‘Straight with a pinch of bi’: The construction of heterosexuality as an elastic category among adult US men

Abstract

The sexualities of men who have same-sex desires yet identify as straight have attracted significant attention in recent years. We present findings from interviews with 100 such men, whom we recruited while they were seeking sex with men online, and examine the logics that allow them to maintain an identity as straight. Our sample is somewhat unique in that it included men across a wide age range (from 18 to 70), and also because many of our participants are white adult US men who are married or in stable relationships with women. Based on their patterns of sexual interpretation, we discuss how these men make their same-sex desires and behaviours consistent with a primary self-identification as straight. We argue that, in the process of maintaining identities as straight men, they change the definition of heterosexuality, in effect turning it into a considerably elastic category that is perceived as fully compatible with having and enacting same-sex desires.