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SMNTY Classics: The Gay Best Friend · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny Anne Smitha and Welcome to Stuff
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I Never Told You a protection of iHeart ideo and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: today we're bringing back another one that Kristen and Caroline
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: did for I think it's gonna still be Pride Month
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: by the time this comes out.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: But we'll see.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: About the gay best Friend again. I can't believe we
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: haven't already re ran this.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: One at all. Yeah, but I.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Had a happy hour recently where I talked about how
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I may or may not have been in love with
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: a gay man at one point and people's opinions on
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: that and my thoughts on it, So you know, why
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: not bring this one back. Please enjoy this classic episode.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from howstufforks dot com. Hello,
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline,
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: and this week we're talking about themes on friendship and
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: the last on the podcast we talked about shine theory
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: and success and competition in women's friendships, and now we're
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: gonna switch our focus to the gay best friend, both
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: the trope and also these actual relationships between straight women
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: and gay men and other kinds of cross sex and
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: cross orientation friendships.
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been super interesting looking at these sources and
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: just charting the evolution of not only the perception of
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: gay people in our country and what that meant for
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: friendships at the time, but then seeing how they are
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: now when you look at those like Will and Grace
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: or Sex in the City, and how the leading ladies
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: had their gay friends who were almost treated like pets.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: They were completely sexually neutered and expected to just be accessories.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: And then you move forward in time and look at
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: a show like Girls where Hannah and Elijah are super bff.
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: Granted they did date back in the day, but it's
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: it is very interesting to look at how this has
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: evolved as the perception of gay people in America has
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: evolved as well well.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: And when it comes to sort of a pop cultural
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: timeline of it, the late nineties is when this gay
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: best friend trope really gets claws into film and television,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: starting in nineteen ninety seven with My best Friend's Wedding.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: I remember watching my best friend's wedding when I was
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: a younger girl. I don't know how old I was,
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: but I was.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Old enough to look at Rupert Everett and be like,
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: I screw that straight guy.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Julia Roberts, Can you.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: I really wanted Rupert Everett and Julia Roberts at the
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: end of the film to.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Leave the wedding and then make a life together, because
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: he just is to say they didn't.
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: I know, it just wouldn't be that kind of life
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: that you were hoping they would have.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: An unconventional life vs. But to be near him a okay.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: And in the following year, in ninety eight, you have
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: the premiere of not only Will and Grace, also Sex
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: in the City, as well as The Object of My
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: Affection starring Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd, who it plays
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: the gay best friend in that one.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: And yes, I've also seen that movie. Apparently I really
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: enjoy these kinds of films.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: And that's almost become its own mini genre of the
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: straight single or recently broken up with straight girl pining
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: away for her male gay best friend. Because then in
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: two thousand you also have The Next Best Thing, which
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: is a similar kind of setup.
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: And Thomas Rogers over at Tolon did point out that
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: Will and Grace had many positive effects for him as
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: a gay man coming out during that era, and also
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: for many other gay men who were kind of looking
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: around at how to be, how do I act?
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: What do I do? And so Will and Grace had.
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: The benefit of being like, hey, you can be accepted
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: by people in society and not be shamed. But the
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: downside he was saying was that, like I pointed out earlier,
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: the gay characters in that show.
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  Speaker 2: Were totally neutered.
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: He's I think he said, they were as sexual as
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: a pastel cardigan.
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: And the friendship has become a trope essentially.
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  Speaker 3: But I did think it was interesting when a few
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: seasons in they bring in this sexy young boyfriend for him,
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: which maybe I don't know, maybe was their effort to
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: make him into more of a human person, an actual,
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  Speaker 3: like three dimensional, farmed human.
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  Speaker 2: Who was desirable.
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  Speaker 3: But that was the whole joke too, of like this
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  Speaker 3: guy's going for Stanford.
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  Speaker 2: Oh is that possible?
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  Speaker 3: But anyway, this whole trope, though, even though it seemed
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: to blossom in the nineties the late nineties, it's been
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: around for a long time, just that very basic assumption
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: that straight.
