Married Men - A Gay Lads View - Have you ever had an experience?

'If a Gay woman said she is repulsed by the idea of a willie and shagging a man, few enough would take issue with that and dead right too, but if a Straight bloke says the same thing he's somehow wrong, even homophobic?'

dunno where you're getting that from?

Well that would kind of be the issue yes. Chinese Whospers was pretty clear and open that these men are "gay" by their own personal definition. Not the actual definitions. They admitted openly they were using their own definition for this. And there is nothing wrong with that - so long as you are clear which definitions you are actually using.

There is a lot of point to having words and definitions. I am in many ways a linguistic purist myself. But we are not slaves to those definitions. We can openly say "I am using this alternate definition" and then say what we need to say. As someone in the business of the definition of words once said - language needs to be descriptive not prescriptive. Language can be and should be somewhat fluid - but it pays to know the actual meaning of words when someone else is using those words in a different way than we ourselves might.

When we look at the actual definitions of words around sexuality - which I did at length on boards once when a similar topic came up - these words are defined in terms of where our attractions predominantly lie. Not what sexual activity we do or do not engage in or what relationship we might be in in that given moment. So while the men being discussed in this thread are "gay" or "bi" by the person definition of someone like Chinese Whispers - and again there is nothing wrong with that - they are not necessarily so by the usual definitions of the actual words.

And it is interesting that of all the people complaining about the definitions of the words on the thread not one (unless I missed it during my speed read, apologies if I did) has actually gone and cited a single one. For example the first one google throws up for me is "Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender." and goes on to note "Sexual identity and sexual behavior are closely related to sexual orientation, but they are distinguished, with sexual identity referring to an individual's conception of themselves, behavior referring to actual sexual acts performed by the individual, and orientation referring to "fantasies, attachments and longings." Individuals may or may not express their sexual orientation in their behaviors.". While another definition from google is "a person's identity in relation to the gender or genders to which they are typically attracted; sexual orientation."

Note the words "enduring" and "typically" here in the definitions. This allows for exceptions without negating the base definition.

Two cases for the point.

First. The Male Escort community of sex workers who serve male customers are not necessarily gay or bi themselves. They are doing it for the money. They might be having sex with other males. They themselves may in fact be entirely heterosexual.

Second. Virgins or Incels. They are not having any sex or have not had any sex yet. Yet they can still be gay, bi, or straight. Their sexuality is not defined by who they have (or in this case have not) had sex with. Sexuality is independent of sexual activity or lack of it.

So yes it is entirely possible to be - and identify correctly as - heterosexual despite having (or having had) sex with someone of the same sex. You could even be in an ongoing once a week sexual relationship of convenience with someone of the same sex - or even a full long term relationship romantically and sexually - with someone of the same sex and still identify quite coherently as a heterosexual person based on how these words are actually defined.

That this fact does not sit well with people working with different dictionaries or their own personally formulated definitions is understandable! But that understanding should go both ways.