Behind Closed Doors: Defining the “Bro Job”

I've long been confused about the dichotomy between female and male sexuality. We've all heard the song "I Kissed a Girl," and I'll be the first to admit: Yeah, I have kissed a girl, and I did like it. I self-identify as straight, though—I date men, I have sex with men, and I fantasize about men. While I like a good threesome video as much as the next person (and would certainly engage in one when given the opportunity), I don't feel drawn to women sexually or romantically. For me, it's a merely erotic act with no emotional significance, and I've always felt comfortable exploring, should I want to. Any curiosity I may feel is just that: curiosity. Women are allowed that much.

Is straight male sexuality as simple as we think? 

But existing in the space I do—as a sexually empowered female who is pretty open minded—I've noticed that the same sexual fluidity isn't offered to straight men. It makes sense, too. In terms of privilege, we don't spend a lot of time examining straight male culture. A lot is handed to them, sure—straight men are essentially the product of pressing every "default" button at the same time. But I think there's been a major oversight that affects the way they (and we) interact with groups who have been sexually oppressed—and it has to do with the way we collectively teach masculinity and male sexuality as a whole. 

From the desk of a sex writer 

People like to tell me their secrets. They always have. I love it, too, because the more comfortable and normal I can make another person feel, the happier I am. It's what draws me to my profession. Speaking firsthand, then, I can tell you that men often experience the same curiosity and response to sexual stimuli (straight or not) as women do. How do I know? Several straight guys, both friends and lovers, have expressed at least a fascination with the male member to me. Penises are erotic—it's as simple as that. There's a reason there are phallic paintings and carvings dating back as far as human life itself.

I've always intuitively felt that men should have the same space to explore sex as women do—why is it OK for me, a self-identifying straight woman, to drunkenly play around with another girl if it's not OK for a self-identifying straight man to do the same? Most people who are vehemently opposed to straight guy-on-guy action would purport that women "are just more bi than men," but this isn't a scientific fact; and even if there was empirical evidence to support the notion, I'd argue that women would be more attracted to women because society says it's OK, not because we're biologically hardwired to experience more sexual fluidity than men. In short, it's something we're conditioned to believe, but few people think critically about it.

My personal belief is simple: Sexuality is nuanced, and wanting to hook up with someone of the same gender doesn't make you gay. It doesn't even make you bisexual. It's a response to something erotic, and the body does little to filter the inherently "gay" stimulus from the "straight." 

Bro jobs: Not just for prison

Naturally, when "Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men" by Professor Jane Ward was released, I was floored. My excitement partially stemmed from the fact it confirmed something I already knew: Many (though not all) straight men in very mainstream, heterosexual culture have some sort of homoerotic fantasies, and partially because I had something to send to those straight men who really, genuinely preferred to date women but had experienced homoerotic thoughts from time to time and felt unnecessarily guilty about them. As it turns out, denying straight men—the ones who normally experience little sexual repression—the right to confidently explore their sexuality outside the parameters we've set is far more damaging that we might have thought. And I'd argue it sets them up to oppress other groups, like women and gay men. 

This brings me to a term Jane Ward coined: the "bro job". It's exactly what it sounds like—two straight male dudes getting each other off. Interestingly enough, it's happening in places like fraternities and suburban neighborhoods, where women are abundant, and many of the men performing and receiving them don't feel that it threatens their understanding of their sexuality at all. In fact, Ward would argue these men use it to assert their heterosexual nature, if anything. If two guys can blow each other and still feel straight in the aftermath, then wouldn't that be ironclad evidence of their own heterosexuality? It's an odd approach, to be sure, but I would be lying to you if I said it differed much from my own personal exploration. I've done stuff with girls for the hell of it, and I've never felt any romantic connection to them afterward. I've never developed feelings, never wanted to start a relationship, and never been tempted to dive deeper into the world of girl-on-girl action (which was a little disappointing for me, to be honest). Some may scoff at the notion of men experimenting with each other and remaining straight, but to me, it makes perfect sense.

After all, as many of us know from our one-night stands, there's a big fucking difference between having sex and making love. No pun intended. 

Porn search terms don't lie  

Working at Fleshbot (and in the adult industry) affords me the luxury of seeing what happens behind the scenes. I can quickly look at what it is, exactly, that people are searching for, as can major porn sites like PornHub. What we glean from our Google Analytics data is often astounding—and what people tell their friends they watch is frequently only a fragment of the truth—and even those fragments are often skewed. Take one popular Fleshbot search term, for example: shemale. And what about the popularity of cuckolding videos and gangbang or blowbang scenes full of friendly fire? It's vastly different from watching gay guy-on-guy action, and that's the point. It's much the same as when I watch a threesome video—in that context, I'm definitely into the girl-on-girl. 

An article by the Guardian, also written about Ward's book, pinpoints this exact phenomenon: "If I have learned anything in my life so far," the author writes, "it’s that the only group of people more obsessed with touching a penis than gay men is straight ones. Promise." There's just something about a dick. Many straight women think the same thing about boobs—they're squishy and they're fun to play with. We can appreciate, and sometimes we even take part. 

Redefining masculinity: A cornerstone of feminism?

As an advocate for a woman's ability to have sexual agency and initiate her own sexual encounters as frequently as she'd like, I see empowering men to be more sexually honest and authentic as the other half of the puzzle that is gender equality. One antiquated assumption is that women are sexually passive, always available, and have weaker sex drives than their male comrades. Another is that men want to crush as much pussy as possible and never, ever have thoughts about exploring with their other dudes. Science of Us interviewed Ward on the matter, and she summed up the complicated relationship between masculinity and its effects on feminism beautifully: 

It's interesting, because if you look at this belief that women's sexuality is more receptive—it’s more fluid, it’s triggered by external stimuli, that women have the capacity to be sort of aroused by anything and everything—it really just reinforces what we want to believe about women, which is that women are always sexually available people.

Based on the backlash I've gotten from the men I've refused to sleep with in my own life alone, I can confirm this. Ward then comments on what we teach men about what it means to be a guy:

With men, on the other hand, the idea that they have this hardwired heterosexual impulse to spread their seed and that that's relatively inflexible, also kind of reinforces the party line about heteronormativity and also frankly, patriarchy.

In essence, a large part of gender equality begins with teaching men that the rigid "rules" of masculinity (and sexuality) are utter bullshit. In bed and out of bed, both genders have to raise each other up to sit on the same plane. 

Refuting sexual stoicism 

Male sexuality is shrouded, in part, because men are less likely to discuss their sex lives in general, of course. They may brag from time to time, but they don't typically communicate with as much transparency as many women—again, largely because we teach them from a very early age that it's not OK to approach sex from a more vulnerable place. Psychology Today goes so far as to classify what specifically makes same-gender sex OK to a straight guy: when the sexual act is for recreation or sport and not for emotional fulfillment. More often than not, this means there's no kissing and there's no pillow talk.  

What we've learned about sexuality in recent years is that nothing is dogmatic for any gender or sexual orientation—there are no hard-and-fast rules at all. Sexuality, in large part, is about understanding the nuanced nature of emotional attachments and understanding how they affect—or don't affect—purely sexual acts. At the end of the day, there's only one thing we can be sure of: What might be a blow job for a gay man is just a bro job for straight one—and only he can tell you which one he is.