Can porn make you engage in sex you don't want?

There is a great talk on TED which describes the problems men are having who watch too much porn. Close to the end Wilson addresses how porn can sway you away from your sexual orientation toward sexual behaviors with whatever sex you are not attracted to.

Again this facilitates the dialogue I am trying to have here on this blog which is that straight men can have sex with other men. It is about behavior, not sexual orientation.

This is true for gay men as well as we see everyday in which they are having sex with women even though their orientation is homosexual.

The movie Shame http://www.amazon.com/Shame-Blu-ray-DVD-Digital-Copy/dp/B006OB3K56 showed also how a sexually addicted man escalated his sexual acting out behaviors to the point where he had sex with men even though he was heterosexual. It was accessibility, not sexual orientation.

The Great Porn Experiment: Gary Wilson at TEDxGlasgow

The Truth about Ted Haggard

You might remember Ted Haggard, a former evangelical preacher who last year was outed as having homosexual sex with a male prostitute. He entered treatment and was discharged saying he was “completely heterosexual”. News about his has resurfaced as his new documentary is currently airing repeatedly on HBO – "The trials of Ted Haggard."

In his interviews, he states that he believes his sexuality is “complicated” and that he wants to stay married to his wife and does not see himself as gay. He admits to having same-sex attractions but believes he is heterosexual.

Nobody knows the truth about Haggard but Haggard himself!

I don’t know Haggard personally, but I can see how his sexuality might be complicated and that he might not be gay at all. I have treated hundreds of men like Haggard who are not gay and engage in same sex behaviors.

People have a hard time with men who have sex with men and are still
heterosexual.

Why?

Here are just a few reasons people have difficulty with Ted Haggard which I totally understand:

1. Politically

Using the false belief that gays can change stops people from being willing to grant rights and freedoms to gays and lesbians. Lesbians and gays have fought hard to teach that one’s sexual orientation and behaviors cannot be changed.

Politically laws against GLBT use the concept of “you’re making a choice” to block obtaining freedoms like getting legally married, keeping a job and not being a risk of being fired just because you’re gay as well as keeping your house and not being kicked out simply for being gay—all of which can happen still in 2009 in most places around the country.

My problem with all of this media attention around Haggard is the absence of scholarly lesbians and gays and spokesmen who are not given time to talk about these issues. If this were an African-American issue, the media would bring on Black scholars and writers to address the political consequences of what is happening around Haggard's story.

2. The Bible.

Haggard has a history of as a preacher, for condemning gays and urging them to change.

Haggard still feels the Bible is not okay with homosexuality as he said on Larry King live.

But Haggard and others who interpret the Bible about homosexuality are wrong.

Scholar Rabbi Chaim Rapoport wrote a book called, Judaism and Homosexuality: An Authentic Orthodox View. In this book it is written that, “the Torah forbids homosexual activity as such: that much is clear from the testimony of both biblical and post-biblical literature. It does not condemn a homosexual disposition, because the Torah does not speak about what we are, but about what we do”.

Rabbi Rapoport position is clear in his book that the bible only talks of homosexual behavior, not of a gay identity or homosexual disposition. It never addresses those men and women who are oriented solely to a same sex attraction. He argues that while the Bible is against performing homosexual acts it never takes into account that one could be gay and lesbian and therefore expressing their true nature. Given this the Bible, from a contemporary point of view, does not address lesbians and gays.

While Rabbi Rapoport writes that the Torah forbids homosexual activity, he goes onto say that “there does not seem to be, however, any reference in Torah literature to the phenomenon of a ‘homosexual orientation’….”

Given this one cannot use the bible against homosexuality if there was not any room for it to be an identity which, today, we know it is.

For Haggard and men like him, it may not be his identity and so for him, his interpretation of the Bible might be useful. It is not useful for those who are GLBT's.

3. Bisexuality

Why can’t Bisexuality be what is happening for Haggard? Some men like Haggard choose to self-identify as Bisexual because they are sexually attracted to both men and women. Bisexuals will tell you that they are often emotionally more attracted to one gender over another. For others they are equally attracted sexually and romantically to both.

This is a self-identifying term and if he chooses not to lable himself in this way than he has that right. However, as a media figure he has the obligation to ensure that he is not speaking for bisexuals as well as lesbians and gays.

4. Gay Identity

For lesbians and gays, staying closeted was fraught with lying to themselves that they were essentially straight, with simply a “kinky” side or that their sexual interests were just that—sexual—and not about their identity. They now have great remorse over the lost years when they could have lived as openly gay men. The trauma of staying closeted was so painful that it strikes a nerve to learn that it’s possible to go through all that and still be straight.

I understand their strong reactions: The trauma of suppressing their identity is so profound that watching someone like Haggard remind them of their horrors they experienced while being closeted and of all the deprogramming it took them to understand they were truly gay.

We must make room for men and women like Haggard. Whether he is hiding, lying or telling the truth, there needs to be a place for men like him

What there is no place for is his anti-gay rhetoric that lesbians and gays can change, that the bible is against homosexuality and teaching young gays and lesbians that same-sex attractions are bad and wrong. They might be for the Haggard’s of the world, but to those who are truly gay and lesbian they are not!