• 5:13
  Speaker 6: Women and gay men are essentially made for each other.
• 5:17
  Speaker 6: And this also jumped out to me when I was
• 5:20
  Speaker 6: researching for this podcast and I was on the side
• 5:24
  Speaker 6: reading Catlemarans how to be a woman, and she writes
• 5:27
  Speaker 6: at one point at eighteen, I'm discovering with generations of
• 5:30
  Speaker 6: women have long known that the natural ally of a
• 5:33
  Speaker 6: straight woman is the gay.
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  Speaker 3: Man, because they are other losers too, which I mean
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: that kind of sums up our assumptions about this relationship.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, they are both outside the noirm and the dominant
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: social construct being, you know, the white man, the white
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: street man. When we found some interesting points about the
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: origins of what would become this major trope in this
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: paper called Fast Friends and Queer Couples Relationship between Gay
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: Men and Straight Women in North American Popular Culture from
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: nineteen fifty nine to two thousand by James Allen.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: And Allen points out that since the late.
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: Nineteenth century, a lot of researchers have seen commonalities, as
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: we just said, between gay men and straight women in
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: terms of being the other. So when did these relationships
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: really start to pop up on screen. Well, in the
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: late nineteen fifties we get the weakening of the Hayes Code. Now,
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: the Hayes code preceded like the rating system for movies,
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: which is like rateed R, rated PG. It was basically
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: a set of moral guidelines for the film industry that
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: was in effect from nineteen thirty to nineteen sixty eight,
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: but when it started to majorly weaken in the fifties,
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: Hollywood began showing these relationships between straight women and openly
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: gay men more prominently on screen.
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  Speaker 3: And if they weren't openly gay, they were kind of
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: wink wink, nudge, nudge gay.
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  Speaker 2: Right. They're always like the.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: The interior designer man friend who can be playful with
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: this woman who has a boyfriend, and her boyfriend won't
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: get upset. And Alan categorizes these kinds of relationships into
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: mother and son, the perfect couples, kind of like Will
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: and Grace, and also the gals and pals, which is
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: a little more Carrie Bradshaw and Stanford blatch. But they've
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: always been so steeped in stereotypes because underlying a lot
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: of this historically are bigoted assumptions that gay mens secretly
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: want to be women, that they identify more with the
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: female experience, and that women who associate with gay men
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: simply aren't sexy enough to get straight men to fall
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: in love with them find them attractive, and that they
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: derive their self esteem from gay men's compliments.
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  Speaker 4: So I mean, this trope has a lot of baggage
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: and has a lot of negative things to say about
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  Speaker 4: everyone involved.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Basically, Yeah, And I want.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: To clarify that we're talking about the trope, We're not
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: talking about these actual relationships that do exist in the
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: real world offscreen between gay men and straight women.
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: But I mean, speaking of that, let's dive into those real,
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: actual human relationships and find out what researchers say, because
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: I mean, obviously, yes, these friendships do exist, they do happen,
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: They're not just a pop culture television phenomenon. And research
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  Speaker 4: support that these cross sex and cross orientation friendships do
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  Speaker 4: happen from a young age.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: There is a.
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  Speaker 3: Paper published in Social Science Research in twenty ten called
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: Patterns of Cross Orientation Friendships in high school and it
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  Speaker 3: confirmed that among all gender combinations in cross friendships in
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: other words, boy girl friendships quote those between straight females
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  Speaker 3: and sexual minority males, which is perhaps the most clinical
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  Speaker 3: way of saying gay guys have received a great amount
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: of attention in previous research. The scholarly interests perhaps reflect
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: the high rate of friendships in the gender combination, and
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: they point to a two thousand and two study which
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: found that gay boys tend to have more female friends
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  Speaker 3: than straight boys, although lesbians, younger lesbians do not necessarily
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: have more male friends than.
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  Speaker 2: Straight females do.
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  Speaker 3: And we'll come back to that in a minute, because
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  Speaker 3: that was a big question in our research of well,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: we have this focus on this cross sex, cross gender
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  Speaker 3: gay men, straight women, but what about like gay women
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  Speaker 3: and straight guys, and straight guys and gay guys. What
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  Speaker 3: about all the other combinations.
