I was recently catching up with a gay friend over a few too many cocktails when his phone buzzed.
Suddenly, he shot up from his seat and bolted to the bathroom. When he returned minutes later, he had a cheeky grin on his face.
He confessed he had been asked to send a risqué photo to a guy he’s been seeing. Ah, modern love.
But that wasn’t even the scandalous part.
He revealed he usually has to send these pictures quickly… before the guy’s wife gets home.
Yes, his wife.
This wasn’t the first time I’d heard a story like this about supposedly straight dudes who dabble in late-night rendezvous with men.
I’m not talking about your garden-variety bisexual. These are blokes who insist they’re straight – swearing they love their wives or girlfriends, that they’re not interested in ever dating men – yet somehow end up in bed with another guy after a few drinks or a cheeky scroll on Grindr.
These are blokes who insist they’re straight – swearing that they love their wives or girlfriends, that they’re not interested in ever dating men – yet somehow end up in bed with another guy after a few drinks or a cheeky scroll on Grindr
This wasn’t the first time I’d heard a story like this about supposedly straight dudes who dabble in late-night rendezvous with men
It’s easy to assume these kinds of men are closeted, but that doesn’t quite cover it.
According to researcher Alfred Kinsey – the creator of the Kinsey scale – sexuality isn’t just two neat boxes of ‘gay’ or ‘straight’ like many people think.
Instead, he argued, it is a spectrum. He plotted it on a scale from zero to six, with zero being exclusively heterosexual and six being exclusively homosexual.
Most people, he suggested, fall somewhere between.
People call it bisexuality, others call it heteroflexibility, and some refuse to call it anything at all. And it’s not as rare as you’d think.
I remember turning up to work after a rambunctious Christmas party one year. At the time, I was working for a predominately male sporting channel where plenty of former soccer players worked as presenters.
One presenter confessed that he had gone to the bathroom during the evening, and one of the sales reps, a gay man, was also using the facilities. He admitted that, after a bit of banter, he said to the guy, ‘Go on, do you want to give it a go?’
He said the guy’s eyes lit up, and before he knew it, it was over.
My jaw hit the floor, but the others just laughed and high-fived, like it was no big deal.
I was shocked – and eager to know more.
So, I put a call out online asking gay men for their stories – and they delivered.
One of my handsome followers told me about the time he hooked up with a guy who looked at his girlfriend’s Instagram for the entire encounter, as if staring at her bikini pics was enough to ‘cancel out’ what he was actually doing.
Another confessed to an affair with a married father who would drop the kids at school then drive to his apartment for a quickie before heading to work. They’d hook up, he’d brush himself off, and he’d be sitting at his desk by 9 am playing the role of a straight husband and dad.
One friend laughed as he told me: ‘It’s always the ones who swear they’d never, ever do it who end up being the most enthusiastic.’
Maybe that’s part of the appeal? Doing something that feels off-limits and getting away with it.
One friend laughed as he told me, ‘It’s always the ones who swear they’d never, ever do it who end up being the most enthusiastic’
But it’s not all fun and games.
Sure, there’s an undeniable thrill to the taboo, as they sneak off for a lunchtime hookup or hide messages in ‘work group chats.’
But my gay friends also talk about the ghosting that usually happens afterwards. Or the emotional confusion. The whiplash of a man who says ‘never again’ only to show up the next weekend.
Not to mention the women unfairly left in the dark, thinking their boyfriend’s only naughty habit is forgetting to put the bins out.
But these stories shine a light on just how complicated desire is. Sometimes, people just want to scratch an itch without rewriting their whole identity.
The next time you hear a bloke bragging about how straight he is, or that he’d ‘never go there,’ take it with a grain of salt. Because behind closed doors, in bathrooms, office blocks, hotels and locker rooms, there’s likely a different story playing out.
So, how do you tell if your man is switching hitting? Well, how insistent is he that’s he’s straight as an arrow?