Haggard's story need not be about attacking him, attacking GLBT's or using this as reasons to hate, discriminate and judge. That is what the Nazi's were all about wasn't it?

This needs to be about understanding and being curious about how complicated sexual behavior and identity can be!

There are many other reasons straight men have sex with men and are not gay which I write about at www.straightguise.com.

Are you in a bromance?

The following article talks about the usage of the new word "Bromance" when two straight men have loving and even romantic feelings toward one another.

The importance of this word and this concept of "mancrushes" is to dispel the myth that for a male to love and care about another male does not have to make them gay or bisexual. If it does that is fine but if their sexual and romantic identities are heterosexual then the new word for the millineum is "Bromance"

Read on and then tell me what you think can two straight men love each other and not be gay or bisexual? What if they have sex once or on occassion does that make them gay or bisexual?

Here's to 'bromance'
Katherine Bindley

Columbia News Service

Mar. 24, 2008 12:05 PM

In a 2007 episode of NBC’s hospital-based comedy Scrubs, the show’s two
main characters, J.D. and Turk, break into a musical duet proclaiming their
mutual affection. "Guy love. That’s all it is,” the song goes. "Guy love, he’s
mine, I’m his.

There’s nothing gay about it in our eyes."Turk and J.D. are two
straight male doctors who are, without a doubt, in a bromance, a relationship
defined as "the complicated love and affection shared by two straight males,”
according to urbandictionary.com.

From Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to Good Will Hunting, popular
culture is filled with examples of straight guy love. The sitcom "Friends” often
crafted jokes around the ultra-tight nature of Joey and Chandler’s relationship,
and in the 2005 film "Wedding Crashers,” Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson seemed to
have something more like a tortured love affair than a friendship.

To read more click
here.

Then an article appeared in the Huffington Post called "Bromance comes out of the closet"

Homosexuality, of course, used to be known as the love that dare not speak
its name--until, thanks to the gayification of pop culture, it became the love
that wouldn't shut the hell up. Now the man crush (a heterosexual male's
feelings of platonic love for another man) and the bromance (when those feelings
are reciprocated) are coming out of the closet in a major way. This has been
brewing for a while (remember those "I love you, man" Bud Light commercials?),
but it reached a high point in the already-classic drunken exchange in last
year's Superbad (which also coined bromance), in which Seth tells his buddy, "I
just love you. I just wanna go to the rooftops and scream, 'I love my best
friend, Evan!'"

The fact that some guys now not only admit to same-sex infatuations
without suffering a paralyzing identity crisis but announce them amounts to a
seismic cultural shift. Until recently, if a heterosexual dude wanted to reveal
something about his inner self, the safe (i.e., non-gay-seeming) option was to
take a stand about, say, The Killer versus Hard Boiled. Now he can hold forth
about his taste in men.

And finally in Time Magazine acknowledged the Bromance with their article on the movie "Superbad" with the article title Superbad: A Fine Bromance

Today we have the summer's last major comedy: Superbad, produced by Apatow
and co-written by Rogen. It's about a pudgy, mouthy slob named Seth (Jonah Hill)
and his quieter, slightly more kempt buddy Evan (Michael Cera) who want, with
variously intense degrees of desperation, to get laid before they graduate from
high school. At the end of a night of wacky hijinks, the lads do wind up in a
sleeping bag, exchanging intimacies with...each other.

Why don't Apatow and
Rogen just do the honorable thing and tell the world they're gay? It would save
them a lot of time wasted pretending their movies are about young men growing up
and finding the right young woman. It would also save movie critics from having
to find new ways of saying, about their maxi-raunch comedies, "Oh, but at heart
they're really sweet."

And while Hollywood is being honest about the new
strain of guy-meets-guy comedy — bromance, the word writer Dave Carnie coined to describe the strong emotional attachment of one man for another — maybe Will
Ferrell and Adam Sandler should come out of the closet too. In Ferrell's movies,
male merging beats female interest to a pulp, and his latest, Blades of Glory,
allows him several opportunities to stick his face in Jon Heder's crotch.
Sandler's summer hit, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, took guy-guy
friendship to its logical conclusion: two firefighters get married. At least
that seemed as far as boy-meets-boy comedies could go, until Superbad's
cuddle-up scene.

Is Public Sex Okay?

After taking the poll if you want to elaborate on why you think it is okay or not please feel free to do so here on this blog. I would love to hear people's thoughts and reactions.

Also, there are reports that men who have sex with men are arrested moreso than if women having sexual relations with men are when discovered by police. Gay groups state that straight folks get a finger shaking warning and are told to go home whereas men who have sex with men get arrested.

Do you believe this? Why do you think this is? Gay groups site homophobia. Is there more to it than this?

Mankind Project's New Warrior Adventure: The Best Program for all Men!

Lately the New Warrior Adventure--sponsored by the Mankind Project (MKP)--has been getting some negative press. The false belief that is being written is that it promotes reparative therapy and helps gay men turn straight. This is the promise given by some reparative therapy groups and therapists. However, this is completely untrue. The MKP teaches men how to be and live as better men--whatever their sexual and romantic orientation is.

I should know. I was initiated through the MKP in 1999 and am proud of it. I have referred hundreds of men through my book, 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do To Find Real Love, in which I talk throughout the book of my experiences in MKP and how it helped me and healed me. I have recommended to my male clients that they go and they have returned with nothing more than positive results.

