Just speaking from my experience, I don’t understand why societal stigma has such a hold on some “straight” men. I understand it’s psychological, but someone needs to help me understand it here because it really doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me in 2026. I know gay men who are typically masculine and straight men who lean more feminine. “Gay” is just a label, it doesn’t really confer any special or lesser status imo. So when I hear stories my gay friends tell me about closeted men they see every now and then, how they are unnecessarily hostile toward them and act like their life would be ruined if anyone found out they were seeing another guy, it just feels…extreme? It actually sounds very much like OCD or psychosis of some sort that’s being sublimated into this fantasy of the “normal” world of being straight. My straight friends are no better than my gay ones given they pretty much engage in the same things, so I’m not really sure where this terror they have comes from. That they’ll lose family and friends? That’s already a concern for many people that could arise from many other reasons, like borrowing money or not being there emotionally for someone for example, yet that rarely stops people from betraying their communities anyways. Many people lose family and friends every day and it’s not a fear people consider preemptively, and usually just deal with it as it comes. So what makes transgressive sexuality so important, compared to other transgressions of equal effect, that it has to occupy such a strong place in closeted men? submitted by /u/miseryofcourse
Originally posted by u/miseryofcourse on r/AskMen
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