I don't care much about straight guys talking about their sex lives with each other. My experience is that most guys are posturing especially around other men; they say what they think other guys want to hear - and this is frequently banal.
I am interested in the ways in which culture shapes our personas. For instance; women can refer to their close personal friends as their girlfriends, but if men would call their best friends their boyfriends that would be the equivalent of flying the rainbow flag.
Culture influences our behavior in a myriad of ways we are mostly insensitive to. Just as some of the Muslim cultures seem to be accepting of some culturally coded displays which we would regard as obviously homosexual, they absolutely do not accept homosexuals, and are as insensible to the incongruence as we are to the incongruences of our culture(s).
I agree with dxjnorto. The concept of sexuality and sexual labeling even moreso, has become so apparent and a taboo topic now more than ever, even though we talk about sex more and more openly than ever. Think about all the lables that we have created to make ourselves feel more comfortable: gay, straight, lesbian, homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, transexual, transgender, metrosexual (I can't believe this one), omnisexual etc., etc. It's like it's trendy to create more labels and find yourself in one of those categories.
I find this to be more expressed in North America, than it is elsewhere in the world and I've travelled all over. In Europe for example (France, Italy, Greece etc) it is quite normal for straight men to kiss each other when they meet just like men kiss women. However, in North America, men couldn't kiss women on the cheek until the recent years. You could kiss one woman's hand in order to show respect and appreciation, but that's about it.
Just recently came from Afghanistan where I was on business trip and I heard an interesting story from the husband of a friend of mine who is Afghan (my friend is Canadian). He was telling me stories of these "boys" who have no family - abandoned kids etc., who are taken into custody by other older men, who provide food and roof above their head for them. The "boys" take care of the men and have sex with them and literally play the role of the "wife", that is until these men get married at which point the "boys" will find themselves other men and so on. In our world this would not be appropriate and most probably in many instances those men would even be considered pedophiles. Now, I'm not saying this is right or wrong, because it's not mine to judge, and I've learned this long time ago while traveling. Different people, different cultures, different mentalities.
Another thing that I find interesting is that as little kids Dads can hug, kiss and play with their sons and it is completely normal to show affection for their kids, but as they grow up, they start showing distance and lack of affection and what was completely normal before becomes inappropriate now. This is all due to the society moral values and what is accepted and what is not accepted.
Now this being said, I do believe that sexuality is something we are born with, however the society plays a big role in how we are shaped, what we do and how we label ourselves. In all of us there's some "gay", some "straight", some "masculinity" and some "femininity". Some of those are more expressed, then the others, but nevertheless they still do exist and are part of us. The problem arises when we try to deny a part of us, a part of who we are, due to the society classifications of what is "acceptable" and "not acceptable".
My two cents.
