Relaxing the straight male anus: Decreasing homohysteria around anal eroticism

This study examines the practice and perception of receptive anal eroticism among 170 heterosexual undergraduate men in a US university. We analyze the social stigmas on men’s anal pleasure through the concept of homohysteria, which describes a cultural myth that the wrongdoing of gender casts homosexual suspicion onto heterosexual men. For men’s anal eroticism, this means that only gay, emasculated or gender deviant men are thought to enjoy anal pleasure. We suggest, however, that decreasing homo-hysteria has begun to erode this cultural ‘ban’ on anal stimulation for straight men. Our data finds self-identified straight university-aged men questioning cultural narratives that conflate anal receptivity with homosexuality and emasculation. We also show that 24 percent of our respondents have, at least once, received anal pleasure. These results suggest that cultural taboos around men’s anal pleasure may be shifting for younger men and the boundaries of straight identity expanding. We call for further research to clarify how anal erotic norms are shifting among men of different racial, geographic, socio-economic, and age demographics, and to determine how these shifts may foster more pluralistic and inclusive views of gender and sexuality.