Do those who say hetero cis male sexuality is sometimes stigmatised have a point?

[Amikriry]

First disclosure. I am referring to consensual, non transactional romantic/sexual encounters between hetero men & women.

I had a conversation with a middle aged male friend recently. He has and has had positive relationships with women
,.both romantic & platonic. He said he had always felt that there was a relative lack of celebration, or positivity around the romantic approach or interaction between a straight man and a woman. He cited his Catholic upbringing, which emphasised all sexual feelings were bad. When he arrived at university after single sex schooling and looking forward to meeting new people, he felt the narrative was all.about the dangers of harassment, bad, negative, upsetting or criminal situations involving sex and romance. I did of course mention that the prevalence and damage done by some straight male.behaviour towards women necessitates this vigilance. Also that not harassing or abusing women does not mean pretending to be asexual. Thoughts?

I certainly wouldn’t go as far as to say that hetero men are stigmatised or in any way vulnerable, marginalised, etc.

I do think that straight men who are very anxious or slightly socially impaired often can’t find a way to approach women they are interested in because they worry they will get in trouble somehow.

And, like any anxious person, they’ll disregard anything that doesn’t support their worldview, and they can’t see that the shame and guilt and prohibition and fear is coming from within.

The Catholic guilt won’t be helping either.

He said he had always felt that there was a relative lack of celebration, or positivity around the romantic approach or interaction between a straight man and a woman.

Lol.

Like straight romantic love isn't everywhere as the main themes for a million stories, songs and art. Like our society hasn't favoured straight couples and marriage throughout history. 😂🙄

What a dumb ass.

Next time I meet a cis man 🙄that I kind of get on with as a cis 🙄woman. I shall grab the party poppers to celebrate.
Could you imagine of this shite happened?!

No.

There were some very insightful comments here, some entirely justified criticism of both the skewed worldview that he'd presented, that I hadn't found the words to counter and indeed of my own hamfisted use of "cis". I don't know why I used the term.

I also thought some elements of other comments were a bit dismissive and unhelpful. This is a situation about a person who by his own admission is severely lacking in experience in this regard. He does.not expect anything from women at all as far as I can tell, describes himself as inexperienced and emotionally immature and says he blames nobody but himself for his situation.

Front what I know the Catholic upbringing did hin no good at all. He says he is agnostic now, but feels guilty for fancying women. I don't know what he needs really.

Cis is a medical term to all the uneducated commenting here.

No. It's a chemistry term which doesn't apply to humans.

A decent chap will be snapped up in days.

Maybe it just me, but that phrasing made me chuckle - like a textbook ideal bloke appears on the page and all the women are frantically clicking on 'Add to basket'

Me neither

I would say that a straight male at high school could escape being blamed for patriarchy by identifying as non binary. I do believe there is a needless demonisation of men in general

This

A straight man feels disappointed that his romantic urges aren’t being publicly “celebrated” enough—despite living in a culture that has always centred straight male desire, straight romance, and straight coupling in everything from films and books to family pressure and social expectations.

Let’s be clear: heterosexuality isn’t under siege. It remains the default in nearly every area of life. Straight men are still encouraged, validated, and rewarded for pursuing women—often regardless of whether that attention is welcome. What’s changed isn’t some mythical erasure of male sexuality. What’s changed is that women are finally being heard when they say, “This isn’t okay.”

This isn’t a loss of freedom—it’s the arrival of accountability. For once, straight men are being asked to consider how their behaviour affects others, instead of assuming it’s automatically charming or harmless.

And let’s be honest: if he’s feeling shame or conflict around his own desire, that’s not the fault of feminism or society—it’s an indictment of the kind of upbringing that teaches boys that sex is dirty, women are temptresses, and desire is sinful. That damage is real, but the blame lies with the institutions that moralise and repress healthy sexuality—not with a modern culture trying, however imperfectly, to make romance mutual and respectful. Don’t confuse the consequences of shame-based indoctrination with some imagined feminist overreach.

Every day's a school day 🙄

And wear sunscreen.....

Cis is an completely unnecessary term when describing men and women

What's changed is hopefully our daughters shouldn't have to put up with the vile unwanted advances by slimy males who think they are Gods gift which they thought was an honour for us to receive.
Those men who cornered you until you had nowhere left to move. Are they the romantic advances your friend talks of?

I don't know what he needs really.

Kick up the arse .

Or more seriously to stop reading red pill type nonsense and get out into the world. Sounds like he's hanging out in incel type circles to me.

No, cis is a made up, unnecessary word that is deeply offensive to most women.

I nearly wrote ‘biological’ women - the result of the ongoing toxic trans debate - but WOMEN should not need any kind of qualifier.

As for this man, he clearly needs lots of counselling to address all his issues. To sure all of them can be blamed on his Catholic upbringing, but in his case it may have contributed to his strange attitudes towards male-female relationships.

I do think "straight white male " is the new acceptable target group. It gives extra browny points when straight, white females say it, as a way of proving how oh so unracist they are.

Its tiresome.

I'd say he needs some therapy.

Well, he needs to blame other men for that!!

@Amikriry - I agree with PP that heterosexual love has been celebrated for millennia and most love stories still involve heterosexual love. It may be that LGBTQ+ love is loudly celebrated now but that follows on millennia of repression. And it doesn’t override the other stories.

It sounds as if your friend was late to working out the importance of platonic friendship between the sexes. This is one of the reasons I was determined my two children would be in co-ed education. They’re both girls. There are no brothers. No boy cousins of a similar age. So, for me, school was their opportunity to get used to and comfortable around boys.

In the end, there are a great many more similarities than differences between boys and girls - we’re all just people - but it sounds like your friend grew up thinking there was some huge gulf of experience and understanding between the two and, crucially, didn’t know how to just be friends with girls. I know other people who went through single sex-ed throughout and also had additional social challenges at uni.

I think it’s a bit different now - I know the single sex schools around us look for opportunities to share experiences with their opposite sex counterparts. And they bring other benefits which for some parents outweigh the socialisation, which in any case may not be needed, for example, if you have co-ed at home so to speak.

But your friend has you so he’s obviously capable of platonic friendship with women. That’s what he needs to practise. Most heterosexual women want a long/term partner who is well-rounded, interesting and caring and who’s interested in them as a person, not just as a romantic conquest.

You lost me at the c word

I dont agree with using the word cis, but I think some of what you say is right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cis%E2%80%93trans_isomerism