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  Speaker 4: Right, And so they point out that these sexual minority students,
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: so to speak, seem to be largely cut off from
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: one another at school. They're not only small numbers, but
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: there's also a concerted effort to reduce visibility. I mean,
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: middle school is hard enough, you know, without feeling like
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: you're about to be bullied because you are of that
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: sexual minority.
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  Speaker 2: As they talk about, and.
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  Speaker 4: Kristin, you mentioned all of the different basically combinations of
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: these different friends. And they also found that straight girls
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: are more likely to have cross orientation cross sexual orientation
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  Speaker 4: friendships than straight boys are. And so if we look
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: to another study which is called Beyond Similarities, Cross Gender
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: and Cross Orientation Best Friendship and a sample of sexual
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: minority and heterosexual young adults in the journal Sex Roles
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: in twenty fourteen. They also pointed to the differences in
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: straight girls friendships and straight boys friendships with people of
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: cross orientations. And so they found that gay men reported
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: more cross gender friendships than lesbians did, while straight girls
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: reported a higher percentage of cross gender best friendships than
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: straight boys did. So it's basically confirming what the previous
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: study found.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean, in a nutshell, girls are just
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: likelier to have.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Strong friendships with gay boys and boys are likelier to
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: have strong friendships with girls.
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it seems like straight boys are friends
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: with straight boys.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean kind of, there is that isolation.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: And yeah, as we'll talk about, like you know, the serios,
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: lesbians are gonna be friends with lesbians, straight boys are
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: friends with straight boys, and then gay boys are friends.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: And then there's the rest of us, right, and we
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: mixed and mingle.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: And I will say that that pattern was very much
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: reflected in my high school. I mean, I had a
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: pretty small graduating class, so it was easy to see
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: and there was only one out gay guy in our class,
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: and he only really hung out with girls.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, he would hang out with the guys sometimes,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: but they were merciless. Yeah, yeah, it was the same.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: In my high school, I had a gay friend who
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: actually got chased out of school by the popular boys.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: It was just a sad, unfortunate situation because he was
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: part of the popular boy group. They found out he
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: was gay, they bullied him until he left school. But
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: up until then, while he had been part of that group,
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: the core of his friend group had been girls, and
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: so it was horrible to see that the one boy
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: who was able to try to come out just it
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: was not successful.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: And while I have a feeling that for people who
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: are in high school today that kind of outright bigotry
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: and homophobia is not as bad as it used to be,
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: even when you and I were in high school.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Not so long ago.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: But this study, i mean it's from twenty fourteen, supports
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: that those kinds of patterns still exists, which is interesting.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: And one thing that further studies have suggested is that
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: these friendships between gay men and straight women are also
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: mutually beneficial. And this was something that Thomas Rodgers was
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: pointing out over at Salon. Speaking more too, in this
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: instance of gay straight friendships and more of the pre
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Stonewall era saying quote, men got the appearance of heterosexual
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: legitimate I see an intimacy free of sexual tension. Women
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: got a touch of glamour and performance and exoticism.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: And so when it comes to that.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: Glamour and performance and exoticism and this mutually beneficial relationship. Supposedly,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: this was something that a study publishing the journal Body
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: Image looked into in two thousand and nine study title
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: the Relation between Women's Body Esteem and Friendships with Gay Men,
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: and its results supported the hypothesis that women's body esteem,
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: specifically feelings of sexual attractiveness, was positively associated with friendships
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: with gay men, but correlation causation not clarified.
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: Right, as Jesse bearing over its Scientific American pointed out,
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: there was absolutely no link between a woman's relationship status,
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: the number of times she'd been on the receiving end
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: of a breakup, or her body esteem, and the number
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: of gay male friends in her life. Still, the longer
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: that a woman has been friends with her closest gay
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: male friend, they found, the lower her perceived sexual attractiveness.
