Heterosexual men’s experiences of having friendships with gay men

Abstract

This qualitative study aimed to explore how heterosexual men experienced their friendships with gay men. Friendship features that were explored included intimacy and closeness, support, communication, and comfort. Six participants took part in semi-structured, one-to-one interviews comprising of open-ended questions. Data was analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) in order to capture the authenticity of the experience as lived by the participants (Shinebourne, 2011). Four superordinate themes emerged from the findings, including respective subthemes. The findings illustrated that although participants shared similar friendship experiences, they also described different friendship experiences with their gay friend. For some of the participants, their friendship allowed them to be themselves in a supportive relationship. For other participants sharing a deep connection with their gay friend was not required in order to express and receive support. However, some of the participants reported feeling uncomfortable sharing experiences regarding sexuality and sexual practices with their gay friends. Future qualitative study could research how gay men experience friendship with heterosexual men, whereas quantitative study could also study heterosexual men’s perceptions of gay men in Malta.