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While the fundamental act needs no explanation, there are many variations of “bators” out there, and BateWorlders are pretty vocal about it. There are bators who grew up with mutual masturbation and bators who did not. Bators can be bi or gay men who are not interested in casual oral or penetrative sex. They can also be straight men who consider mutual masturbation to be “not gay.” As a gay man who has enjoyed mutual masturbation for many years myself, when I joined BateWorld three years ago, I started finding more and more straight-identified men who enjoyed the activity along with their gay and bi brethren. So after I read of McCartney’s confession, I wanted to learn more about how common the straight or “not gay” version is and what it means to those guys in terms of sexual identity and behavior.
I wanted to find out how straight guys jerking off with other straight guys works psychologically, so I used BateWorld’s user-created polling questionnaires—one of the site’s most popular features—to get consensus opinions and facts from other members of the site. But before I started posting my own surveys, I perused some that were pertinent to my objective. For instance, one asks simply, “Is mutual masturbation gay?” and the poll gives voters only two options:
So for straight buddies who engage in side-by-side masturbation, what do they think is the focus, if it isn’t each other? As exemplified by the scene-settings of the Craigslist ads studied by Ward, when straight men masturbate together, they use straight pornography as a substitute for a woman. As long as these men have the pornography present, they can claim that is the primary source of titillation; it is a way of excusing the fact that they are naked and erect in the presence of another naked and erect man.
“We know it’s common for teenage boys to masturbate together or to instruct one another in how to do it,” says Dr. Jane Ward, author of the 2015 Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men, which coined the viral term “bro jobs” to describe straight men having sex with each other. Ward cites a 1981 report on male sexuality by sexologist Shere Hite, which suggested that nearly 20 percent of men had engaged in group masturbation during adolescence.
With the advent of subreddits like r/jobuds and porn websites like BateWorld, jackoff clubs have since been somewhat on the decline. Yet for some, exchanging late-night snaps with other dudes on the internet doesn’t quite have the same appeal as IRL group masturbation. There are still a number of jackoff clubs across the country, which are increasingly attracting young, straight men. Steve says he gets “calls and letters all the time” from straight men interested in the club, who view it as a safe space to exercise their curiosity (if not their desire) about other men’s bodies. “Usually, I tell them it’s a perfect place for them because you don’t have to get romantically involved, you don’t have to touch anyone if you don’t want to,” he says. “You can just come and watch or participate at whatever your comfort level is.”
