I’m a Straight Man But I Fancy My Guy Friend. What’s Happening?

This article originally appeared on VICE Italy.

Ask VICE is a series where readers ask VICE to solve their problems, from dealing with unrequited love to handling annoying flatmates. Today, we’re hoping to help someone who is confused about their same-sex attraction to a friend.

Hey VICE,

I can’t stop thinking about having sex with a close friend of mine and it’s weird because I’ve never, in my 23 years, been attracted to men before. Of course, I notice when a guy is good looking – I’ve always owned up to that – but I’ve only ever been sexually interested in women.

Now, though, I’m having dirty thoughts about my friend – when I see him, when I look him up on social media, when I masturbate – ever since he broke up with his girlfriend six months ago. He’s bisexual and has started hooking up with men too, so I keep thinking: ‘Why not with me?’

I’ve even tried watching gay porn to understand my situation better, but I didn’t like it. At the same time, I feel almost too good when I’m around him – our bromance moments disarm me. He knows this too, and he plays into it quite a bit. A week ago, he said he was drunk and kissed me. He told me maybe it’d be better if we went home together instead of going clubbing and I said, “Oh c’mon, what are you doing? Move!” in front of everyone.

What’s happening to me? Is it possible to be straight but to want to have sex with only one guy, who’s average looking, yet I find him impossibly attractive? If I told someone this would they believe me? And what if I didn’t like having sex with him? Or I liked it too much?

R.
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Hi R., 

Heterosexuality is a label just like any other, it’s one you pick to define your sexuality for yourself and communicate it to the world. Basically, if you think of yourself as straight, you are – that’s completely valid.

This label doesn’t automatically exclude your desire to have sex with a guy, since “labels are descriptive, not prescriptive,” explains clinical psychologist Stefano Verza, who specialises in LGBTQ+ issues. In other words, the label only describes your reality, it doesn’t predict what’ll happen in practice in your life. “Our self-description helps us introduce ourselves to the world but is not a fortress: We can go inside and out of its limits,” she says. It’s also possible that these desires might make you question your sexual orientation in the long run.

Verza thinks of sexuality as made up of three main components: Our sexual identity is our personal interpretation of everything to do with our desire; then there’s our sexual orientation, the attraction we feel towards other people; finally, our sexual behaviours relate to how we act in practice, which might reflect our sexual orientation partially, totally or not at all. For example, someone can be bi without ever having had gay or even straight sex – or someone can be straight, but want to have a same-sex experience.

“Often your sexual orientation refers to who you’re mainly attracted to,” Verza continues. A smaller percentage of your sexual orientation can be directed at a different kind of attraction, yet remain unexpressed because of your social context – maybe you never had the chance to explore it, or it just came up at a different time in life.

“Overall, sexuality is fluid and can change overtime,” Verza adds. Since heterosexuality is seen as the default in society, sometimes we pick this label just because it’s the most mainstream. Sexuality does not follow a timeline: Some people figure out everything when they’re teens and others need more time.

One of the most famous ways to depict human sexuality is the Kinsey scale, which places people on a spectrum from totally straight to totally homosexual. The vast majority of people are somewhere in between these two poles, and the idea that you have to fit neatly into black and white categories is unrealistic and oppressive. 

In your letter, you mention watching porn almost as a test to confirm or deny the validity of your desires. The problem is, though, what people like in porn doesn’t necessarily correspond to what they do in their sex life. “That’s the good thing about porn: You can explore your fantasies in your room without necessarily acting on them,” Verza says. The opposite is also true, you could prefer performing some sexual acts instead of watching them – sexuality has a myriad of nuances.

In short, meeting someone that represents an interference in how you think of your sexuality is definitely not unheard of – even later on in life. This raises questions and anxieties, since male bisexuality is still very stigmatised. What this means for how you’ll identify in the future is still hard to tell. These are questions only you can answer, and you should take your time to do so. What’s clear is that repressing these feelings won’t help you understand yourself very well.

You wrote in your letter you rejected your friend in front of everyone. It seems like you’re worried about what your friends might think of your attraction to him. Verza says you should ask yourself a few questions about that, including: “Why do I need other people to believe me to feel that this experience is real?”

Really, this attraction could remain a fantasy you explore while masturbating, as is the case right now. It could also lead you to find out unexpected things about yourself, but you have to decide what to do about it, independently from what your friends – or even Verza – think or suggest.

If you do decide to take action, of course there’s a possibility you might not like the sex. The question you should ask yourself at that point is whether you were fully present in the moment but simply weren’t into it, or if you tried resisting the experience. You also say you fear you might like the experience “too much”, but there’s no such a thing as that, since there’s nothing wrong with enjoying sex.

Besides, you should remember that throughout all this confusion, you still have a friend on the other side of this relationship. Maybe you could try to talk to him openly and sincerely, and see where that goes.