Navigating and Negotiating Sexual Identity and Attraction: A Queer Analysis of Heterosexual-Identified Men Who Have Sex with Men

Heterosexual-identified men who have sex with men (H-MSM) defy dominant sexuality frameworks that assume coherence between sexual identity, attraction, and behaviour. While extant models of sexual minority and heterosexual identity and attraction presume that H-MSM experience identity confusion and crisis and that ‘primarily or mostly heterosexual men’ exhibit equal levels of opposite-sex arousal as exclusive heterosexuals but report lower levels of same-sex sexuality than bisexuals in their attractions, fantasies, and behaviours, little research has examined how H-MSM experience sexual identity and attraction. This article is framed by Queer Theory and utilizes interpretative phenomenology to explore how a qualitative sample of 10 H-MSM navigate and negotiate their sexual identity and attraction. Results demonstate that H-MSM situate their same-sex attraction as physical, situational, and exploratory while employing gendered and relational scripts. At the same time, H-MSM sustain their heterosexual identity by decoupling identity from attraction and negotiating identity through heteroromantic desire. These findings demonstrate how sexuality is lived as fluid, shifting, and contingent, rather than as a linear trajectory toward categorical resolution. Unlike stage-based models that interpret identity-attraction-behaviour discordance as confusion or denial, participants described their identities as coherent, meaningful, and grounded in their romantic and long-term commitments to women. Same-sex attraction was acknowledged but framed as separate from participants’ perceived emotional weight of heterosexual relationships. By illustrating how individuals actively weigh and assign meaning to different aspects of sexuality, the study broadens understandings of sexual identity and attraction.