Straight Men that have Sex with Men with Dr. Joe Kort

foreign intimacy podcast a show about mental health sex relationships education and tips and those private things we need to talk about more publicly without restrictions I'm your host Dr Kate balistrari a licensed psychologist certified sex therapist hacked couples therapist and sex addiction therapist I know that mental health is directly tied to the quality of our relationships and our sex lives I'm passionate in my desire to smash stigmas and shine a light on societal issues that may be negatively affecting our lives relationships and sexuality during this podcast I will also give you practical answers and insights to questions you've been wondering about we should all have fulfilled happy lives and we get there by erasing shame consciously digging deeper building healthy connections and by getting curious together thanks for joining me let's get started hi everyone welcome back to the modern intimacy podcast today I want to start by reading a question that one of our listeners sent in and just a reminder please send us your questions and we're happy to answer them on the show when we can so this question comes from a woman who says my husband and I are in an open relationship but a couple of days ago my gay bestie told me he saw my husband on Grindr this blew my mind because my husband has always said he's straight so how can that be if he's having sex with men can he really be straight or is he bi or gay and is there anything wrong with what's happening here so to answer this question I wanted to bring on a very special guest and dear friend Dr Joe Court Dr Court runs this amazing practice in Michigan and he's the author of the book is my husband gay by or straight this question comes up lot about whether or not straight men can have sex with men and still be considered straight so I wanted to bring you on and I'm so grateful for you being here today so we can answer this question thank you I'm happy to be here when you hear this question I'm still curious about the first place that your mind goes when someone's asking you this question of can straight men actually have sex with men it goes to I guess in my mind it's it's kind of a ludicrous question because straight women are sexual with other women all the time we even have a word for women in college you know the term lugs lesbian until graduation and so everyone understands that and she graduates and she's you know being playful with it but when it's men it's like there's no rip wiggle room as soon this is what I always say when a man has one non-heterosexual thought he's stigmatized when a woman has one non-heterosexual thought she's fetishized both are problematic but she gets a little room he doesn't she gets a little room because the idea of her sexuality is that it still caters to the male gaze whereas when a man has one non-heterosexual experience with another man immediately that does what it produces a disgust response and that disgust response um it takes away his heterosexual identity for both men and women I was really I'm really surprised at how many women I think women get scared you know they get scared because it might mean that he's really gay and I'm wrong and they're going to lose everything yeah I think that that's a really good point there also are a lot of undertones of homophobia and why men are so stigmatized and women are not there are much greater consequences for men in terms of how they relate to their masculinity if they are to have more fluid sexual experiences so I'm curious about how you help men make sense of this and how you help their Partners make sense of kind of what they're sitting with in terms of all of these layers of sexual experience that's such a great way to say it there's so many layers of the layer I start with is that there's a difference between your sexual orientation and your erratic orientation your sexual orientation is to whom you're attracted to in terms of gender non-binary multiple gender but your erotic orientation are the things that get you off the things that bring you to orgasm and so lots of people erratically get turned on by things they would never want in real life do in real life might discuss them in real life but in the erratic Zone it's it's um and it may even go against the way they they morally believe religiously believe and so for a lot of the men that come to me that are straight this is an erratic situation it's not an attraction to men that makes a lot of sense to me right but let's break that down a little bit further how can something be a part of someone's erotic orientation but not include an attraction to men so they're attracted to the act so the sex acts and so when I wrote my book I put the most popular things I see in my office which are a lot of straight men enjoy receiving anal sex and um they'd love to have their wife put a strap-on on and have egg her peg him but if they talk to her about it she sees it as gay or he's too afraid and too ashamed to tell her because she's he's worried she's so he goes and finds other men to have transactional non-committal sometimes not even names are being um said it's just let's get this over with and and I'm done and it satisfies um something inside of them that isn't the attraction to the man but to the physical experience he had right so it's more to the sensation in that case right somebody likes the stimulation of that kind of anal play and they feel safer maybe having men play in that space with them than bringing it to their partner or maybe they felt humiliated with their partner or like it might be a power shift that they're