Beyond Boundaries: Unveiling the Fluidity of Heterosexuality and the Phenomenon of Bud-Sex

Welcome to an engrossing exploration of the complexities of human sexuality or the gay test, where boundaries are challenged and fluidity reigns supreme. On this journey we unveil the hidden narratives that exist beyond the conventional understanding of sexuality.

While bisexuality is often obscured in discussions, it is not the only category surrounded by rigid perceptions of sexual identity. Heterosexuality, assumed to be an inflexible boundary, turns out to be just as fluid, if not more so.

Sociologists Jane Ward and Tony Silva followed in the footsteps of renowned sexologist Thomas Painter and began their own investigations.

In doing so, they discovered an intriguing phenomenon among masculine white men who identify as straight but have same-sex encounters.

Referred to as "bud-sex" by Silva, these encounters are often framed as acts of assistance between friends or the fulfillment of primal urges.

However, what sets them apart is their regularity and the emotional connections maintained between these men. It is a unique expression of intimacy that challenges traditional notions of romance.

According to one respondent, there are many men who see themselves as “manly men” who engage in “manly things” but also occasionally engage in oral sex with other men.

These encounters are by no means one-off affairs, but shape their lives and create a complex web of desires and connections.

Join us as we delve into the stories and viewpoints of these individuals, and shed light on the fluidity and diversity in the realm of human sexuality.

By challenging fixed boundaries and embracing complexities, we gain a deeper understanding of the rich and multi-layered nature of desire.

Prepare for an insightful journey that challenges preconceived notions, celebrates individual experiences, and expands our understanding of what it means to navigate the complexities of human sexuality.

The Complexities of Heterosexual-Identifying Men Engaging in Same-Sex Encounters

Prejudice against bi people is likely a factor in why these men identify as heterosexual, Silva told me, but it’s far from the only explanation.

In fact, all 60 men that Silva interviewed did express an awareness of bisexuality as an option. Although 16 out of the 60 simultaneously identified as both straight and bisexual, an intriguing twist on conventional sexual labels, the rest saw themselves as purely heterosexual, in large part because “most participants were romantically attracted only to women,” said Silva.

Further, they reported rare to nonexistent sexual attraction to men. Just seven men claimed they were exclusively sexually attracted to women — even while admitting to engaging in bud-sex.

Instead, many of these men saw sex with other men as primarily social validation. They often expressed contempt for more feminine gay men, and they preferred to have sex with others like them because it reinforced cultural ideas that masculine white men are the epitome of sexual desire.

Embracing the Dynamic Nature of Desire

Much like Lisa Diamond, Silva found that these men reported shifts in their sexual behavior over time.

But while the women whom Diamond studied had corresponding changes in their sexual identity, almost all of these men fit their behavior into the framework of heterosexuality.

“The men I interviewed already saw themselves as straight and masculine, and this did not change, even as their sexual attractions and/or sexual practices did,” said Silva.

“So both things happen — some people change their identities, whereas others experience unintentional changes to their attractions or sexual practices but do not change their identities.”

White men are the most studied example of variations in straight sexuality, but that is mostly a result of researchers taking white men’s sexual fluidity more seriously.

The same unstable heterosexuality is found across communities, although similar phenomena in communities of color — such as black men who have sex on the “down low,” which, public health research stigmatizingly suggests, exacerbated the AIDS crisis — are taken less seriously.

This widespread unsteadiness is not a bug, but an active feature of heterosexuality. “If you go back in time to the genesis of sexual categories, all of the sexologists are really concerned that heterosexuality is fragile, that it needs to be promoted and kept safe and made to happen, because otherwise it won’t [be],” said Hugh Ryan. “I think they understand something that is quite true — that heterosexuality is a construction.”

“I’m a little bit joking when I say I don’t think sexual orientation exists,” Ryan added. “But I don’t think it is this permanent, unwavering way that you can divide the world into, or even that you can define yourself.

I think it moves and shifts and plays in concert with all of these other aspects of what makes us have sex or romance or attraction to people.”

Women who long identified as lesbians may, past adolescence, switch to labeling themselves as bisexual without necessarily feeling like they “discovered” a long-buried self. Or on the flip side, as Alison Hinman described in Go magazine, an ostensibly straight-identified woman can just as suddenly jump to labeling herself a lesbian.

Hinman wrote that, after a history of dating men in college and feeling “boy crazy,” she began to date women exclusively. Although she had experienced an attraction to people of multiple genders, she didn’t feel that the term “bisexual” fit her.

Nor did she believe that, when she was dating men, she was lying to herself. As Hinman noted, “It’s possible to feel differently about your sexuality at different points of your life.”

Part of understanding the variability of sexuality is accepting that someone else in Hinman’s situation might decide to identify differently; another woman who shifts from dating exclusively men to dating exclusively women, for instance, might consider herself bisexual instead of a lesbian. Because sexuality is not as stable or monolithic as commonly implied, neither choice is more accurate than the other.

Rethinking Fixed Notions of Sexuality

Too often the belief in stable sexuality has pressured people to “prove” that they really are queer — a demand that has often marginalized the least-acknowledged communities within the LGBT umbrella.

Many people naturally move in and out of attractions, and how they identify does not always correspond with whom they choose to date. A bi-identified person is still bi whether or not they are actively seeking out people of the same gender.

They are also allowed to shift how they label over time without being saddled with the assumption that they are “confused” or “faking it.”

Accepting that sexuality and gender are at least somewhat socially constructed does not mean dismissing sexual identities as insignificant, however. Many people hold their labels close to their hearts.

Rather, a constructivist vision of sexuality gives space for personal agency when it comes to sexual orientation.

Now that the House of Representatives passed an LGBT antidiscrimination bill in May, the question of how best to protect people whose sexualities are fluid or who may not identify under the LGBT umbrella at all is one new generations will have to grapple with.

While some writers, like Lisa Duggan, have proposed a model of protecting sexuality similar to religious toleration — something deeply held that is not biological and that could, but rarely does, change in a significant way — most argue in favor of advancing a strategic biological argument in the courtroom, even if it may not fit many people’s lived experiences.

This strategy has worked for the country’s major LGBT rights advocates in the past, and they continue to employ it today as they argue that LGBT people should be covered by existing civil rights bans on sex-based discrimination.

The Supreme Court will soon decide whether the language in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 necessarily guarantees protection to LGBT people.

In the meantime, the real work has to happen socially. Greater understanding that sexual attraction can shift with time will open the fold for more people to explore the bounds of their sexualities without needing to prove themselves.

We can all better acknowledge that people bring a wide variety of experiences and desires to each identity category — which can also create more empathy for one another even within the queer community.

Just because legal protections have previously been secured on a biological model does not mean that same model has to be how we approach sexuality day to day.