He Said/She Said - Fruit Flies and Lies

Travis asks, "My girlfriend has a gay friend that she spends all of her time with – she even lets him spend the night.  Am I unreasonable for being worried?"  

HE SAID

Hell no.  I don't think you can justify being jealous of a gay guy that goes shopping with her or a gay guy that spends the day braiding her hair, but spending the night?  Lines need to be drawn.  Straight ones.

I'm not saying gays aren't to be trusted, but he's still a gay guy, which means he still has a penis, which means he can still have sex with your girlfriend – even if they both swear that it would never happen.  Consider this: Would your girlfriend tolerate you sleeping with a lesbian?  Of course not – your anatomy is still sexually compatible.  Well so is theirs, and what's to stop them?  It's not like you'd ever suspect anything – he's gay!  Homosexuality is the best alibi ever.

If a straight guy asked you if he could spend the night with your girlfriend because they're old friends and he's very in love with someone else, would you trust him?  What's the difference?  Being a gay man means he prefers other men, it doesn't mean he's physically incapable of plowing your girlfriend.  Maybe they're besties and he just wants to try something new.  Maybe she just wants to see if she can seduce a gay guy.  Maybe they just slipped in the shower and fell into each other's bodies.  Like Ian Malcolm said: "Life will find a way."

You know how every girl on the planet can make out with other girls at parties and it's always an accident and it never makes them gay and it never really counts as cheating?  The same applies to that one night that her and boy toy get a little tipsy and end up using their reproductive anatomy as it was intended to be used:  that won't make him straight, ergo it's not technically cheating, ergo it won't be worth telling you about.  Enjoy those sloppy seconds.

OR, Let her know that you respect her other relationships, but that you're her boyfriend – which implies priority – and that since you have no prejudices, you expect to maintain a monopoly on the penises allowed in her bed regardless of race, religion, creed, or sexual orientation.  It's only fair.  She'll either sacrifice giggly pillow talk to be with you, or she'll call you an intolerant, bigoted monster and sacrifice you to keep having sex with the guy you let sleep in her bed this whole time.  Homophobia is unacceptable.  But so is naivety.

SHE SAID

Yes.  A gay guy is the sexual equivalent of a close girlfriend.  Why are guys obsessed with the idea of girly sleepovers but worrisome over a gay guy sleeping over?  The same gossipy conversation goes down.  There are no pillow fights accompanying either situation.  So get rid of both the fantasy and the nightmare, you're just off base.

My gay guy friends are more repulsed by the idea of making out with me than my girlfriends are.  If my best girl friend were asked if she would make out with me as a dare, she'd say "why not?" In "would you rather" situations, where you have to pick which girlfriend you'd have a threesome with if you HAD to choose, it takes most girls about fives seconds to come up with an answer.  "Stacy, because she's hot and we could get over the awkwardness." I would never immediately jump to any of my gay friends when posed with those types of questions; we watch Gossip Girl together and Google well-formed torsos.  We might spoon, but we're definitely both imagining the other person is Gerard Butler.

I have straight guy friends who sleep over at my house, sans weirdness or sexual tension; no one attempts to make a move.  A boyfriend taking issue with THAT? Okay.  I will concede.  I can understand that qualm.  Especially if that guy friend repeatedly sleeps over.  No matter what is or isn't going on between us, the boyfriend has grounds for prohibiting that type of co-ed sleepover.

But with my gay friends?!  I only have GAY friends.  You know, Glee-watching, Lady Gaga-worshipping, V-neck-wearing gay friends.  They're integral to my sanity, to boot; very important friends in my arsenal of support.  You're supposed to trust your girlfriends, it's apart of the exclusivity contract you both "signed" when you decided to make things official.

Have you met her gay friend?  Are you sincerely threatened by him in all his pink-shirted, skinny-jeaned glory?  Are you a feminine guy?  Would your girlfriend feasibly be into a gay guy because she already leans towards metrosexuals?  Are you a metrosexual?  If a gay guy is capable of stealing away your girlfriend, you've got bigger fish to fry, compadre.

You're being ridiculous.  Worry about the guy who gives her skeezy glances from across the bar, or the boy who pulls a chair out for her in the cafeteria.  Not her loyal, uninterested-in-her friend.