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: But this, I mean again, this is all correlation. Because
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: also you could think and this is the first thing
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: I thought, Well, like, okay, the longer a woman has
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: been friends with someone, the lower her esteem body esteem. Well, like,
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: also that means you're getting older, which means that you
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: might naturally feel bad about things that are sagging.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know exactly.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that is why it is so important
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: to read studies when you can, because I mean it's yeah,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: especially in the case of this, it's like, who knows
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: if the reason why they felt greater sexual self esteem
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: was just because they had a circle of gay men
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: all just like doling out compliments all day long.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: But one study though in twenty ten, publishing a journal
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: Evolutionary Psychology, essentially went viral when it came out. Its
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: title is friends with Benefits but without the sex.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Straight women and gay men exchange trusted dating advice, and
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: it suggests that these relationships flourish because there is no
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: sexual threat.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: So that's good for straight women. We can have these
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: relationships with these men who do not want to have
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: sex with us, and so that makes life so much easier.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: And meanwhile, straight women offer the benefit of possibly providing
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: access to other gay men for their gay friends to meet,
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: and also swapping, as the study title implies, or what
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: it doesn't imply, as the study title states, we can
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: swap dating advice because we're all we're all going for men,
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: so we're all, you know, but not the same men,
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: so we're not in competition. There's no sexual threat. There's
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: no competition. I mean, what more perfect relationship could you get?
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: Right, basically that we both love getting dating advice from
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: each other. Because there are no ulterior motives. You can
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: get a male perspective without any sort of buy. You know,
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: you can get a male perspective, but he's not trying
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: to date you and keep you from the other man that.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: You like, yeah, and vice versa, and he wouldn't be
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: able to try to date the straight guy that you're
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: going for exactly. But there were also some experimental limitations
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: with this study design as well, because essentially the way
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: they set it up was through Facebook profiles, setting up
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: these fake Facebook profiles for I think it was an
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: obviously straight guy, obviously gay guy, and an obviously straight woman,
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: and they set up this scenario of having to go
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: to a party and you don't know anyone, so.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Who of these three people? And these fake Facebook profiles
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: would you like to go to this party with the
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: most and women.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: Were like the gay guy, and then they did the
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: same thing for the gay men, so it's not I
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: would be more curious to get a.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Little more real world interaction.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: Well, so obviously what this is showing us is that
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: there are a lot of benefits for these for the
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: people in these relationships, and that the pop culture phenomenon
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: that is the gay best friend is based in something
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: real that actually happens. But not all of these relationships
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: are always super healthy, and we're going to get into
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: that when we come right back from a quick break.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: And now back to the shop.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: So in the first half of the show, we established
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: the fact that yes, indeed, gay men and straight women,
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: as you and I can both personally attest, do exist.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: And there have been studies on these relationships because they
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: seem to fascinate us endlessly, I think, because I mean,
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: people are constantly puzzling.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Over this question of can men and women be friends?
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: And this is the one cut and dried situation where
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: it's like, oh, yeah, absolutely, because there is none of
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: that sexual tension. And then when it comes to female
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: female friendships, there's a question of competition and jealousy if
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: you're ever both going from a flame guy, unless, of
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: course she's a lesbian.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Where are the lesbians? We'll get to them.
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: But yeah, and before we talk about the different combinations
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: of all of these friendships and the dynamics and what
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: they mean and are they positive, we do have to
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: talk about some of the downsides of the stereotypical gay
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: man straight woman relationship. For instance, the idea that straight
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: women get to use gay men as this accessory, this
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: arm candy, this party favor to feel better about themselves,
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: exercising a lot of privilege along the way.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is more speaking to these relationships as
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: are reflected in pop culture and to almost that trope extent.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: It's something for instance, it comes.
