worth your time.
I don’t like to think about the acts themselves, but I am not generally revulsed upon thinking about gay men. I just don’t care to dwell on what they do in bed.
To tell you the truth, there are things heterosexual couples do the thought of which repulses me. I’m actually asexual myself. There, I said it. I finally came out with this on SD. I’m asexual. I like women, and I like them very much, and am not averse to physical contact, but I am lacking in the desire to perform actual sexual acts with them. That’s one of the main reasons why I’m still single at 44.
It’s not funny at all. Being the object of male sexual attraction is often tiring. It’s way more comfortable for an attractive woman to hang out with gay men, who are interested in her as a person and not as a sex object, than with straight men. She doesn’t have to be on her guard all the time.
I say this as a woman who spends a lot of time with gay men. I’m old enough and fat enough that i no longer deal with a lot of threatening male gaze. But i was hot when i was young, and looking back, all my close male friends were gay. And despite being straight, I’m kinda butch, and often have more in common with random men than with random women, so I’ve always had lots of male friends.
A little bit, yes. I mean, it depends on the food. But watching people eat stuffed peppers makes me uncomfortable.
Ah, there’s hope for me. I don’t openly express my disgust, because i recognize that others have the right to eat whatever the hell they want.
Honestly, i grew up in a subculture that avoided all public displays of affection, and I’m still a little uncomfortable with them, gay or straight. Especially ones that i think of as overtly sexual (rather than just affectionate) like kissing. Gay men cuddling is kinda cute to me, as are a mother and her child cuddling, or a straight couple cuddling. But kissing in public? Ick
That being said, i spend a lot of time in gay spaces where public kissing is common, and I’ve gotten used to it. Heterosexual kissing in public doesn’t bother me as much as it used to, either.
I have absolutely no thoughts about them beyond the fact that I always enjoy thinking about what makes other people tick. Several years ago we had neighbours two doors down (in a rowhouse development so they were physically close) a gay male couple and they were excellent neighbours and acquaintances. Sadly we moved and lost touch with them as they would have been great friends as well.
Having said that, I am truly ashamed of the “go along with the homophobic crowd” things that I said in the '80s.
There has, societally, been significant positive change. I was in the Canadian Navy for 32 years and for my first 10 years homosexuality was illegal and I’m sure that a lot of good people must have been kicked out while a lot of other good people had to hide their true selves. Fast forward to the closing days of my career and our headquarters had supporters and participants in Pride Day parades as well as openly gay service-persons, one of whom was a high ranking senior officer.
Straight (and cis) guy here. What I really think is I’m happy to meet you. There are people I’m attracted to and people I’m not, and it’s a little easier to get why somebody would be attracted to the same people I’m attracted to, but that doesn’t feel very important to me. Likewise it’s a little easier to get why somebody is drawn toward the same activities, or interests, or even tastes. It says nothing important about that person.
I don’t feel the slightest disgust. As to “why the hell we aren’t attracted to women”, I think it’s unknown what causes homosexuality, and unknown what causes heterosexuality, so people fretting about the phenomenon of same sex attraction don’t have anything real to concern themselves with.
I also think each of us is on a spectrum (or several). I think of myself as a pretty typical straight male, and think of myself on a spectrum, though I’m on a relatively densely populated part of the spectrum.
I’ve spent a lot of time in gay-identified, trans-identified, and queer-identified spaces. About half my friends are queer-identified. I really like the energy, the mood and acceptance and warmth, I typically experience in those spaces.
By the time I was 30, the three people I had been closest to in life were all gay men or lesbians. I got interested in the social justice issues, the history and the movements and whatnot. Advocacy became a major component of my career about a dozen years ago.
I guess one other detail would be that many gay men “sparkle”, and that’s always nice to be around!
Kind of like that. What should I think? Long ago I resolved for myself the questions society seemed to be posing about gay people. It’s quite simple, I don’t want to know anything about the kind of sex anybody is engaged in except for myself and a few porn stars. I don’t want to know any more about what kind of sex a straight person is engaged in than a gay person sex life. On that basis I don’t have any reason to think anything about gay people that I don’t think about straight people. Where do they work, where do they live, do they have a dog, do they like power tools? Same kind of stuff for anyone.
As mentioned above, it totally depends where you area. I’m in Toronto, which has a large LGBTQ+ community as befits the largest city in a country generally to the left of our sothern neighbors politically and socially. There’s also a huge Pride Week and a really large gay neighborhood (“the gaybourhood”). When I was younger, my attitudes may have been a bit more rigid and (ashamed to say) uncomfortable, but in all honesty, it doesn’t faze me at all. The number of friends I have at every conceivable point along the queer spectrum means that I view everyone pretty much equally.
There still exists Gay Panic out there, straight guys worried about being (gasp!) hit on by gay guys (or more accurately, straight guys worried that they’ll be treated/objectified the way they themselves treat women). I’m no looker myself so honestly, I’m flattered if anyone thinks I’m worth the attention, even if their particular orientation isn’t how I roll.
I grew up in Ottawa which is marginally more conservative than Toronto, but has largely come around. I remember it being much more hostile back in the day: one summer when I was working outside downtown, I noticed that graffiti near the war memorial that said “Lik (sic) my dick!” was left up for much of the summer while “Out of the closets and into the strets!” was sandblasted off the day after it appeared, with a NCC worker sneering “Can’t have people see that!” Sadly, when the Tories win the next election, I suspect the social conservatives won’t be quite as timid as they’ve been in recent years and there’ll be an uptick in open, or at least less subtle, bigotry.
No.
I just assume it’s because you’re gay.
Interesting. I think I saw something like that somewhere having to do with politics, but don’t know remember where.
It does make sense that, just as other things that go very deep in the mind vary from person to person, the strength of the disgust reaction, or maybe the breadth of its application, would also vary.
I wonder whether it’s also related to a greater difficulty in realizing that one’s own reactions may not be nearly ubiquitous – as in ‘nearly everybody must think (or feel) the way I do, some of them just hide it’?
Yes. Humans appear to need to have some set of rules about who has sex with whom and when; possibly so we can get something else done without being continually distracted by trying to figure out whether we’re about to have sex with any given person. (Bonobos seem to settle that last one by saying ‘yes, of course’; but then bonobos aren’t trying to get as many different other things done as humans usually are.)
But what the rules are varies widely between societies.