Binaries like gay/straight are being challenged, and we are creating conceptual and physical spaces in which it’s possible to imagine ways of being that are more fluid. The upside to all of this is that there has never been a better time in history for a man to explore his sexuality. There’s no allowance for fluidity, and if the world were to find out that you jack it with dudes, everyone would think you were gay, and that means you lose your heteromasculine capital. This explains the difficulty the Str8 bators of BateWorld have with coming to a consensus on what jacking off together means. Compared with women’s sexuality, Ward theorizes, male sexuality is perceived as rigid, and because men aren’t perceived as being able to have fluidity, their behaviors have to be defined as either gay or not gay. Ward demonstrates this in her book, showing all the wild ways guys rationalize having sexual encounters with other men, whether it be just jerking off together or eating potato chips out of each other’s butt cracks. We know so little about male sexuality, and because of that, carving out space in it for anything other than totally straight or totally gay behavior is bound to be confusing. But when you think about it, it’s not really the guys’ fault. It can definitely all seem a little absurd, these intellectual contortions around what’s gay and what’s not. “If all the men of the world just admitted they bate and started doing it together, we’d probably have peace on earth!” Even so, they are lines that allow for a thriving sexual subculture with a logic all its own. What I have found on BateWorld is that these lines between “just fucking around” and “kinda gay” and “OK, that’s really gay” are indeed superficial and imaginary. But is the circle jerk really meaningless and harmless if men well into adulthood are seeking out strangers on the internet to re-create something we normally associate with adolescence? These men are looking for encounters in which they can bare themselves to other men and have male-to-male nudity and often physical contact while maintaining their heteromasculine capital. Notice that Ward’s words in 2015 echo McCartney’s in 2018 about something that happened in the 1950s: Meaningless. In the 1940s, a Trans Pioneer Fought California for Legal Recognition. What to Do When Your Kid Is Reading a Book That Makes You Uncomfortable The Forgotten Gay Cable Network That Changed LGBTQ History