ABSTRACT
Heterosexual masculinity is traditionally achieved by boasting of one’s heterosexuality, repudiating homosexual sex, and by ostensibly having never lusted after someone of the same sex. Thus, according to this orthodox model, the only way to be considered heterosexual is to avoid any same-sex sexual behavior and never to admit same-sex sexual desire. The perfect integration of one’s sexual orientation, sexual identity and sexual behaviors is something Messner (2004, p. 422) describes as being “100 percent straight.” The ironic problem for heterosexual men is however that, in a culture dominated by and for heterosexual men, homohysteria makes it impossible to defi nitively prove that they are heterosexual. This is a result of the impossibility of proving a negative.