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: Up a lot on shows like Real Housewives, where you
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: have the rich woman who loves to trot out her
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: quote unquote gay husband because he's so cute and fun
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: and her husband doesn't pay attention to her.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Anyway, So thankfully there's this one guy.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: And Thomas and Rogers, who we've cited a number of
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: times now, wrote all about this in Salon, at the
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: headline of his piece being I'm not your gay boyfriend.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: He said quote, it feels like she's throwing around a
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: designer label or telling me she knows a celebrity a
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: kind of social conspicuous consumption. So there is some troubling
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: factor that can exist in that more in its portrayal
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: I think on television rather than these well, and I'm
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: sure sometimes in real life off screen as well, because
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: people are emulating those kinds of statusy relationships.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: But you know, I mean, it's a two way street
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: if we're talking about using each other and having privilege,
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: because he also talks about gay men getting to use
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: their straight female friends as their own accessories then exercising
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: their own privilege, but this time male privilege to the
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: point of outright misogyny.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: This was something that Yolo Achille wrote about over the
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: Good Men Project and got a lot of conversations started
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: about this question of gay male privilege, which might sound
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: like it cannot possibly exist well in the way Yolo
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: wrote about it quote, the unique way our entitlement to
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: women's physical bodies plays itself out is only the tip
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: of the iceberg when it comes to gay cis gender
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: men's sexism and privilege, and goes on to talk about
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: how in a class he was leading. He was asking students,
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: female students whether they had ever been touched by a
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: gay guy, like non consensually, and a lot of them
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: raised their hands, and a lot had stories about, say,
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: going out one night and having their breast grabbed, or
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: the infamous incident on the Red carpet in twenty ten
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: when Scarlet Johansson was talking to Isaac Musrahi on the
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: red carpet at the Oscars and.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: He grabbed her breast and she was not happy about it.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean I can't imagine a scenario when
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: she would be But that whole thing has to do
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: with the idea that gay men, you know, aren't real men.
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: The societal perception of gay me in being again totally
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: neutered and safe, and so it's not assault. It's not
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: offensive to have your personal self, your physical self grabbed
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: by someone else because it's just.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: A gay guy. And Achille was.
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: Talking about how a lot of gay meen see it
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: as their right to somehow be able to grope or
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: offer advice on women's bodies, like women's bodies are just
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: an unfinished painting that they can come in and critique
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: and give advice on and I have a.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: Feeling too that this also is a two way street
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: in the sense of there are gay men who don't
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: really appreciate it when a pack of drunk straight women
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: walk into.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Gay bars and want to take over the.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: Centers of attention and grab their butts and their crotches
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: as well.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: So I mean, it becomes a.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: Complicated sort of dynamic, which I attribute to this portrayal
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: of this kind of newter toy for straight women to
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: play with, when in fact, I mean, in real life
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: there are such strong and powerful and intimate and important
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: relationships between get between gay me in and straight women.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: There is, however, also these other factors that.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: We need to confront too, even though I mean I'm
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: personally kind of seizing up a little bit because it's
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: a little uncomfortable to talk about.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Frankly, Yeah, and.
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: Rowan Goua over at jazz Abel did an incredible job
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: talking about it. I mean, he wrote this incredibly long, detailed,
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: very personal piece about his life as a gay man
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: and his relationship with both other gay men and with
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: straight women, and the fact that he basically no longer
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: refers to himself as a gay man that he calls
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: himself queer, because he says that the term gay is
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: way too loaded now that a gay man is like
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: will on Will and Grace, or like someone who's older
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: with a ton of privilege, and he's wealthy and he
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: has all these material needs and desires and obsessions, whereas
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: the queer guy isn't the one in his assessment who's
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: going to go out and grab women's boobs and give
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: them all makeovers. But basically he talks about kind of
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: the same stuff that Thomas Rodgers at Salon did that
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: for young men looking for role models, looking for an
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: example of how to come out and how to be yourself. Really,
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: the examples you have are from pop culture. And so
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: then he gets in from there to points about his
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: perceived experiences with what he perceives to be mistogyny that
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: exists between gay men in his life and straight women
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: in his life, and that he feels like many of
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: his female friends have been made to feel unwelcome in
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: his own culture, what he calls his own culture, and
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: says that hey, guys, we need to empathize with women,
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: not just use them as props as arm candiate parties.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: That we're all humans. Let's start treating each other like it.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Oh and vice versa again too.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, just even using remember the at least to
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: me in my perspective, and I'm going out a limb
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: and inserting my own opinion here. I think that people should,
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: at this point, before gay marriage is legal in the US,
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: maybe think twice about what a privilegy, insulting kind of
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: statement is to call someone your gay husband, you know,
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: if that person doesn't have the right to marry and
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: get his own husband.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: I think that's maybe I'm making a mountain out of them.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Mole Hill.