not ready for if they are partnered with woman because for a lot of people they over couple the ideas of topping and bottoming um with power in their relationship absolutely true and a lot of the guys some of them are just into maybe they can be a little bit more um feel a little bit more desired because gain if they um hook up with gay men gay men are gonna you know talk about how nice they look and how big they are or whatever and they might be able to be a little bit more verbal aggressive than they would want to ever be with a woman or a woman would not want even in a consensual exchange so there's some more freedom they get or maybe they wanted to feel like you said submissive and they and they can't go there with their female partners yeah what are some of the other more common scenarios where you see straight men hooking up with men the most common I wrote two chapters on it and probably because we're therapists we see most of this I'm sure you've seen this where it's they've been trauma traumatized by male perpetrator in childhood so I call it you know we talk about trauma reenactment returning to the scene of the sexual crime so they're reenacting they're not sexual urges they're trauma urges they've gotten eroticized and the man is completely unhappy with what he's doing it's not a satisfactory experience whereas with the gay or bi-men they come back and they have all kinds of Shame they're all kinds of guilt but during the ACT they have all kinds of fun that's not necessarily the case for men who've been sexually abused straight men who are sexually abused or the straight men yeah sorry no the straight men movements actually because when they're with these other men it they can even feel that they're doing something that is not aligned with who they are right right I'm really glad that you brought that up because there are so many men who experience sexual abuse at the hands of other men and they often will struggle with ideas about what that means in relationship to their sexual orientation and they may have even been told things by the perpetrator that would give them the impression that their sexual orientation is different than how they understand it to be and that's why they were chosen for victimization so it's really important to differentiate what is behavior based on Pleasure or convenience or erotic orientation versus trauma that is compelled by a repetition or reenactment of old trauma in the past absolutely um and another reason a lot of guys will talk about being sexual with other men is money the exchange of money getting paid turns them on I've had several clients tell me that they're cash sexual you know so that's the new term for them right and they would love it if better if a woman would pay them and some women do that but most guys will pay other guys to have an exchange and so that that's the turn on they have an erection from the money that's really fascinating and makes so much sense so in in what percentage of cases would you say there's an element of humiliation or degradation that accompanies a straight man's desire to be sexual with men I don't know um it's so hard right to make generalizations from our practices because I'm only thinking about the men I see in here and they come to me but um I know that it's a bigger part because uh it's not something they want to necessarily do with their female Partners or that their female partners are willing to do with them and they can go a little bit harder and stronger by receiving it or getting giving it a lot of these men are into BDSM and Kinks and fetishes and it's the BDSM and it's the Kink and the fetish that's getting them off they prefer the gender to be straight because they're straight men are to be women but because they may not have a female available they're more than happy to do it with men because the action is what's turning them on yeah that that's really interesting so set another way in some in some ways with some men do you see them as selecting men to have these kinds of sexual experiences with as a way to protect their female partner oh 100 in fact what they say and um every guy I've ever worked with he I deal with guys all over the world and consult with them and they all say the same thing I didn't feel like I was cheating on my wife and it's because it's not a female and they're but they're also able to express themselves in that way and they're protecting her from his own desires that's a really well said yeah I mean in their minds they're protecting them I think a lot of female Partners still experience it as a betrayal and horrible yeah it's it's I think the best of intentions gone awry and um yeah I think protection is a motive that I hear a lot about they're protecting their partner from the intensity of the sexual experience that they want to have they're also sometimes protecting their partner from the idea that their marriage is anything different than what it is or that their relationship is anything different than what it is and for any fear or shame that their partner might feel if they knew to the true nature of their erotic fantasies yes yep and the then the other thing I see that's pretty common are men who cross-dress so we don't you know that word is sort of fading now we're calling it gender play or feminization and he might enjoy dressing like a woman uh you know taking pictures of himself and the actual Act of being sexual with another man is the ultimate feeling of being of feeling like a woman right it's not a transgender experience it's a cisgender heterosexual man who likes to feel is erraticized the femininity and the man being sexual with