Americans are still hesitant: You don’t see Dallas Cowboy’s QB Tony Romo smack lips with tight end Jason Witten after scoring a touchdown. Once a superstar athlete like Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney smooches a teammate, it’s bound to be imitated by his fans. Of course, the study isn’t a completely accurate representation of the whole country - despite Anderson choosing participants from diverse backgrounds - but it’s a crucial, and unexamined, marker of cultural change in the States.Īnd guess who’s helping lead the social revolution among straight men? Jocks - whose aggression and physical prominence make them seen as more heterosexual among their peers. And the fact that Americans have to wait longer to drink booze, which matters for obvious reasons, Anderson says. What’s the deal with the gap anyway? For one, a recent history of intense homophobia, particularly during the late-1980s AIDS crisis in the American gay community. “It was a big shocker I expected nobody to be doing it,” says Anderson. But still, that would mean 800,000 college-aged heterosexual American men have kissed another man on the lips. That’s a whopping gap between the two seemingly similar cultures. and found that just under 10 percent had kissed a guy on the mouth - and 40 percent had pecked a cheek. In new, unpublished research, Anderson surveyed over 400 college students from across the U.S. While Anderson found that straight-men-kissing-men is widespread in the U.K., across the pond, bros are keeping their distance.
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“Today’s young men are freer to express love, fear and weakness to each other.” Kissing is just another sign of camaraderie to many young Brits, like a hearty ass-slap in American football, he says. Which couldn’t be farther from the truth.
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For one, no one had ever thought to poll whether straight men kissed men because, well, “that’d be gay,” Anderson, a sociologist at the University of Winchester, notes. Surprised? Professor Eric Anderson, the study’s lead author, certainly was.
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89 percent of straight male college students had kissed a bro on the lips.Īnd 37 percent of them made out.