Boys Just Want to Have Fun? Masculinity, Sexual Behaviors, and Romantic Intentions of Gay and Straight Males in College

Abstract

Scholars studying college student sexual culture in the United States largely frame men as being detached from emotions, unconcerned with relationships, and in pursuit of sexual conquests. By expanding the examination of college sexual culture, an environment often associated with meaningless sexual encounters, this article tests those stereotypes in gay and straight men. We evaluate sexual behaviors, social opportunity structures, and romantic attitudes of gay and straight males in college. We find evidence that both supports and contradicts existing literature on masculine stereotypes for both groups of men. We also find that gay and straight men report different sexual scripts and romantic desires.

KEYWORDS:

• College students
• gay male
• heterosexual male
• higher education
• masculinity
• romantic relationships
• sexual behavior
• sexual scripts

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Paula England, Janice Irvine, Amy Schalet, and Ben A. Johnson for their feedback on this project.

Notes

1. All bivariate results shown in this article are also statistically significant when modeled as outcome variables in logistic and OLS multivariate regressions controlling for compositional differences between the gay and straight populations, such as socioeconomic status, age, GPA, region, and others. Because each of the 25-plus bivariate relationships shown in this article corresponds to its own regression model, there is simply not enough room to include them in an overview article such as this one. However, we note this here to emphasize that the results we provide here are robust even to the controls for the characteristics shown in Table 1.