them just adds to it yeah yeah what are some of the concerns that you hear from Partners so many you know I always thought the first concern that most women would have is um HIV or some kind of sexually transmitted infection or disease that's a concern but that's not her first concern it's is he gay and he's going to leave me that's the main concern yeah yeah that that feels spot on and consistent with What I Hear Too uh there's often a fear of Abandonment and a fear that the the woman in the relationship has misjudged her partner and therefore all of the wonderful memories that they've shared are meaningless right they often feel like they didn't know their partner and if they didn't know this about them what else don't they know so it can really shatter a sense of trust not only in their partner and in their relationship but in their reality right because for a lot of women they don't ever think that this could be a possibility and it doesn't make sense to them because it really blows out a lot of the paradigms that people are conditioned to understand when it comes to heterosexuality yeah most of the cases that I work with you have to deal with the infidelity response that she's going to have it's such a betrayal and then it was that it's with a man is even harder and I feel so bad for them because they'll say to me I'm not homophobic I'm not I I don't I don't I don't feel this way about anybody else okay but this is my husband and I've actually stopped I have read comments in my Tick Tock through social media where people say no that's homophobic on her part I I guess it could be but I don't see it that way I see it as her it's an infidelity response as we said but also her disgust response sometimes and I'd love to see here what you have to say about this sometimes I think women carry a patriarchal version of what a man should be and this goes against that patriarchal version and because he's not supposed to be softer be with men or receive anal sex or whatever it is and what are your thoughts on that well I think it's really um it's really layered and nuanced and a lot depends on each of the partners and the conditioning that they've both had around gender and the implicit and explicit agreements in their Fidelity in their relationship but I think when a lot of women have this discussed response one it is a trauma response um certainly uh more often than not in fact I can only think of a few instances when I've worked with Partners who are experiencing betrayal trauma um there's only a few instances where there hasn't been a discuss response around sex in general and so I do think that the act of betrayal can evoke a huge disgust response no matter who is the Betrayal partner or the affair partner in this case so um we have to think about discussed you know in terms of what its function is and discussed as a gatekeeper emotion it says keep that out whatever the thing might be or the ACT might be or the experience so for a lot of women I do really think it's about simply the Betrayal and this person feels unsafe to me so it becomes an easier Target to look at who is my partner acting out with and let me hold the characteristics that I assigned to them responsible for my partner's betrayal and so sometimes I think there's a confounding of of that when it comes to straight men acting out with men but definitely there are some people some Partners who say things like you know it would be better if it were with another woman because I can't compete with a man I don't have a penis I don't know how to even come back from that and I think sometimes the disgust comes from that there's just um components of sex play that they don't know how to engage in and might feel really foreign to them I tried to when we're doing this work which is so intense as you know and can get so difficult and nuanced and layered but I I try to say to them because these men come to my office holding my books they have read my books because they're well-intentioned well-intended therapists will say to them you must be gay if you're compulsively having sex with men it's anal sex so he's holding my books he's read them he doesn't he says if I'm gay help me be gay and most gay men would never say that if they're in the coming out process they wouldn't even make it to my office and I always say to them and to their wives your anus doesn't have a sexual orientation it doesn't know whether it's straight gay or bi it's an anus it's pleasurable you didn't make um great choices in getting that fulfilled because of the agreement you had with your wife and um we need to talk about that but the fact that you like somebody to um prostate pleasure you um is not a gay thing because as you know in my work there's lots of gay men that don't have anal sex you've coined a term called a side right and we often think about sex as sort of having a top and a bottom so can you tell listeners what it means to be a side yes so the in gay male culture um when it comes down to intercourse which is always the gold standard even among straight people that that's the sex act um that when people say I'm having sex they're always talking about penetration and intercourse and so um the the man who inserts is the top and the man who receives is the bottom and then you can be versed you could go both ways or you could be top verse bottom bursts so I identify as a side I've never had anal sex I'm not I'm not my anus is not a pleasure Zone nothing happened to me you know there's nothing wrong with me that a lot of people have wanted to shame me over the years for that it's just not how I like to play with pleasure and so I came up