A Change in Heterosexuality?

In “ ‘Being Masculine is not About who you Sleep With...:’,” Eric Anderson presented the possibility of a restructuring currently taking place in regard to how heterosexuality is understood in the United States. Using data from participant observation and in-depth interviews with 68 self-identified heterosexual male athletes—between 18 and 23 years of age and who were 80% white and middle class—he suggested that the culturally predominant model of heterosexuality could be changing from being dependent on opposite-sex sexual desire and practices into being determined by sexual activity-passivity. Like the Latin American sexual systems described by anthropologists and other social scientists, this configuration would allow for men to have sex with other men and still claim a straight identity so long as they are not penetrated.

It might sound odd but when I initially read Anderson’s article during my first semester as a graduate student, the idea that the conceptual category of heterosexuality could be undergoing an overhaul did not particularly grab my attention. Perhaps it was because he let his overwhelmingly white middle-class sample stand for a possible large-scale cultural shift while never engaging at length with what this means, if anything, to people of color in the nation. I mean, I remember thinking this possible transformation was kind of interesting and I made a mental note, but that was about it.

However, reading the article a second time, which I did this week, this possible change in white heterosexuality struck me in a way that it did not originally. Maybe it is because I have started to collect data for my master’s thesis on how straight-identified men interpret and negotiate their same-sex sexual practices and desires. A project relatively similar to Anderson’s but very different in how it is contextualized.     

Data from my own research thus far does not support the likelihood of such a sexual reorganization happening among middle-class white people. Of the heterosexual white men that I have spoken with, each has indicated past experiences of being anally penetrated. What’s more, these sexual acts never triggered a psycho-sexual crisis in relation to their normative sexual identities. Now, I certainly allow for the possibility of a major change in how heterosexuality is conceptualized to be under way. Sexualities and how we view and speak about such are constantly being reconfigured. There is no doubt about that. I am just a bit skeptical of such a transformation occurring along the lines of what Anderson described. 

Maybe a change happening right now has less to do with the development of a heterosexual sexual system dictated by sexual activity-passivity and more to do with the fact that academics and others are just beginning to pay critical attention to straight-identified men who have sex with males and not necessarily dismissing them as “not truly straight.” I guess time will tell.

On a side note, in rereading Anderson’s article I was also struck by the treatment of straight-identified white men who have sex with men versus their men of color counterparts. Interestingly, “ ‘Being Masculine is not About who you Sleep With...:’ ” did not represent the white men it is about as likely vectors of HIV, which is how much of media and public health narrowly portray heterosexual men of color who have sex with the same sex (think of the “down low” and “MSM”). In this regard, white men symbolize the possibility of cultural change and men of color disease. Anyhow, just a thought.