The New Warrior Training Adventure provided me with a group of men, mostly straight, whose mission in life is to help men become better and more mature. Still, I went to this workshop not knowing what to expect—and I’m glad I didn’t. That is exactly what made it so powerful for me. This workshop changed my life, liberated me as a man among men, and opened up new possibilities for me.

Here I was, able to have straight men love me, hold me, and help me feel part of the male culture. It is what I’d wanted and waited for all my life. It helped me heal some work I needed to bond and attach reciprocally with other men.

I can hear a reparative therapist right now saying, “See, it was too late. If Joe had had this experience earlier in life, he wouldn’t have turned out gay.” The truth is that as children, the other men attending also had suffered at the hands of male peers, and most were straight.

To believe that mistreatment makes you gay, you would have to go back and look for the reasons why—first assuming that there’s something wrong with being gay. When heterosexual males suffer mistreatment, no one bothers trying to establish through research that it made them straight.

When I was ten, I went on a camping trip with my uncle and his two sons on a sort of Boy Scout trip with boys and their fathers. I recall dreading it, since I knew this uncle didn’t like me and disapproved of my “sissy” behavior. I remember him talking to my mother and the other adults about me, and most of them in fact agreeing with him!

My own family referred to me as a “mama’s boy.” So to please my mother and those trying to “make a man out of me,” I went on this trip, which turned out to be one of the worst experiences of my life. For the canoeing part of the trip, everyone was paired up except me.

Somehow I was separated from my uncle’s boys and got partnered with Uncle Alvin himself.
I recall both of us in life jackets, and feeling the boat tip one way and then the other as my uncle shifted in his seat behind me as he paddled. Being that I was a skinny ten year old and he weighed at least 300 pounds, my uncle’s weight rocked the canoe. I became frightened. Most of the time, I couldn’t see the bottom of the lake. We were alone, with no other canoes in sight.

Sure enough, he leaned too far to one side and we tipped over.

I went under. When I surfaced with the help of the life jacket, I saw the canoe overturned and my uncle trying to right it. I knew we were in deep water, since I couldn’t touch the lake bottom, and I was afraid I would drown. My uncle looked afraid and not in control, which only scared me more. The next thing I recall is both of us back in the canoe, and my uncle yelling at me because I was crying from being scared. For what seemed like hours, he said cutting things such as, “You will never amount to anything. You are a sissy! All you like to do is play house and play with dolls! You are a crybaby, a mama’s boy!” He shouted these patronizing, contemptuous epithets at me, over and over.

As a child you believe what adults say. To a child, adults are always right; so the child makes himself wrong.If the child is right, then the adults in charge must be wrong—and to a preadolescent, that is too overwhelming. So the child unconsciously agrees to be wrong in order to get along with the adults. When we arrived back on land, I was too humiliated to tell a soul about Alvin’s barrage of verbal and emotional abuse. It was as if he’d said aloud what I knew others thought about me—and, in fact—what I felt and believed about myself. I had been crying hard, and my cousin, Alvin’s son, still tells me how shaken I looked when we returned. All I wanted was to get away from him and everyone else.

For years afterward, this incident was the topic of much of my own therapy. Initially, therapists thought this had contributed to my homosexuality—that Alvin’s verbal abuse contributed to and cemented the homosexual identity taking place during my early years.

Today, reparative therapists (and even some other professionals) would say that all of this trauma made me gay; but this would mean that you can shape sexual and romantic orientation. But it doesn’t, because this type of mistreatment happens to any male who doesn’t fit the image of how men should look and act; it doesn’t shape his sexual and romantic orientation.

The fact is, gays and lesbians who raise their own (or adopted) children almost invariably have sons and daughters who grow up straight. Growing up in gay or straight families doesn’t impact children’s sexual orientation either way—but mistreating a gay or effeminate little boy certainly creates low self-esteem, which makes him feel less than a man. Again, this is separate from one’s sexual interests. What makes things worse for gay men is the covert cultural sexual abuse that allows men to be violent to gay males as if we were less than human.

Trying to heal that abuse from my uncle and male peers in therapy did not make me straight. But it did help me understand how those incidents traumatized my masculinity, not my sexual orientation; these are two related but separate entities.

I highly recommend all men who feel they want to improve their lives to attend the New Warrior Adventure and see for themselves the hope, the help and the love that these men who--other than the leaders--volunteer their time and efforts to make these workshops happen--

Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited

This article, Straight, Gay or Lying was in the New York Times in July, 2005. I disagree with the experts who say bisexuality does not exist. I think it does. And as you can see from this blog I believe that more straight men engage in sex with other men that are bisexual. However, for discussion I think it is important to have articles like these that explore the whole concept from straight to gay and everything in between.

Some people are attracted to women; some are attracted to men. And some, if
Sigmund Freud, Dr. Alfred Kinsey and millions of self-described bisexuals are to
be believed, are drawn to both sexes.

But a new study casts doubt on whether true bisexuality exists, at least in
men.

The study, by a team of psychologists in Chicago and Toronto, lends
support to those who have long been skeptical that bisexuality is a distinct and
stable sexual orientation.

