Ego-dystonic heterosexuality

Before it disappeared entirely from the official Bible of American psychology, the DSM, there was a last gasp at a pathological form of homosexuality, "ego-dystonic homosexuality". This meant that someone had a homosexual orientation but was unhappy about it and wanted to be treated and made straight. These are the kinds of folks who go into "reparative therapy".

I watched a film tonight called Big Eden, from 2000. I saw it in the theatre when it came out. Tonight I was struck by one of the characters, surely a rarity in literature of any kind, the "ego-dystonic heterosexual". (If you intend to see the movie, there's a spoiler here, so be warned).

The gay man who is the central character, Henry, has had a two decade passion for his high-school best friend Dean, a straight man. Dean, played by the extremely-easy-on-the-eyes Tim DeKay (late of the late Carnevale), returns to his home town, a divorced dad of two young boys and wants more than anything else to connect with his high-school friend. In fact, he wants to connect so much that he courts him and tries to make love with him. But he fails. His heart's desires and his sexual desires don't match up. It is astonishing to see this man, who clearly has an emotional passion for the main character, grieve his failure to connect with Henry in a fully romantic way. He clearly wishes that he were gay. He tries to be. But he's not. And it breaks his heart.

I have one and a half experiences of this very rare kind of guy in real life. Many aeons ago, I was completely in love with a straight man. And he was pretty damn close to being in love with me. He once told me that if I were a woman, he'd marry me. This is the "half" experience, since he regretted that we could not connect more deeply, but aside from some outrageous talk and some even more outrageous acting out (when drunk), he was pretty clear about who he was, at least in terms of sexual desire.

I do now know a heterosexually-oriented man who is quite clear and insistent about wishing he were gay. He certainly appreciates the male form and even speaks of gay men as some kind of superior species whom he admires and envies. But his own stubborn sexual desires go in the direction of women almost entirely. He is very much an ego-dystonic heterosexual.

How rare, I wonder, are such men? And what is the likelihood that the DSM will one day create a diagnosis for them?