Specifically, Silva was trying to understand better the interplay between “normative rural masculinity” - the set of mores and norms that defines what it means to be a rural man - and these men’s sexual encounters. But the point of Silva’s project was less to draw any sweeping conclusions about either this subset of straight MSM, or the population as a whole, than to listen to their stories and compare them to the narratives uncovered by Ward and various other researchers. These were just the guys who agreed to participate in an academic’s research project after they saw an ad for it on Craigslist. Since this is a qualitative rather than a quantitative study, it’s important to recognize that the particular men recruited by Silva weren’t necessarily representative of, well, anything. All were from rural areas of Missouri, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, or Idaho, places known for their “social conservatism and predominant white populations.” The sample skewed a bit on the older side, with 14 of the 19 men in their 50s or older, and most identified exclusively as exclusively or mostly straight, with a few responses along the lines of “Straight but bi, but more straight.” Silva sought to find out more about these men, so he recruited 19 from men-for-men casual-encounters boards on Craigslist and interviewed them, for about an hour and a half each, about their sexual habits, lives, and senses of identity. One relatively neglected such group, argues the University of Oregon sociology doctoral student Tony Silva in a new paper in Gender & Society, is rural, white, straight men (well, neglected if you set aside Brokeback Mountain).
But not all straight MSM have gotten the same level of research attention. In it, Ward explored various subcultures in which what could be called “straight homosexual sex” abounds - not just in the ones you’d expect, like the military and fraternities, but also biker gangs and conservative suburban neighborhoods - to better understand how the participants in these encounters experienced and explained their attractions, identities, and rendezvous. Last year, NYU Press published the fascinating book Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men by the University of California, Riverside, gender and sexuality professor Jane Ward. The author concludes that putting the question of "What do I like?" before the question of "Who am I?" would allow more sexual freedom for those interested in crossing the line that divides sexual preferences.Being Into Middle-Aged People Is Probably a Sexual Orientation
The evidence that these men experienced a genuine change in sexual preference, shows that life-long, exclusive homosexuality, as articulated by gay rhetoric, is more a statement about the culture in which it occurs than the "essence" of homosexuality. The author credits part of the change to the gay liberation movement which rescued homosexual desire from the hidden, forbidden, and shameful. The article raises the question of changing sexual preference: Can a man whose past sexual practice has been almost exclusively heterosexual change his practice to homosexual after being seduced by another man? To those who believe that homosexual preference is homosexual orientation, an innate biological predisposition, the answer is a resounding "no." Contrary to this response, the author presents three cases in which the men switch from heterosexual to homosexual relationships (exclusively in two cases) by means of a sexual encounter initiated by another man.