Mostly straight : sexual fluidity among men

248 Pages·2017·0.28 MB·English

by  Ritch C. Savin-Williams

mostly straight

mostly straight
sexual fluidity among men
ritch c. savin-williams
cambridge, massachusetts ≈ london, england 2017
Copyright © 2017 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
First printing
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Savin- Williams, Ritch C., author.
Title: Mostly straight : sexual fluidity among men / Ritch C. Savin- Williams.
Description: Cambridge, Mas sa chu setts : Harvard University Press, 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017018927 | ISBN 9780674976382 (alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Young bisexual men— Interviews. | Sexual minorities. | Sex. |
Sex role. | Sex (Psy chol ogy) | Sex (Biology)
Classification: LCC HQ74.7 .S38 2017 | DDC 306.76— dc23
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2017018927
Jacket photo by Henrik Sorensen/Stone/Getty Images
Jacket design by Jill Breitbarth
contents
Preface vii
the sexual neverlands 1
straight but not narrow 7
dillon 11
sexual and romantic spectrums 22
romantic orientation 25
sexual and romantic fluidity 28
it is who i am 31
straight, but not totally straight 34
demetri 46
ricky 56
chris 66
progressive mostly straight 72
it’s about the sex 77
five young men 80
ryan 91
kyle 103
it’s about the romance 113
two romantic young men 116
jay 123
it’s about the sex and the romance 129
joel 138
chandler 147
do mostly straight youth exist? 156
dillon returns 166
developmental trajectories 177
vi ≈ contents
if you believe you are mostly straight 191
escaping the sexual neverlands 204
Appendix A: Methods 209
Appendix B: Mostly Straight Science 213
Notes 223
Acknowl edgments 229
Index 231
preface
[I’ve never been] opposed to gay interactions. I’ve joked about it with my
friends. I got close once but never made out, though we are physical.
(dillon, age 20)
if you’re straight, young, and male and have or believe
you might have a slight degree of sexual or romantic attraction
to other guys, this book is for you. If you’d like to know more
or if these feelings mystify you such that you want to figure out
what is g oing on, this book is for you. If y ou’re a girlfriend, a
friend, a sibling, or a parent and y ou’ve wondered whether your
boyfriend, friend, brother, or son might be “a l ittle bit gay,” this
book is also for you. Or if y ou’re simply intrigued and want to
know about the life experiences of this par ticu lar group of young
male millennials, read on.
In this book, you’ll meet forty young men who are mostly
straight. You’ll hear their life stories, and perhaps something
they say or have done or have come to understand about them-
selves might resonate with you or someone you know. A mostly
straight young person can feel alone or weird, and hearing from
other mostly straight young men may help him lead his own dis-
tinctive, self-f ulfilling life. If you are not mostly straight, then my
≈ vii ≈
viii ≈ preface
intention is to help you understand and, I hope, celebrate t hese
young men as they navigate their sexual and romantic lives in an
increasingly complicated world.
What we know is that the mostly straight male is the new
kid on the block. We hear a lot about the Big Three Sexualities—
straight, bisexual, and gay. Most of us assume that t hese three
orientations encompass the universe of sexual identities. If we are
prepared to accept mostly straight as a fourth sexual identity, we
gain an increasingly nuanced understanding of sexual orienta-
tion—a nd its close cousin, romantic orientation. We w on’t stop at
four; no doubt we will soon recognize additional sexual identities.
To the uninitiated, “mostly straight” may seem paradoxical.
How can a man be mostly heterosexual? Women, we know, can
be sexually fluid, as the sizable lite r at ure on the subject attests.
But if you’re a young man, you might assume that either you’re
straight or you’re not, meaning you’re bisexual or gay. Yet mostly
straight men exist. In fact, the evidence suggests that more young
men identify or describe themselves as mostly straight than iden-
tify as either bisexual or gay combined.
In the most general sense, a mostly straight young man is
sexually and / or romantically distinctive; we might say that he’s
fluid or flexible, supposedly an alien feature of male sexuality.
Traditionally, our understanding has been that if you’re male and
have even a slight attraction to the same sex, then you must be
bisexual or gay. Even if this isn’t immediately apparent, it will be-
come so once you come to terms with your true self and exit your
“phase” of bicuriosity or questioning. Women, by contrast, can
be mostly straight b ecause they are less constrained than men by