People who claim bisexuality, according to these critics, are usually
homosexual, but are ambivalent about their homosexuality or simply closeted.
"You're either gay, straight or lying," as some gay men have put it.

In the new study, a team of psychologists directly measured genital
arousal patterns in response to images of men and women. The psychologists found
that men who identified themselves as bisexual were in fact exclusively aroused
by either one sex or the other, usually by other men.

And perhaps this observation is the most poignant of all regarding straight men who have sex with men who are not gay or bisexual:

"There's a whole lot of movement and flexibility," Dr. Diamond added. "The fact
is, we have very little research in this area, and a lot to learn."

Men's Room Sex

Today the NYT Editorial has a great piece on police raids of men's rooms called,

America’s Toe-Tapping Menace By Laura M. MacDonald published on September 2, 2007.

In it she writes:

For almost 40 years most police departments have been aware of something that still escapes the general public: men who troll for sex in public places, gay or “not gay,” are, for the most part, upstanding citizens. Arresting them costs a lot and accomplishes little.

(Above is the arresting police officer, Police Sgt. Dave Karsnia)

In 1970, Laud Humphreys published the groundbreaking dissertation he wrote as a doctoral candidate at Washington University called “Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places.” Because of his unorthodox methods — he did not get his subjects’ consent, he tracked down names and addresses through license plate numbers, he interviewed the men in their homes in disguise and under false pretenses — “Tearoom Trade” is now taught as a primary example of unethical social research.

That said, what results! In minute, choreographic detail, Mr. Humphreys (who died in 1988) illustrated that various signals — the foot tapping, the hand waving and the body positioning — are all parts of a delicate ritual of call and answer, an elaborate series of codes that require the proper response for the initiator to continue. Put simply, a straight man would be left alone after that first tap or cough or look went unanswered.

I would disagree with her last statement that, "a straight men would be left alone after that first tap or cough or look went unanswered".

Rather, an uninterested man would be left alone after that first tap or cough or look went unanswered.

I love how the author of this Op-Ed piece ends her story:

...let’s stop being so surprised when we discover that our public figures have their own complex sex lives, and start being more suspicious when they self-righteously denounce the sex lives of others.

AMEN!

“I am not gay. I have never been gay.”

Excellent article at Queerty.com

Of the the forty men Tolleso has arrested, he says, the majority are family men. We posted the video and transcript earlier, but here’s the money quote:

…A good majority of these men do have families. And that’s been a little bit shocking to us. You would think that it would be more of a gay issue. But overwhelmingly more and more we’re seeing that these are people with families.

Some of those arrested may qualify as closeted queers, but it’s certainly likely not all of them are motivated solely by shame. They may have sex with men, but it doesn’t make these men “gay”.

This is a "guy" issue, not a "gay" issue.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Why Men Have To Keep A Straight Face

In American culture, girls have rituals to mark their progression as women. When their breasts start to develop, they go to the store to buy bras with their mothers. When they reach menarche, their mothers or another female adult teaches them about menstruation and how to care for their bodies. Girls learn that this marks the end of one stage of their life and the beginning of another.

Boys don’t have the same rites of passage for their masculinity. When we grow pubic hair and start getting erections, no one talks to us about it. And eleven or twelve-year-old boys aren’t about to bring it up themselves. No one explains to us how and what to do. Without knowing what it means to be a male and lacking a sense of our masculinity, we are lost.

Adults stop touching boys by the time they turn eight, which is younger than the age at which we stop touching girls. Only girls have permission to touch each other’s hair and be affectionate with one another whereas boys are shamed for touching each other in any way other than through sports.

In the book, I Don't Want To Talk About Itpublished by Scribner Books in 1998 author Terrance Real writes:

“Boys and men are granted privilege and special status, but only on the condition that they turn their backs on vulnerability and connection to join in the fray. Those who resist, like unconventional men or gay men, are punished for it. Those who lose or cannot compete, like boys and men with disabilities, or of the wrong class or color, are marginalized and rendered all but invisible. . . The exclusion, isolation, of a failed winner is so great, it as if he never existed at all".

Patriarchy is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as, ‘The predominance of men in positions of power and influence in society, with cultural values and norms being seen as favoring men."


Patriarchy defines masculinity by rigid rules that men are to live by. Men are to avoid and distance themselves from being viewed as gay. In our culture, being male is a privileged status, and anything else is viewed as inferior.

What boys need from their father, Real argues, is “affection, not ‘masculinity’.” He rightly stresses that men need more emotion and vulnerability, which they need to learn from their fathers. Sex becomes men’s way of being affectionate not just with women but with other men. There is no other way other than sports to have male physical bonding. This allows for touch and intimacy with another man.

Men who have a strong desire to bond with another man who are not athletically inclined do so through eroticism. Sex is an easy and secretive way to meet their affectional and physical needs especially when both understand that they will keep it on the downlow. In fact, for men the need for affection from other males is not known consciously to themselves because of our cultural prohibition. Thus sex with other men on the downlow is kept quiet but meeting a need at the same time.

Another way of releasing anger and power over other men is in dominating other men. The movies Deliverance and Pulp Fiction were powerful because of the scenes involving male rape, a phenomenon that is more common than we admit.

