Article Spotlight: Why Are Men So Afraid of a Little Kiss, An Investigation
The spark for Why Are Men So Afraid of a Little Kiss? came from a statistic I couldn’t shake. In GQ’s 2025 State of Masculinity survey, one finding stood out: only 28% of men said they were comfortable seeing a man kiss another man.
I don’t live under a rock. I know homophobia—especially the quieter, more socially acceptable version of it—is everywhere. But this stat surprised me, particularly given GQ’s readership, which skews progressive and culturally liberal. This wasn’t a data point about fringe bigotry; it was about discomfort among men who likely see themselves as supportive, tolerant, and evolved.
I thought there was something unique there. While it certainly has merit (and is certainly interesting), I’m less interested in interrogating why blatant homophobes are homophobic than I am in interrogating the ways inherent biases around masculinity and culturally ingrained homophobia impact men who support gay rights and view themselves as progressive—it’s insidious how deeply ingrained it is in American society. So, I started putting together a pitch.
Once I started shaping the idea, Them was my first choice for the pitch. Part of that was strategic—they’re part of the Condé Nast ecosystem, like GQ—but mostly it was editorial. They consistently publish thoughtful, nuanced reporting on LGBTQ issues, and I trusted the editors to let the piece live in complexity rather than forcing it into a hot take.
I tend to describe myself as a writer rather than a journalist, because my preferred format is the reported essay: work that blends data, expert interviews, and firsthand reporting with a clearly articulated, admittedly biased point of view. To reflect that, I often open pitches with a personal anecdote—something that situates me in the story and signals how the reporting will be framed.
This is how I opened the pitch:
“The first time I kissed a man, no one cared. It happened during a drinking game over a college summer break, years before I came out, and it was met with laughter. The first time I kissed a man publicly, years later, as an out gay man, it was met with disgust.”
That anecdote survived the editing process, though it evolved. In the published piece, it became:
“The first time I kissed a man, it was met with cheers and laughs, because it was, well, a joke; a dare during some drinking game over a college summer break, many years before I came out. The first time I willfully participated in a romantically-charged homosexual kiss in public years later — on a Philadelphia street corner circa 2016 — it was met with “get a room, fags!” shouted from a passing vehicle.”
Working with a new editor is always a gamble, but the team at Them responded positively. Their main question was about reporting: who I planned to talk to, and how I intended to approach the subject beyond personal experience.
My reporting focused on three broad areas:
Conversations with straight men across the political and cultural spectrum.
Conversations with gay men about their experiences with public affection.
Expert insight into the psychology and sociology of masculinity, homophobia, and fear (I‘d interviewed Dr. Travis Speice and Dr. Sarah DiMuccio on a recent Fast Company piece, so once again consulted their expertise, and had worked with Dr. Stanaland on a previous piece that was actually killed before publication, so also reached out to him—10/10 recommend all for sourcing if you’d like very thoughtful, deeply empathetic takes on the state of modern masculinity).
As the interviews piled up, something shifted. I’d initially imagined the piece leaning snarky—almost absurdist—because, on its face, the idea that men are deeply unsettled by a kiss is a little ridiculous. But the more I listened, the clearer it became that fear was doing most of the work. Fear of being perceived differently. Fear of social punishment. Fear of proximity.
Admittedly, as I was in the writing phase, I was having a bit of trouble landing the proverbial plane, so I went out for drinks with my friend Dani as a distraction one Saturday afternoon.
It was our conversation on a sunny, riverside patio in Marshall, NC, over the region’s best wings and some champagne of beer that clicked everything into place. Dani, a straight woman in her 40s with many gay friends, was initially shocked by how visceral men’s reactions could be. After a bit, she started getting it: “It’s sad how many people are driven by fear,” she said.
That sentence clicked everything into place. It reframed the piece—not as an indictment, but as an examination of how deeply masculinity conditions behavior, even among people who believe they’ve outgrown it. That conversation made its way into the final draft, and it shaped how the piece ended.
Looking back, if I were pitching this article today, I might frame it less around kissing specifically and more around the quiet ways masculinity polices proximity and vulnerability between men. But I’m glad this is the version that exists. It asked a small, almost flippant question—and uncovered something much more complex.
You can read Why Are Men So Afraid of a Little Kiss” in its entirety here.