culturally strict gender and sexual norms. This kind of thinking
dictates that the only options for men are straight, bisexual, or
gay, not something else. If y ou’re a mostly straight young man,
you know these assumptions are wrong, and you’re not alone.
A recent U.S. government poll found that among 18- to
24- year- old men, 6  percent marked their sexual attractions as
“mostly opposite sex.” That’s more than fifteen million young
men. Yet when t hese men w ere forced to choose e ither straight
or bisexual as a sexual identity, about three- quarters marked
straight because for them bisexual, even if it is understood as
preface ≈ ix
“bisexual- leaning straight,” is too gay to accurately describe their
identity. Given such constraints, these young men were left with
no place to truthfully register their sexuality, thus forcing them to
be less than honest.
The category “mostly straight” is a recent addition that
was not readily available to previous generations of men. A new
survey revealed striking contrasts across age groups. One ques-
tion asked, “Thinking about sexuality, which of the following
comes closer to your view?”
∙
“ There is no middle ground— you are either heterosexual or
you are not.”
∙
“Sexuality is a scale—it is pos si ble to be somewhere near the
middle.”
A majority of millennials endorsed the second option, which
means they believe in a spectrum of sexuality. Adults from other
generations preferred the first, which signifies a two-c ategory
approach— straight, not straight—to sexuality.
Millennials were also less likely than other groups to label
themselves as “completely heterosexual.” And even among those
who identified as straight, they were more likely than their par-
ents’ generation to respond to the following three questions with
“Very unlikely, but not impossible” or “Maybe, if I r eally liked
them.” The lead-in was, “If the right person came along at the
right time . . .”
∙
“Do you think it is conceivable that you could be attracted to
a person of the same sex?”
∙
“Do you think it is conceivable that you could have a sexual
experience with a person of the same sex?”
∙
“Do you think it is conceivable that you could have a rela-
tionship with a person of the same sex?”
To each of t hese questions, their parents’ generation overwhelm-
ingly responded with “Absolutely not.”
Identifying as mostly straight is now largely poss i ble because
the millennial generation is adding new complexity to sexual and
romantic relationships. Over the last several years the Pew Re-
search Center has reported on the characteristics of millennials.
x ≈ preface
The New York Times branded the cohort as “Generation Nice.”
What does nice mean? Contrasted with previous generations,
young p eople today are more confident, connected, introspective,
and open to change. They’re skeptical of traditional institutions
and ways of viewing the world, and they are willing to improvise
solutions that are both creative and good for the environment and
future generations. As adolescents and young adults, they are hap-
pier and more satisfied with their lives than previous generations.
They express liberal, progressive attitudes t oward religion and
race relations, social policies, and sexuality.
How do t hese values and practices play out in the sexual
and romantic lives of mostly straights? In the following pages, I’ll
introduce you to mostly straight young men as they tell their life
stories. The first thing you’ll notice is that they’re a very diverse
group. In high school, they were hipsters, jocks, nerds, druggies,
skaters, class clowns, burnouts, and straight-l aced achievers. Long
hair, short hair, clean-s haven, bearded, tattooed, pierced, mus-
cular, lanky, hyper, and pudgy. They want to change the world, fit
in, drop out, go into medicine, advocate marketing strategies, fight
for social justice, write novels, or be unemployed, and many have
no clue what t hey’ll do.
You will first meet Josh Hutcherson and several other media
stars who are neither straight nor gay but mostly straight. Then
comes Dillon, a young man whose story lies at the heart of this
book. It might seem inconceivable that Dillon, a hockey goalie in
college who loved frat parties and said he intended to have lots
of casual sex with young w omen during his college years, iden-
tifies as anything other than totally, exclusively straight. How
could he be mostly straight?
Dillon and o thers, including Kyle, Carlos, Demetri, Ryan,
and Luke, will tell you about their sexual and romantic develop-
ment from their first sexual memory, their first crush, their first
orgasm, their first sex, and their first true love. Fi nally, they’ll
speculate about what being mostly straight means for their sexual
and romantic future— which might be yours as well if you are a
mostly straight young man.