“A site for guys that like sports, can change their own car’s oil, or just don’t fit the effeminate stereotype” (text taken from Website’s homepage)-offered an on-line discussion area where many posting revered traditional masculine ideals and expressed hostility towards effeminate gay men (see Clarkson, 2006). These real-life examples and the suggestion that masculine ideals significantly affect many gay men may surprise people who are not intimately familiar with the gay community-a community that is often perceived as accepting of individual differences. Yet, the reality is that traditional masculine ideals affect how gay men feel about themselves ( Szymanski & Carr, 2008) and their same-sex relationships ( Wester, Pionke, & Vogel, 2005). While many gay men struggle with these issues, scientific research on the effect of masculine ideals on gay men is lacking.
Although many scholars have written about the topic (e.g., Humphries, 1985 Kleinberg, 1978/1989 Levine, 1992 Nardi, 2000) and dissertations have offered tentative results (e.g., Ervin, 2003 Sánchez, 2005 Shepard, 2001), empirical studies published in peer-reviewed journals are hard to find.