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: Well, yeah, but basically I yeah, and I mean going
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: off of what Rohan was writing in terms of empathizing,
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: and hey, gay guys don't treat women like props. I
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: mean absolutely, it goes both ways. None of us should
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: be treating anyone like props. None of us should be
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: leaning so on our privilege that we treat another human
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: being like a pet.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Or a prop or some kind of arm candy accessory.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: Well, and isn't it fascinating too, And that these kinds
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: of conversations are coming up right now when we have
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: had a lot of progress in terms of gay visibility,
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: LGBTQ rights and recognition, as well as a lot of
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: resurgence in terms of women's rights gender equality. It's interesting
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: that before all of that, when both women and gay men.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Were sort of shoved off into the corner, they were
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: the others.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: As callan Marian put it, we were considered because.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Of that natural allies.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: But now as both groups are coming into more rights
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: and recognition and equality on their own, we're now having
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: to take a closer look at some of the skeletons,
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: perhaps in this friendship closet.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Well sure, because.
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: Both straight women and gay men are hitting points where
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: they're feeling empowered.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Enough to step up and say, hey, I am not
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: a prop.
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm not just Jack from Will and Grace or
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: I'm not just Karen from Will and Grace. As much
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: as those characters are great fictional television characters, plenty of
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: people now are stepping up to be like, can we
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: perceive or depict anyone as like a real human?
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: That would be That would be wonderful And one thing
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: I would like to see more of too. And and
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: there is a little bit more of this on TV
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: and film, but more exploration of other cross sex and
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: cross orientation friendships.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: What about the gay men straight men friendships.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: That have historically just been hampered by homophobia.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: But knowing some of I know some guys who are.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: You know, gay straight guy friends, and they're wonderful relationships
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: to watch.
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, But unfortunately, and this is coming from a New
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: York Times story in two thousand and nine, they talk
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: about Jammie Price, who's an Appalachian State University professor who
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: studied forty six pairs of straight and gay male friends
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: for her book. And while that's a lot of pairs,
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: she concluded that just thirteen of them could truly be
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: called close friends, often because of the barrier that straight
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: men would put up because they're not so willing to
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: hear or want to hear about their gay friends personal
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: life slash you know, wait, wait, nudge, nudge, sex life.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: But I wonder though that was in two thousand and nine,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: not so long ago, But.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: It feels like so long ago in terms of where
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: we are as a culture with homophobia. But maybe I'm
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: also looking at the world through rainbow colored glasses.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: The New York Times also interviewed Professor rich C.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: Savin Williams, SUSIP, professor of developmental psychology at Cornell, who
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: talked about how, in a similar way that straight women
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: might be drawn to friendships with gay men because we
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: can get dating advice and maybe talk about things we
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: can't talk about to straight guys. Savin Williams says that
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: straight men also feel like they can talk to gay
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: men about fashion and ask them if they're looking okay,
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: and talk about more emotional relationship at issues, which made
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: me think, oh my god, are straight people just always
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: looking for us to sassy a sassy friend because they
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: can't communicate with each other?
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: So is this just another version of the shine theory?
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: Like instead of like, hey, women, position yourself next to
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: powerful ladies that you can help you along in your career,
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: is this just like hey, straight people, position yourself next
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: to a gay man so that you can get advice
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: whenever you want.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, do you not like talking to you? You're a
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: straight partner, Well, do we have a sassy friend for you?
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: It's exhausting, But the whole gay straight bromance thing does
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: seem to be becoming at least a.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Little more visible.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: Writing in Gawker, Brian Moylan talks about hell there should
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: be a contract for friendships between straight guys and gay
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: guys like, hey, talk about your sex life, talk about
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: your romantic life.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: But can we both agree that neither.