Men rape other men to show dominance but they have to feminize the raped man or turn him into animal, as in Deliverance to remove any trace of homosexuality.

Men are not taught how to deal with sexual advances from other men the way women are taught; as a result, men get aggressive and overreact to overtures in protest. Rage toward other males can become eroticized through rape and humiliation. Men who are angry at fathers who might have abused them react by sexually harassing other men.

For most men, humiliating another male through homosexual gestures and sexual innuendos is the worst punishment one could give and/or receive. In this way, they go from victim to victor.

Until these Straight Guise truly understand their situation, they are going to continue to sexually act out on the downlow and not tell their female spouses—or anyone else for that matter.

Prostate Exams Part 3: Comic Relief

Here is the last of Family Guy Prostate Exams.

Prostate Exams Part 2: Comic Relief

Family Guy does a great job providing humor about how men experience prostate exams!

Prostate Exams Part 1: Comic Relief

I thought I would post this as it serves as some comic relief for what all men--straight, gay and bisexual--go through in terms of discomfort with anal activity whether it be anal sex or a simple prostate exam.

Cuckolds: Straight men having sex with men with women present

Cuckolds: Straight men having sex with men with women present

By Joe Kort, MSW

From time to time I will blog about various cases I have had in my office to illustrate how men can have sex with other men and it not be about homosexuality or even bisexuality.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a cuckold is “a derisive name for the husband of an unfaithful wife.” The concept of being a cuckold is that a man’s wife or girlfriend is interested in being with another man, usually because she complains of not being sexually satisfied by her husband or boyfriend. Often the other man is more endowed and the male partner is therefore humiliated and shamed for not being able to satisfy his woman as this man can. Usually these sexual fantasies involve the women being sexually dominant and forcing their male partners to watch and/or participate in the sexual acts.

In the case of cuckolds, straight men have fantasies where their wives are having sex with another man either in their presence (or not), but with their knowledge. Other straight men fantasize and/or engage in sexual activity with another man's female wife with the husband present and watching (or not), but with the husband's knowledge.Either way the men involved in cuckold fantasies need a woman to be involved or they are left cold.

In other words, if women are not part of the sexual fantasy or the other man is known to be gay or bisexual, the husband or boyfriend is often turned off. The erotic part of the fantasy for these men is that both are heterosexual.

Some argue these men are gay and/or bisexual and in denial—and some are. But there are too many heterosexual men who enjoy the homoeroticism of another male present for various psychological reasons—none of which have to do with homosexuality.

The Story of Jim being a cuckold

Jim, a heterosexual 35-year-old accountant and father of two young children, came to see me after his wife of 10 years found bisexual pornography on their home computer. Jim would erase his computer’s history to avoid his wife’s discovering what he was looking at on the Internet. What he did not count on was that these sites were saved in the computer’s anti-virus software cache. His wife, Lori, accidentally discovered a list of “Googled” websites; the majority of which were bisexual porn sites where men were sexual with other men while women were present.

Jim denied that he was gay or that he was even bisexual. He admitted that he had been looking at gay and bisexual porn and he was horrified that his wife had found out. He told me that he did not have sexual or romantic feelings toward other men, and he had shame around his interest in being sexual with men. This interest began when he realized he was aroused by having threesomes. Jim had always had fantasies about threesomes in which he was with two women.

In college his male friends talked about openly and proudly about their conquests when they convinced a woman to do a threesome with them. One night he and a buddy were drunk and both discovered they were eyeing the same young woman at the bar. They began hitting on her and ultimately all three agreed to have a three-way. They went back to Jim’s apartment and both he and his friend were sexual with her. He was not aroused by his male friend, nor did he have direct sexual contact with his friend during the threesome.

He and his friend enjoyed this experience very much and did this several more times when they were drunk or high during their last year in college. Neither Jim nor his friend ever talked about these experiences after they happened. They never had direct sexual encounters with each other. Jim denied being in touch with any sexual feelings toward his friend in any way. Jim did, though, begin having masturbatory fantasies about threesomes between himself, another man and a woman—involving both men taking turns with the woman. He found pornography that showed images of this both in magazines and on the Internet. It was nothing more than fantasy at that point.

After he graduated he began dating and eventually marrying his current wife to whom he was 100% committed. During the first few years of marriage he felt sexually satisfied and happy. However, as is true for most people, the sexual intimacy reduced between him and his wife. He admitted she was more open to things than most women he had been with. She was willing to give him oral sex and was “good at it;” as well as allowing him to give her anal sex.He stimulated himself with Internet pornography between sexual contacts with his wife.

The pornography was the same as always--two men being sexual with a woman at the same time. This excited him and he joined online groups to find images where two or more men were having sex with one woman. He did not dare disclose this to his wife or friends as he was concerned he would be judged and labeled as gay or bisexual. He knew he was turned on to women both sexually and romantically and found images of women erotic as well. But he also enjoyed the fantasy of threesomes.

Then about five years ago Jim discovered a porn site about men being “cuckolded”.

He did not know what this word meant but found himself strongly interested in the images and stories on these sites.What aroused him most was the idea of being sexual with a woman while he husband watched. He found message boards where couples were looking for a male and masturbated to the thought of his being that male.

