Sexual Tensions as Dialectical Tensions: Constitutive Qualities in the Gay Male/Straight Female Friendship

• In Event: 'I never considered not sleeping with you a sacrifice': Physical attraction as a force for stability and change in cross-sex friendships

Abstract

This study employs data from depth-interviews to consider the oppositions salient in gay male/straight female friendships, particularly sexual tensions present within the cross-sex, cross-sexual orientation dyad. Grounded in relational-dialectical theory (Baxter & Montgomery, 1994), the data confirms previous research suggesting that gay/straight friendships are largely dominated by a perceived storgic (friendly) connection; but also draws out the discursive ludic (game-playing) tensions forged when competing discourses of possibility and impossibility in sexual connection interpenetrate. Active interview probing also yielded participant indications of perceived attachment in the relationship based on esteem-building through sexual compliments as well as imaginary longings for the other person in the relationship as an active relational discourse. When considered in conjunction with other reasons listed by participants for being in gay male/straight female friendships (and expanded upon in follow-up questions), this generates a host of competing discourses that often led to dominant themes of sexual attraction. Analysis of the data further calls into question how the interpenetration of sexual perceptions plays a role in constituting the relationships; re-examines the role the erotic (sexual attraction) plays in gay male/straight female friendships; and opens the door for questions regarding sexual dialectics. The study also engages Baxter & Braithwaite’s (2008) challenge to incorporate all tenets of relational-dialectical theory in research, not only the first proposition that “meanings emerge from the struggle of different, often opposing discourses” (p. 351). To this end, synchronic/diachronic interpenetration and the constitutive nature of dialogism are considered in analysis and theorizing.

Author

• Jimmie Manning, Northern Kentucky University