QUESTION: College Sophomore here, and I’ve had sex with several women, so I figure I’m straight. I’m on BW and I also love to see penises and guys jacking, only most dudes do, right? Still, I find I’m especially excited by fit guys with their shirts off. Do you think maybe I’m sort of gay? Maybe bi?
RESPONSE: Instead of questioning your sexuality, maybe it’s the labels that are questionable and usually misleading. Human beings are complex. It’s more obvious recently that human sexuality is not a simple, cut-and-dried matter of a few categories, such as straight, bisexual and gay. Human sexuality tends to be somewhat ambiguous and fluid, plus the influences of conditioning and genetics cannot easily be sorted out precisely.
Human beings are just highly sexual creatures. When you realize that you need not label yourself according to those three pigeonholes—gay, bisexual, straight—then you may actually have more options when it comes to varied experiences and partners that attract you. Variety is not just the spice of life, it’s actually the recipe for feeling truly alive. Learn, grow, enjoy!
When you study the actual behavior of other animal species, you discover a huge amount of both masturbatory and same-sex behavior. These realities are well documented in the book BIOLOGICAL EXUBERANCE: ANIMAL HOMOSEXUALITY AND NATURAL DIVERSITY by Bruce Bagemihl, Ph.D. published in 1999. Bagemihl describes how the resilience and persistence of gene pools actually depends upon masturbatory and same sex activity of many species.
Your experience is similar to many young men, and even many other older men, in that male desire parameters are seldom clear-cut. Men often find it difficult to be honest on the subject, even with themselves, due to social conditioning and peer pressure to either conform to an expected norm, or to judge yourself for being a bit different from some other people’s ideas of “normal.”
Be aware that “normal” does not exist, thank goodness! Even a so-called “anonymous” survey does not mean that those answering can avoid internalized homophobia.
I’ve spoken with thousands of men about their sexuality. It seems that the majority of human males are stimulated by seeing penises and witnessing male masturbation. In the right circumstances, many men can enjoy masturbating with fellow men. I doubt very many men are truly, exclusively wired to fit any of those simple labels.
Don’t limit yourself with conditioned concepts of what your sexuality should be—just be yourself and explore who you are.
A note from The Batemaster: I’m honored that the guys at Bateworld have asked me to respond to some questions from male masturbators around the world every week.
Always check with your doctor about any issues you might be experiencing with your sexual organs. Prompt diagnosis and treatment are important. This article’s purpose is to inform and entertain readers and is not a substitute for medical advice or treatment.
Counterpoint: There is value in questioning one’s sexuality because we don’t arrive with all the answers pre-loaded in our brains. In fact, we all grow up in cultures full of negative conditioning against all things sexual. We have learned biases against certain states of being for no reason other than established philosophical norms, norms without any real basis in benefit or harm to self or to others. There’s a real dearth of unvarnished clarity, of factual truth, and the answers we provide to questions are almost always thick with attempts to not hurt anyone’s feelings or challenge their fears.
IMHO, the correct answer to the actually important question is, “Maybe.” Maybe the questioner is gay or bi or straight or a mix of different needs and impulses. Only he can uncover that. The journey to happiness as an adult is the gradual untying of a complex knot of learned untruths to uncover what really is. We have multiple opportunities to shed, one illusion at a time, the layers of disinformation we’ve adopted from birth, ideas like there’s anything at all intrinsically wrong with being gay or bi or straight or anything else. The only goal should be a steady, slow push forward to authenticity, to being true to oneself. It is the core of a lifetime of “becoming true.”
The reason it’s worth doing is that we want to be happy and as long as we have needs that are being obfuscated by imposed ideas and beliefs, we won’t be getting what will make us genuinely happy, the map to which is drawn on our minds and hearts and bodies.
Orientations exists. We are each uniquely oriented to draw toward intimate experiences, sexually, romantically, socially, intellectually. It’s simply putting a name to our truths that empowers us to take full possession of ourselves and to go for what we actually want and need rather than what we think or believe we need.
I too had had sex with several women when I was a college sophomore, but I also learned that I was a “Kinsey 6” gay man, not because I had sex with women but because of what I wanted, what I was pulled toward, where my body, mind and heart impelled me. Sexual orientation isn’t about what you do but what you need.
I’m NOT saying that because I’m gay you are too. That’s actually none of my business and impossible for anyone but you to know. I AM saying that you’re starting to find out more about who you are, what you need and what brings you satisfaction and authenticity. I agree that you don’t have to focus on the labels. AND I encourage you to keep exploring what you most want and allow yourself to find the words that help you claim those truths, possess yourself and empower you to continue to become the man you are and will be.
Side note: I have a few friends who identify comfortably as straight and still enjoy regularly masturbating with their fellow men. Running a jack-off club gives me a certain intimate access to a pretty vast pool of men. I believe them.
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments. I’ve studied this basic question most of my life, and find that there is a complex web of factors: personal history, experience, and genetics, are all involved. There’s no simple, linear answer, as you suggest, and no one else can answer it for you. That’s one reason I offer responses in this column, not answers! Personally, though I had sex with a number of nice women in my late 20s (because they wanted it, not my idea!) it was an interesting experiment that surprised me because I could function! My primary strong attraction to penises and male bodies has been clear to me from a very early age, maybe 3 or 4 years. The adventures with women also confirmed to me that my only innate attraction is to fellow males, though since then, women are not alien territory. We are all complex, and IMO few humans are, aside from cultural and social factors, seriously at either end of the famous Kinsey scale. Even an “anonymous” polling or study cannot eliminate internalized homophobia and other complications from distorting what our human experience can often teach us better than “experts.”
Labeling… to that I confess, who knows. In simplest terms, we’re all sexual. It’s hardwired. And we are the most sexual of all creatures. Having sex like wild animals – is us. Apparently we’re only rivaled by dolphins when it comes to having sex most often, some studies say. I’ve had sex a few times over the eons but I’m most comfy “taking care of myself”
Yes, I know that dolphins are apparently somewhat insatiable as far as enjoying a lot of sexual activity… however I’m not sure if they do it more than the Bonobos, those closest cousins of Homo sapiens, closer to our DNA than the other kinds of Chimpanzees. Those other Chimps are quite aggressive and sometimes kill each other. The Bonobos have a culture in which social tensions are dealt with by having sex, pretty much every possible iteration: same-sex, opposite sex, in groups, oral sex, frottage, mutual masturbation, penetration… etc.!
Interesting to know Bonobos have found sexual relief an important part of their culture.