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: One of you will go into much detail because you
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: don't want to hear about penises and you don't want
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: to hear about vaginas. So let's just kind of give
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: the general gist of things and bond that way, but
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: not get into the nitty gritty.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And also, of course, the is some like accepting that, hey,
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: your gay friend doesn't necessarily want to have sex with you.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Your gay friend is not just flirting with you and
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: playing a long game to try to get.
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: You to that for the other team, sure, but I mean,
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: but there is the reality too that just like in
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: straight man straight woman relationships where the guy is maybe
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: holding a candle for the girl and the girl's not
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: aware of it. I mean, it's not like that doesn't happen,
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: But you can't go into every friendship thinking like, is.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: He just trying to get me in bad?
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: Is that your it's such your Blanche Devereaux, she's wondering
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: absolutely in her in one of her nightgown Yeah, and
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: the answer is yes, yes, yes it is.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Well, and another thing Moyle and uh.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: Requests as well with this gay straight bromance contract is
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: no jokes about effeminacy and homophobic nonsense.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Which is just a good rule of thumb in general. Right,
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: oh man, whatever.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: Whenever I still hear it's it's it's like nails and
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: a chalkboard when you hear those kinds of jokes today,
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: especially because it's like, seriously.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: You're making that you really so and funny? That is, yeah,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: you really so foolish?
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, used sound, But I do think, I mean, I
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: think that these relationships are becoming more normalized, and it's
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: been a byproduct of just the generalized embrace of the bromance,
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: which I think is fantastic. I am all for guy
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: friendships because they are adorable.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Well yeah, and they're necessary. They're so necessary. We've talked
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: about the health benefits of.
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: Having very close friends before, so we won't.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Get into all that.
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: But let's talk about another cross sex, cross orientation friendship
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: dynamic here. Where are the straight men and the lesbians
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: in this conversation?
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, there is actually a term called lesbro's. No, we
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: did not coin it.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: There was an article about this not too long ago
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: in Details magazine.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: So grain of salt, but all about this lesbro person
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: who essentially, to me, read like the gay version of
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Gillian Flynn's cool girl in Don Girl.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: Because the way that this author was pitching straight guys,
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: you need to become friends with lesbians, which.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Sure, I think that's totally fine.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, may make friends with lesbians, absolutely, but the benefits
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: were dudes, she did love to watch football, You can
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: go to strip clubs, you can go out to abuse,
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: and you grew up a whole mind.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Because she'll find out you with lesbian she won't care guys.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: And I that was I'm just mocking the overall tone
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: of this article.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and now back to the show.
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, but just like with any friendship, you've
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: got to worry about some potential sexual tension because I mean,
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: just think about chasing Amy.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Oh was chasing Amy. Chasing Amy was one of the worst.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, Chasing Amy just put a nail in the
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: coffin of street men and lesbian relationships because it it
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: lit a candle for some or some fellas out there.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm ben.
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: Affleck the idea that you're going to turn a woman
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: so that.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: She just hasn't met the right guy yet.
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: She hasn't met the right penis yet. As soon as
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: she meets this penis, she'll become a straight woman.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: And we're not just talking in trope either. This was
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: something that came up from the Stuff Mom Never Told
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: You YouTube channel.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: I got a question about out from a lesbian of
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: why do straight guys never believe.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Me when I say that I'm a lesbian? Why do
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: they need proof for that?
