Why do some gays lust after straight men? Here are the queer theories
Grindr and Scruff, why bother with the Match.com and Tinder set?That was the question on one Reddit user’s mind recently. “What’s the appeal with pursuing or sexually engaging with ‘straight’ men?” user Antique-Wishbone wrote in the r/gaybros subreddit on October 10. “Is it the challenge?
Or the taboo effect?”One top comment suggested straight chasers are chasing “an illusion of greater masculinity.”Subscribe to our newsletter for a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.Another commenter agreed, saying such people “don’t want any hint of femininity or campiness, so they go for straight guys,” while a third commenter pointed to the internalized homophobia or misogyny that translates into femmephobia among gay men.Another theory is that you straight chasers think “that you’re so desirable that a straight guy would experiment with his sexuality because of you,” as one Reddit user surmised.(“I dislike being an experiment,” one commenter chimed in.)Others suggested that we’ve been conditioned to expect hostility and hatred from straight men, and so we mistake kindness from straight men as something more.“Straight guys being nice to you does not mean you have a chance; they’re just nice guys,” one commenter wrote. “I’ve been there but I am grown now to have wasteful crushes.”Another person concurred, writing, “This definitely a factor.
A lot of us haven’t had super positive interactions with straight guys, so if one is just really generally nice, some guys misread it as attraction rather than courtesy.”Straight talk.A few Redditors suggested it’s a matter of probability. “I don’t pursue straight men, but most of the men I see day to day are straight, so it’s hard not to find them attractive,” one said.Explained another: “The vast, vast, vast majority of guys are straight, so if you see a hot guy there is a good chance he is straight, so a lot of mild crushes are going to be on straight guys due to.