with the term if you're not a top and you're not a bottom then maybe you're a side and um my friends laughed about it when I said it and I thought wait why is that funny and I started to come out about it and I wrote an article about it and this year reinder and Scruff both the gate Premiere gay apps have taken it on as a sexual position that's amazing congratulations for identifying that term and really giving voice to what a lot of men feel and and how they choose to be understood in their sexuality so when we think about somebody who identifies as a side and also is a straight man who has sex with men do you see many sides showing up in that space yeah yeah so that's the thing that I forget too that most when I talk about straight men who have sex with men people go right to anal sex that is not the majority of what's going on they're they're giving oral sex they're getting oral sex sometimes there's kissing and a lot of people say if he's experiencing pleasure then it has to be gay but if he's doing it for money or he's doing it because of trauma reenactment or he's in prison then then they they can excuse it it's really strange but it's a more it's much more side play than intercourse or penetration so it's it's really about and I think that's so important there's often a convenience that comes with straight men having sex with other men because men don't always have the same kinds of Hang-Ups about opportunistic sex or casual sex and that's an important piece here to consider because for a lot of women women are conditioned to attach a lot of emotion to sex and a lot of meaning about relational security and safety in terms of do we mean something to each other and is this about expressing our love that's not good or bad right or wrong but it's not always the purpose of sex and sex devoid of that connection is not a bad thing necessarily so I think a lot of men turn to other men because it's convenient it's it's literally no strings attached and there are much easier agreements foraged around quick transactional opportunistic sexual experiences then there are with between men and women sometimes it's so true and a lot of the men have a higher desire for sex than their female partners and they might have exhausted all the ways of trying to make that happen in their relationship so then they go out and it's availability and opportunity just like you say yeah yeah well what are some of the things that people are surprised to learn as they're making sense of this for themselves I think a lot of people are surprised by the fact that you have an erotic orientation that isn't always attached to your sexual orientation and I love to teach that because it's so green to understand it gives people permission to go yeah I might fantasize about rape but it's rape play it's not real you know I'm not mentioning myself in a emergency room with a bloody lip I'm imagining somebody forcibly taking me and we're all in agreement all that kind of stuff right and I think that the biggest surprise is that you that because a lot of them think well I must be bi but bisexuality involves a generalization a generalized attraction to the same stack so if you go on the beach you're at an airport in the mall with these men it's really specific context-specific person specific and can't be created it's not something you can just make happen it just happened and people are surprised by that it's a really good point a lot of women watch lesbian porn a lot of straight women watch lesbian porn for similar reasons right it's not part of their sexual orientation they don't fantasize about women they don't want to be sexual with other women they don't want to be romantic with other women but they really appreciate watching lesbian porn because it is centered around the female gays and around female pleasure and so they have more access to their own pleasure seeing it mirrored on the screen whereas in porn that features people with penises usually that porn is centered around penis oriented pleasure and so a lot of women who watch it feel bored and left out or like it's misogynistic and it can be so you know I think that's a really great way to think about the difference between erotic orientation and sexual orientation what kind of pleasure do you like to experience and how do you access that yes and and you may I don't know if you know that a lot of people don't I learned it in the 90s there are um many lesbians that like to watch gay male porn they're not attracted to men but they like the overt sexuality they don't necessarily like the lesbian porn that's out there um they feel like it's not uh realistic enough or or the there's not enough penetration or whatever it is that they and so um you know then that frees them up to understand that it helps excite them to watch gay male porn I don't know if you ever saw the movie The kids are all right but there's a little tiny scene did you see it and there's a scene in there where she her son finds gay male porn and they're lesbians he's like what is this they did not explain it at all in the movie but I remember thinking wow you know at least somebody's trying to say something about it yeah that's that's amazing I'm gonna have to go back and re-watch that and catch that again I know a lot of straight women who even watch gay male porn there's something really erotic about it and for for a lot of women who watch gay male porn sometimes it's about the fantasy that these men are so overcome by their sexual urges that they're willing to um be sexual together even when they might not be gay and there's something really fun for them about pushing that taboo yep