Intersecting Race and Gender Cues are Associated with Perceptions of Gay Men's Preferred Sexual Roles

摘要

Preferences for anal sex roles (top/bottom) are an important aspect of gay male identity, but scholars have only recently begun to explore the factors that covary with these preferences. Here, we argue that the gendered nature of both racial stereotypes (i.e., Black men are masculine, Asian men are feminine) and sexual role stereotypes (i.e., tops are masculine, bottoms are feminine) link the categories Asian/bottom and the categories Black/top. We provide empirical evidence for these claims at three levels of analysis: At the cultural level based upon gay men's stereotypic beliefs about others (Study 1), at the interpersonal level based upon gay men's perceptions of others' sexual role preferences (Study 2), and at the intrapersonal level based upon racially diverse men's self-reported sexual roles on a public hookup website (Study 3). These studies offer the first systematic evidence of linkages between race categories and sexual roles in gay male communities.