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: And I talked about it on the show and got
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: so many comments from so many other lesbians too, saying
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: that even if they are approached by a straight guy
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: at a bar and they say, hey, thanks, no thanks,
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: I'm a lesbian, even though thanks, so things should should suffice,
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: that doesn't suffice. They don't really believe it. There is
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: this assumption that that can happen. And for that reason,
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: Lee Clara le Berge, who's an assistant professor of gender
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: studies at the University of Chicago, told Details magazine quote,
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: for a straight guy, there's probably some disavowed sexual excitement.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: He knows perfectly well sex would never happen.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: But still so it's not to say that these friendships
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: don't and can't exist, but I do think that they
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: are rarer perhaps because of that dynamic a little bit
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: of sexual baggage.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: And there was a post about this at after.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: Ellen dot com as well, a lesbian asking the question
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: of like, why are we never the gay BFA and
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: then explaining it she was like one of the things
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: she was saying was, well, I guess we don't really
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: want to hang out with shrake eyes all the time,
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: So I don't know that's one person's opinion.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And in that same post, the blogger Chloe contends
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: that part of it might just be that there's this
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: stereotype of lesbians just being aggressive, that they're not your
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: like glittery, cuddly, unicorn like stereotypical best gay guy friend.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Well, and it also.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: Reflects those studies that we cited earlier looking at friendships
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: in middle and high school, and lesbians are likelier to
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: essentially like make friends with each other, they aren't necessarily
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: as as likely to have those cross sex friendships.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: Off of that, Tyler Curry, writing at Huffington Post, talks
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: about the whole dynamic of gay boys and then eventually
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: men and lesbian girls and women, and talks about how
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: early on in life, especially when you're younger, you're sort
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: of pushed together because it's like, oh, well you're gay,
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: so just go be going together.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, go in the gay corner. Yeah you're the others,
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: so go be other together.
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: And he talks about how it's like being different animals
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: in the same cage. There assume to be natural allies
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: when really it's more like fraternal twins. You just don't
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: have the same struggle.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: And ironically, of all of the cross sex cross orientation combinations,
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: the one that at least in the research we did
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: for the podcast, so one that seems to get the
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: least amount of in depth research is gay lesbian friendships.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: There are actually stereotypes that.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: They don't get along really at all.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, when really it's like, okay, we're fighting similar fights.
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: It's not that they don't get along, but it's just
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: that it is a different fight, and so we automatically assume,
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: kind of in a stereotypical, assuming fashion, that well, they
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: must be best friends. It's like when Harry met Stally,
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: it's like the perfect combination. It's men and women, but
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: they want completely different things. Of course they should get along,
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: but you know, anecdote doesn't always bear that out.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: To be true.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and even even looking back at TV. One thing
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: that jumped out to me when I was reading all
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: this stuff was how on the HBO show Looking, which
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: is all about gay guys in San Francisco, the sort
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: of token lady pal is straight and she not only
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: is straight, but is the ex wife of one of
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: the super dreamy gay guys.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: As far as I can remember, there is really been
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: very little lesbian interaction, but people who are better versed
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: on Looking correct me if I'm wrong. But there was
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: something that also jumped out.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: In the book A Companion to LGBTQ Studies, it's said,
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: quote queer friendships between women and men disturb the mechanisms
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: of homosocial cultures and force us to quote deconstruct the
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: forms of relationality that are imposed upon them. So, in
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: other words, maybe one of the reasons why were there
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: has been at least so far, so little focused on
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: those friendships is because they sort of defy all of
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: the possible norms, and maybe we're at a loss to like, well,
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: how well, well then what do we do? Right?
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we're concerned that we won't be able to make
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: a hit sitcom based off of that.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I mean well, and there's also two very little.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: Focused on straight so we'll even less focused on street
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: women and lesbians friendships than on straight dudes and lesbians friendships.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: Probably because we as humans seem really.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: Obsessed with the concept of men and women being friends period.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: So now, with all that.
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: We have talked about about friendship dynamics, sexual orientation, romance,
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: all of these things, I'm sure our listeners have so
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: much to share with us, and I'm very curious to hear.
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: Have you been on the receiving end of being considered
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: someone's pet.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Have you been treated a.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: Certain way or dragged along on social escapades for a
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: certain reason just because you're somebody's gay best friend or
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: gay husband.
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: Or do you have one of those awesome, super healthy
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: cross tex cross orientation friendships that you cherish and you
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: love and.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: You are each other's people.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: We want to know all of your stories, good, bad
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: and ugly. And just one note about the whole gay
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: best friend thing.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: I really hope that we are also to the point
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: sort of in what we were talking about with our
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: episode on gay weddings. Gay best friend, that phrase can
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: just be shortened to just best friend.
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, right,