Given the way that feminism, LGBT rights and heterosexual work and sex roles have changed over the last forty years, it is now not uncommon for gay and straight men to actually become mates.

In Arena last year, one of their columnists, Paul Flynn, wrote a mischievous piece about what to do if you’re a straight bloke and you think that your gay mate fancies you. Okay, Flynn does admit that there are such things as platonic S&G friendships, with interesting implications for the fields of politics, acting and comedy.

However, to paraphase an amusing book about the autonomy of furry miaouing creatures who dominate one’s living space, my response to Mr Flynn would be: “Dude? Perhaps your gay mate just isn’t into you in that way.”  For example, witness the witty remark that one Brit gay fireman made when asked whether he ever perved on his straight male counterparts- it included references to pot bellies, malodorous socks and the conspicuous lack of personal body odour augmentation amongst one’s more unreconstructed colleagues.  In other words, hey, give us some credit for aesthetic standards of our own!

And it’s perfectly easy for gay men to have platonic friendships with straight blokes if one bears in mind that simple governing principle. However, curiously enough, Mr Flynn doesn’t raise the possibility that the straight bloke may be entertaining ‘ ‘ feelings of his own, and may want to enter the field of bi-curiousity. Am I the only gay man who’s had the experience of a fagstag inviting himself along on one of my dates and playing cuckoo in the nest? And what happens if the stag wants to ‘explore his sexuality’ and you don’t feel the slightest bit interested in him beyond simple friendship?

Mr Flynn, like the proverbial mog in the book I cited above, perhaps your gay mate does want to keep it just matey?

Recommended:

Paul Flynn: “Does Your Gay Mate Secretly Fancy You?” Arena 186 (September 2007): 129-131