One night Jim was on the Internet and found a chat room called “Pix of my hot wife” and discovered men looking for other men to be sexual with their wives while they watched. Jim had now entered an entirely different realm and found himself unable to stop going back to these chat rooms.Jim started chatting with both men and couples about pleasing their wives, about being seen the couple as the one who could satisfy her in ways that the husband could not. The thought of the husband’s watching aroused him more than just finding a woman to have sex with. Ultimately these couples invited Jim to have sex with them in real time rather than just cybersex. Jim agreed and began meeting various couples during which he would have sex with the women and the husbands would watch.

One time Jim was with a couple and in the excitement of doing the wife of one of the couples the wife asked Jim to ejaculate into her husband’s face and mouth. In the heat of the moment, Jim did this and found himself now excited by the thought of doing that each time he was with a couple. This progressed to having the husbands fellate him while the wife watched. Jim was excited by having men get him erect to have intercourse with the man’s wife and/or accept his ejaculation after having intercourse with the man’s wife.

A number of times Jim realized he was being tricked by men who said they had wives while chatting over the Internet but having met them in person found that these men were single and simply wanted to meet a straight man. Jim was turned off by this. He tried to be sexual with the first man who tricked him by convincing him he was with a wife, but Jim could not finish and left the situation.I asked Jim what turned him on about all of this.

Jim enjoyed the dominance and receiving the ultimate prize of a man giving up his wife for him to enjoy.

Jim was truly a heterosexual man who enjoyed erotic play with other men but only in the presence of a woman.

Sexual Addiction can cause straight men to have sex with men

Sexual addiction and compulsion are a problem-and comprise a touchy subject that isn't talked about. All men--gay, bi and straight alike--can suffer from this disorder.

Trying to chase the powerful feeling of their first high, sex addicts will engage in behaviors that bring an adrenaline rush. This can cause straight men to engage in sexual behavior with other men. It can cause gay men to be sexual with women.

Like any other addiction, it causes the individual to go against their own will.

Patrick Carnes, Ph.D., has written extensively on the subject. In his landmark book, Out of the Shadows, he coined the term sexual addiction. My own working definition of addiction is any behavior or activity that interferes in one's life in some way, but which one continues, despite negative consequences. Along with behaviors are other factors and dynamics, like loss of control.

If a man's tried to stop or cut down his cruising behavior, with no success, that signals a problem. Addictive behavior often displays progressive increase in tolerance. The person needs ever-stronger "hits." This syndrome explains heroin overdoses: The previous level of the drug wasn't satisfying enough, so the frustrated addict "promotes" himself to a higher, lethal dose-beyond what his body can handle.

Similarly, the sex addict needs more and more of whatever behavior satisfied him in the past. Because this progression occurs over time, it's not always obvious. Initially, masturbation with fantasy was enough to satiate his sexual appetite. Later, he needs to view pornography while masturbating. This is then that is not enough, and he feels the need to actually meet someone. Suddenly, he realizes he's cruising at a bar or sex club, or going online more often than he wants to be.

These behaviors, in and of themselves, doesn't necessarily constitute addiction. Problems arise when they interfere with being able to be completely present with one's self and one's partner and enjoy the sexual act-in addition to the fantasy.

People with addictions continue their behavior in spite of negative consequences, which they deny or do not perceive. When the man becomes accountable for his own behavior, no longer blaming it on others, only then can treatment begin.

Most people don't know that during any addictive behavior, biological chemicals are released, making these actions even more compelling.

Natural chemicals such as endorphins and adrenaline give the addict their "high." The sex addict's behavior causes chemical changes in his brain, which promote a mood- and mind-altering experience. Then there's a natural drug in our bodies called phenylethylamine or PEA for short. It's an essential chemical for those who are addicted to inherently risky behaviors like gambling, shoplifting, bungee jumping, and sex. PEA's molecular structure parallels amphetamine, and is strongest when first released. This explains why so many people with addictions say they're always seeking the feeling they had during their first high, and want to re-experience it over and over.

A number of signs exist of sexual addiction. One is a pattern of sexual behavior that's out of control. Of course, sexual impulses are the spice of life, reminding us that we're biological beings. But in sexual addiction, these feelings become intrusive. An impulse comes, followed by a strong need to act on that urge immediately, to get relief. This pattern begins to occur with some regularity.

Another warning sign: Severe consequences due to one's sexual behavior, such as being arrested, compulsive masturbation resulting in abrasions and sores, contracting sexually transmitted diseases, or having a loving relationship end when one partner catches the other cheating.

Another warning sign: Ongoing desire or efforts to limit sexual behavior with failed attempts to stop or cut down the behavior.

Sex addicts viewing the world through a sexual filter. In an attempt to cope with stress, sexual obsession/preoccupation and fantasy become primary strategies. The sex addict will allow his thought to focus on sexual fantasies and sexualize most of his experiences, to relieve himself of the tension he is experiencing.

A sex addict will use fantasy and behavior to modify his mood state. That's the essence of any addiction: an attempt to reduce anxiety, depression and other unwanted feelings and thoughts. The psychological self-soothing hit of PEA and other internal chemicals lets the sex addict feel temporary relief. His mood will elevate. But when the sexual behavior is over, he will drop into shame, despair, depression, remorse and guilt for having engaged in his obsessions and compulsions.