and I'll tell you something and I'm pretty out about this gay porn leaves me cold I do not like to watch gay porn I like to watch straight porn and I'm not necessarily attracted to women but I like the way the sex happens in a gay porn than I do in gay male porn you mean you like the way it happens in straight porn versus that's what I meant yeah yeah yeah oh that's interesting what's different for you about it the alpha there's more of an alpha male in the straight porn and you don't necessarily see that as much there's more of a power equality in the in the gay male porn which is fine but I kind of like to watch a little power exchange and I see it a little bit more often in straight porn that's a really great point so when we're talking to Partners we're talking with Partners what are some things that they're surprised to learn about themselves or about sex what usually trips them up such a great question just that they never considered it that they never even considered that ever being this close to them in their lives um and I think just maybe what I already said the surprise that he's so disgusted by what she's thinking is about being gay you know and it goes right against her her real feelings about LGBT you know culture but I it's the thing I have to teach her over and over again is it's really not about that this is not a homophobic response because she might have a gay kid or a gay father or a lesbian you know daughter right and they don't typically have a discussed response when they think about other people they love and care about being members of the queer Community that's you know fine and acceptable to them which really kind of brings me back to that original thought this is about the sexual betrayal and the idea that my partner's been sexual with someone else in a way that blows my mind with surprise and so that feels scary and I think that it's still not protection yes and I did think of what the biggest surprise is for both of them but for her too and I love to do this try to understand I call it cracking the erotic code oftentimes there's a reason that he's chosen men or the way in which he is interacting with that man might have threads to his childhood might have thread to something else about him and that reduces and almost sometimes erases her disgust response and she can have compassion for him because it has nothing to do with the act and it has more to do with the history so what would you say for couples who are at that place they've recovered from the Betrayal trauma they've cracked the erotic code they understand what these behaviors mean to them and the female partner says I'm really just not interested in that kind of sex play you know I would love to give you what you need what you want but I can't do it and I don't want you to have sex with other men anymore those are really hard you know um and I always say look when you're working with couples like that of any kind yes there's a no in the room but there's also a yes in the room it doesn't mean that no has to change to yes but that doesn't also mean that the F has to change to no so I I encourage them to have conversations about how can they play this out then and they erratically talk about it while they're engaging in sex in the bedroom can they watch gay porn together or whatever it is that in some way that he can satisfy that scratch that itch with her um comfort levels there too it's hard those are hard discussions they are hard discussions and they bump up against another thing that I think most folks don't really know about sex or about their own sexuality in addition to having a sexual orientation and an erotic orientation we also have an erotic identity right which is a way that we see ourselves in in the light of what we find erotic so many people don't want to see themselves as somebody who would be open to certain kinds of sex play because they've attached meaning to that or they find a lot of Pride and empowerment in certain kinds of sex play that they are into and so I think when that comes up there's often a conversation about what aspects of identity might be bumping up against the desire for this kind of play and where might there be a clash in values between how a person sees themselves in real life versus what it might mean to step into this fantasy play with someone else and I think sometimes that can help them find a more common ground when they recognize that their values and their identity outside of this play remain intact and so it can be kind of reframed as we're going to a bit of a Sandbox and as adults we've got different kinds of shovels and different kinds of buckets but we get to play in the sand too it just takes different forms so sometimes that can be a path into finding a way that they can both feel good about incorporating a play that maybe was being satisfied outside the partnership yes and and I like what you said earlier um a lot of the women sometimes the surprises they're turned on by it you know and um they want to play maybe watch him with another man as long as she's involved and I'm seeing this more with younger women I'm going to be honest under 40 that are saying you know they're more open to that than the older women and it might just be a generational thing and a Fear Factor thing I've seen that too I'm so glad you brought that up I'm seeing a rise in um couples who are enjoying cuckolding and hot wife fantasies and hot wife play and sometimes this space can be a really great merging of um whatever might be uh within the man's erotic orientation and it might create a way for the wife to play and really be um prioritized and idealized and