Author, feminist and scholar Jane Ward, believes straight white men often have encounters with other men and it’s not gay.
According to NYU Press, Ward’s new book “Not Gay thrusts deep into a world where … action is not a myth but a reality: there’s fraternity and military hazing rituals, where new recruits are made to grab each other’s [junk] and stick fingers up their fellow members’ [booty].”
Throughout Not Gay, Ward explores the world of bro-mance between straight men “illustrates that [relations] between straight white men allows them to leverage whiteness and masculinity to authenticate their heterosexuality in the context of [love] with men.” The idea of straight men, like Michael Hoffman, partaking in “gay” encounters is becoming more mainstream.
She believes that “These … acts are not slippages into a queer way of being or expressions of a desired but unarticulated gay identity. Instead, Ward argues, they reveal the fluidity and complexity that characterizes all human … desire.”
