Disentangling Heterosexuality from Masculinity

In traditional North American society, being "masculine" is often defined as (1) the opposite of being "feminine" and (2) avoiding sexual contact with other men. Recent trends in attitudes toward homophobia and masculinity, however, suggest that these traditional orientations may have begun to change in North American society. Drawing from a multiyear ethnographic study of heterosexual male college cheerleaders, I argue that associated with these changing attitudes and practices, many men are beginning to disentangle heterosexuality from masculinity. In this context, I demonstrate how avowedly "straight" men, in some instances, engage in gay sex and openly view such encounters as non-threatening to their own personal identities and public status as heterosexuals. The study carries theoretical implications for the conditions under which heterosexuality and masculinity do not imply each other and, most speculatively, when and how gay men are considered masculine.

Note from Reclaiming Natural Manhood site:

This article tries to disentangle heterosexuality from masculinity by showing that heterosexual males too have sex with men...

What is this weird western mindset... how can you prove that heterosexuals are being feminine by proving that they have sex with men?

Gays are 3rd Gender, and Western straights were bisexuals before the concept of sexual orientation

Sex and the Gender Revolution. Volume 1: Heterosexuality and the 'Third Gender' in Enlightenment London, By Randolph Trumbach. Chicago Series on Sexuality, History and Society. Edited by John C. Fout.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 998. Pp. xiv+509. $35.00


Excerpts from the JSTOR Book Review:

"Trumbach's argument, reiterated throughout the volume, is this: by the very early eighteenth century in London, a "third sex" of effeminate sodomites emerged as a specific and unique sexual identity. Before this period, Trumbach argues, most men had sexual relations with both women and boys, the latter relations occurring before marriage or occasionally on the side. By 1700, however, a man's having sex with another male was seen as aberrant and incorrigible, in fundamental contrast to the sexual behaviour and identity of other men who were now "brought... into more intimate relations with women" (p. 9)

This thesis is not new -- Trumbach has made these points in earlier articles, plus other scholars of sexuality, namely, Michel Foucault, have also claimed that (homo)sexual identity was constructed at a particular moment."