even sometimes worshiped in that space so it can be a place where she can join and feel really positive about it yeah I'm glad you brought that up because that's another big and I have a hellhole chapter on that as well where I talk about what that means and the power dynamics because in often in the cuckolding when there's two men and a woman if the woman isn't there then even in hot wiping the two men are left cold they're not aroused or they might engage with one another in some ways during Coke holding but if the woman's not there it's the turn off yeah yeah well Dr Joe thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and talking about this is there any last advice or I guess starting points that you might offer to folks who are in this space of questioning what's happening for them yeah so um I always tell people I'm not a gay Whisperer if I was I would be rich and having dinner with Cher tonight on my yacht or hers I don't know but I always say that I have four questions that you can ask the man can ask himself only the man can respond and answer this nobody I can't so partner can't and the four questions are is there any youthful noticing most straight and by men have I know I have tons of thoughts and memories of being a little kid and attraction to other boys and wanting the straight men who have sex with men have no youthful noticing of boys it's all girls the second thing is there's no homophobia people that are closeted gay men by men on just non-straight men are so phobic about themselves that they can barely talk about it so there's no homophobia I call it the beach chest the third one when you're on the beach I'll wear your eye your gaze drawn you know where are you looking and you know I always say no offense to women but you're in my way on a beach I'm trying to look at the adult men all around you know so the straight man who have sex with men are looking at the women the men are in the way and the final one is who do you want to come home to who who do you see yourself with and straight men who have sex with men say women that's wonderful wonderful any tips for partners or questions from Partners um I guess just if they can hold on and really let the process I know this is hard it's like I I don't say this in there I try to be really sensitive about it because I know it's not an easy thing to wait but um to be patient because if her husband or male partner is not gay or bi it's going to come out in the end and you'll be fine you can be fine for me yeah they really appreciate that that is one of the hardest things I think when when Partners make a discovery like this or they receive a disclosure it just blows their whole world open and ambiguity is really hard to stay present with because there's so much uncertainty and so much fear and so a lot of people will jump to a decision about their relationship really fast um because they're looking really to swage the fear and the uncertainty and getting to a decision even if it's any decision doesn't matter what decision helps to provide some of that relief yeah that makes a lot of sense yeah well thank you again Dr Joe um where can folks reach you if they have more questions and can you maybe say a little bit about your different books sure I have a website Joe court j-o-e-k-o-r-t.com all my social media handles are at drjo court d-r-j-o-e-k-o-r-t and um I wrote two books um for gay men one's called Ten smart things gay men can do to improve their lives and then tens of our things gay men can do to find real love they were in the nine no I'm sorry the early 2000s I'm coming and I've updated all these books um I'm just coming out and and having good relationships in their lives and my third book was um for therapists lgbtq clients in therapy I originally wrote in 2008 but I have updated it in 2018. I mean the LGBT community is changing while we speak I'm sure it's completely different when we hang up from this than it was when we started a half an hour ago and then my last book is my husband gay straighter by is really about male sexual fluidity wonderful well thank you again and please everyone go give Dr Joe a follow on his social media channels he's amazing has a great presence and gives out amazing content so thank you so much thanks for having me thank you for listening to the modern intimacy podcast on Instagram follow me at Dr Kate balistrari and at the Modern intimacy on Tick Tock check me out at Dr Kate balistrari and on Twitter at Kate balistrari everyone has questions about mental health sex and relationships send yours to me via DM on Instagram or email them to questions modern intimacy.com and I'll answer some at the end of each episode visit the website modernintimacy.com to schedule a consultation with a member of our team or to sign up for our newsletter let's meet back here next week new episodes air every Tuesday reminder this podcast is for education and entertainment purposes only and is not a substitute for mental health services [Music]

Channel: Dr. Kate Balestrieri + Modern Intimacy

Views: 22,382

Keywords: Kate balestrieri, modern intimacy, what does a sex therapist do, sex therapist near me, what is a sex therapist, sex therapist Los Angeles, sex therapist chicago, sex therapist miami, sex therapist nyc, certified Sex Addiction therapist, psychologist vs therapist, Sex Addiction help, porn addiction recovery, best therapist beverly hills, psychologist beverly hills, men who have sex with men, Joe kort, straight men who have sex with men, straight men, gay bi or straight

Id: 3aRz2lMixFc

Length: 33min 57sec (2037 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 21 2023