"Sexual acting out" (or SAO, for short) behaviors are a way of acting out our feelings-about whoever we're with, and about ourselves. For the sex addict, the goal is to identify the difference between what behavior's healthy, and what's not.

That's what defines these repetitive, unhealthy behaviors. A man within normal limits, -briefly, or at times of stress or crisis-might find himself driven to overindulging in sexual behavior.

For the sex addict, this activity can consume an entire afternoon, interrupting his life. He may even leave work early to engage in these behaviors.

Sexual addiction blocks its sufferers from having deep connecting relationships. This is why it is greatly important to have to relate to another human being on nonsexual levels. Time and again, studies show that the sexual addict who engages in individual, group, and 12-step groups-all three together-is helped most effectively. Placed in proximity to others, they're forced to examine their issues of intimacy and relational skills with others.

If you think you might be a sex addict or are involved with someone who might be one read information and resources on sexual addiction.

If I enjoy receiving anal sex does that make me gay or bisexual?

This question haunts the many men who enter my office for therapy. The belief is that receiving anal sex equates to homosexuality and bisexuality and even worse to some--femininity!

My quest in this blog is to state repeatedly that an individual can enjoy a sexual act and fantasy unrelated to one's sexual orientation.

So the answer to the question in the title is "No!"

I see many men who enjoy having their wives use a strap-on to perform anal sex with them. They are still men who are straight and enjoy erotic anal play.

The problem is that men feel shame asking their wives to engage in this behavior. Other men do ask but their wives are opposed to it, are offended by being asked, and/or worry that their husbands are gay.

So these straight guise seek out men to act out their fantasy of being anally penetrated. They desire the sexual act, not the man.

The Feeldoe®

The Feeldoe® was invented and patented by a woman. She writes on her website:

Though Mia created Feeldoe® for lesbians and for friends who are female to male transgendered, many heterosexual couples are enjoying these new toys, too! Even men with a little problem can use a Feeldoe®. One way or another, this fabulous invention is pleasing people all over the world!

Those men who do succeed in talking with their wives and receiving anal sex have found the use of this sex toy on this adult website. *WARNING: Do not click if you are uncomfortable viewing sex toys.

Anal sex for males who enjoy receiving is the most troubling concepts for straight men and women because it is so closely tied to homosexuality. My hope is that this posting along with the rest of straightguise.com can assist couples to talk openly and honestly about their sexual desires without labeling and negatively judging each other.

Guise and Dolls

Over the years I have treated hundreds of men--gay, bisexual and straight--who tell me that they enjoy various sexual fantasies and sexual acts but would never tell their wives. They want to tell and include her in their sexual world but worry about her judgment about something they already feel ashamed about.

Some actually do tell and receive responses such as this:

"You want me to do that? I am not that kind of woman!"
"Why would you want anal sex? Are you gay?"
"I am not going to do that and you better not get that anywhere else!"
"You cheated on me because you don't love me."

The fact is that most of these men want to engage in sexual behaviors, sexual fantasies, sexual talk, and perhaps pornography--either with their female partners included or at the very least with her knowledge.

Women often judge that if their male partners do not tell her about their sexual interests that it is because they don't love her. The fact is they don't tell because they love her do not want to lose her.

Take my client George for example. He had strong interests in receiving anal sex. He enjoyed inserting dildos and his fingers into his anus and derived strong sexual pleasure from this. He worried he was gay and learned in therapy that enjoying anal sex is not an indicator of one's homosexuality. It is a sexual act and desire which is separate from one's identity.

After George put this into perspective he decided to tell his wife. He told her of his sexual interests in his anal sex where he is the received and asked her if she would be willing to use sex toys and even a strap-on to wear while penetrating him anally. She became immediately angry accusing him of being gay and telling him she never wanted to talk about it.

Feeling ashamed, he never brought it to her attention again and found himself hiding his sex toys and looking for male partners who would anally penetrate him. He was clear that if his wife was receptive to his sexual interest he would not seek out men to engage in this act.

I asked him why he sought men and other women to do this and he said he had but received the same negative judgments from them. He reported that men who enjoyed giving anal sex never judged him. He did not care about what the men looked like or what their personality was he simply enjoyed the sexual act.

I am not blaming his wife for his acting out sexually with other men. I do hold her accountable for not being more open to talking with him about his sexual interest and at least experimenting with his sexual desires.

This is not limited to women in terms of being sexually judgmental. Men can be this way as well when it comes to their partners needs and interests. However, women tend to be less sexually open than men and these men then stray from the marriage to get their sexual needs met.

This illustrates only one of many reasons why men seek out sex with other men.

How Reparative Therapy is different from Straight Guise

There is an excellent four part story on the ex-gay movement entitled My Ex-Gay Life: Dissecting Reparative Therapy My Ex-Gay Life: Dissecting Reparative Therapy

There is a great quote they start with:

"Sexuality is a fluid, dynamic thing. There’s no such thing as sexually-fixed identities - those are things that are fabricated by man." - Michael Glatze

And then the lies begin by those interviewed from the reparative therapy camps:

We are an organization of psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists around the country who really are committed to helping individuals who are dissatisfied with their same-sex attractions," says Joseph Nicolosi, one of the founders of the organization who currently serves as its President. "We’re defending their right to receive such treatment, and our right to offer such treatment."

