I like you, just not in that way

I love reading comments on Partridge Family and David Cassidy videos on YouTube. Some are from adult men (quick to state that they are straight) who now admit to liking The Partridge Family and David Cassidy back in the day - one called David Cassidy singles his "guiltiest pleasure". What was it about David Cassidy that made it so that boys couldn't like him overtly? Is it because girls were so gaga over him that if you were a boy who liked David Cassidy it meant you found him sexually attractive also?

He was the prettiest thing we'd ever seen, as Graham Norton said, years later, when he had David on his UK TV show. And his every pore did ooze hotness. And the man had girls fainting left, right and center during his concerts. Is it because he didn't look manly enough for boys to admire him? Boys can only admire strong, beefy guys, I suppose. Do young boys even have "idols"?

“Male identity is constructed around every man’s pride in his independence. As a result, the masculine paradigm can never quite accept fandom in general” (402) -Caught in a Trap? Beyond Pop Theory’s ‘Butch’ Construction of Male Elvis Fans Mark Duffett Popular Music, Vol. 20, No. 3 Gender and Sexuality. (Oct., 2001), pp.395-408.

A young girl's adulation of an idol is forever tied to her emerging sexuality. Boys can't admit to liking, much less idolizing, the same male stars as girls do because it would cast a doubt on their sexual orientation. That's pretty much it, isn't it?

Teen idols get no respect

What is it about teen idols that makes critics dismiss them so? Is it because it appeals to the 8 to 15 year old female crowd? And it was primarily, in David Cassidy's case, a female audience in the early seventies. Would they be less dismissive if the fans were male? The message seems to be: if girls like it, it's rubbish.