The lie is that their treatment is the belief that everyone is born straight and that homosexuality is heterosexuality gone bad!

They will state in their literature that there is "nothing gay about homosexuality". This is the problem with NARTH, Nicolosi, and other programs for "ex-gays". That one can become "ungay"--like the 7-UP commercials for the un-cola I guess.

The problem is that they are calling homosexuality inherently damaged and a result of pathology. This is old school thinking.

No one can go from gay to straight. They can stop sexual behaviors but the gay man is still gay and the lesbian is still a lesbian. I always say if I never have sex for the rest of my life I am still a gay man.

However, the straight man who engages in homosexual behavior and stops was never gay from the start! He was a straight man having sex with other men for many reasons that are not all pathological.

Nicolosi goes onto say:

"[They need to] get those needs met thought a relationship with other men," he says. "The focus is not on not having gay sex... it’s putting the emphasis on making deep emotional attachments. And we have seen that when these men make deep emotional attachments to other men, their sexual interest diminishes."

Nicolosi is saying that gay men who put emphasis on making deep emotional attachments with other men they will no longer be gay. Tell that to the thousands of gay men--including myself--who have deep emotional attachments to other men and are still gay.

Are there straight men who hunger for male intimacy and act out homosexually and once the need is met they no longer seek out sex with men? YES.

Are there bisexual men who are more attracted to women but have sex with men and stop? YES.

Yes. But they are straight or bisexual from the start. They are not gay.

The issue at hand here is that reparative therapy has confused a gay identity with straight men who have sex with other men. They are apples and oranges. The theories are accurate in why someone would seek out sex with other men but they are not about being gay or homosexuality.

Gay Guise: What to do when your client has sex with men, but is straight

Gay Guise: What to do when your client has sex with men, but is straight
By Joe Kort, LMSW

From the July/August issue of The Psychotherapy Networker

Paul, a slim, attractive, 29-year-old white man who owns a landscaping company, was referred to me by his therapist (with whom he was making no progress) shortly after he attempted suicide. He told me that eight months previously, Julie, his fiancée, had discovered that he'd been having unprotected anal sex with men. When she confronted him, he denied it, but soon broke down and confessed. Devastated and angry, she broke off their engagement, accusing him of being duplicitous (she believed they were monogamous) and secretive. Worst of all, she felt frightened that he'd put her at risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Paul loved Julie and said he knew she was the woman for him. They'd dated for three years and been engaged for one. He hadn't told her about his homoerotic tendencies, nor had he confessed his suspicions that he might be bisexual. Then again, he thought every guy had some homoerotic thoughts that he probably kept private. He couldn't understand why Julie was so angry with him or why she didn't try to understand what he was going through.

Instead, Julie had rebuffed all his desperate and obsessive attempts to win her back. Ultimately, she'd had a restraining order issued against him. Shortly after this, Paul engaged in a binge of sexual acting-out with both men and women, culminating in the suicide attempt that brought him to my office.

This has happened many times: a man comes into my office, referred by his own therapist and clutching coming-out literature the therapist has given him. He explains that his therapist has tried, unsuccessfully, to help him come out as a gay or bisexual man. But even though he's had sex with other men or gone to gay male Internet porn sites, he insists he isn't gay. He says he isn't homophobic, either; if it turns out that he is gay or bisexual, he'll accept it and move on with his life—but it just doesn't feel right to him.Historically, psychotherapy assumed homosexuality was a psychological disorder. Therapists focused on helping clients "recover" and find their innate heterosexuality, much to the harm of many gays and lesbians.

During the last three decades, in reaction to these prejudiced and destructive attitudes, we've seen the pendulum swing so far the other way that it's now become almost a therapeutic credo, not to mention a requirement of political correctness, to assume that men who have sex with men are "in denial," and that the clinician's job was to help them recognize and accept their "true" homosexual orientation. In fact, neither extreme represents the experience of many men.The truth is that many men who have sex with men aren't gay or bisexual. Although their confused mental and emotional state resembles that of the initial stages of coming out, gay men go on to develop a gay identity, whereas these men don't.

Therapists who treat such men need to realize that just because a client is sexual with the same gender doesn't necessarily reflect his sexual or romantic orientation. While we may believe we've accurately assessed whether a client is gay, it isn't up to us as therapists to make this judgment. Countertransference, cultural stereotypes, and personal feelings too often enter the therapy room and complicate our work—particularly with these clients. Therapists need to help such clients discover for themselves whether they're acting out a gay or bisexual identity by asking the right questions and by agreeing on a shared vocabulary.

To read more click here.

Is my man checking out other men? Homosexual fantasies aren't always a red flag

I was interview by Brian Alexander of MSNBC about Straight Guise.

Brian Alexander, an MSNBC contributor answered the following question:

What should a wife do if she suspects her husband is thinking of another — and that other is a man?

Q. My husband doesn’t want sex more than once or twice a week. Recently, I accidentally found some material on his computer that indicates he enjoys homosexual and transsexual/transvestite porn. Is it possible he’s gay or is this a normal thing for some men to be into?

A. I help Brian answer this woman's question at MSNBC.com