Is Nate Jacobs Gay? ‘Euphoria’ Fans Have Questions About His Sexuality

As far as sexuality goes, HBO Max's dark teen drama Euphoria loves to blur the lines. Much like the current attitudes of Gen Z, sexuality on the show is on a spectrum, fluid, and can even change day to day, or episode to episode. Characters on the show don't just say, "I'm gay." They are simply attracted to who they are attracted to. 

But questions around Nate's sexuality, in particular, have only intensified as his sex life becomes more and more known by the other characters. 

Spoilers for Season 2, Episode 7 ahead. 

All season long, Lexi has been writing a play. Forever the wallflower, the introverted teen has been taking note of the chaotic lives around her and crafting into a show. In Sunday's episode, Our Life finally premieres to an audience of her peers. Lexi plays herself and casts actors in the roles of Cassie, Maddy, Rue, Kat, Nate, and more. But it was the eye-popping number at the end of the episode that caught everyone's eye. 

Seemingly commenting on the homoeroticism of the locker room, an actor portraying Nate leads his shirtless and glistening teammates through a steamy performance of Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out for a Hero." 

Nate, offended, bursts out of the auditorium, shrugging off Cassie's platitudes as he storms out, throwing out, "That's, like, so homophobic."

Viewers are saying that's the pot calling the kettle black since Nate is the homophobic one here.

Others are taking the opportunity to say Nate himself is gay. 

That's certainly not true.

It's an understatement to Nate's sexuality is complicated. We learned last season that since the age of eleven, he has watched tapes of his father cheating on his mom by having sex with men and transgender women on video. That's obviously impacted his attitudes toward sex as in this very episode, Nate had a nightmare where he was in bed with his own father. We also know when he does engage in sex, he has even roleplayed as Cal. 

After watching Jules and his dad's sex tape in season one, he catfishes her and convinces her to meet. When they finally do, he sticks his finger in Jules's mouth just like he saw his father do in the tape.

Throught this season, he's clearly not completely over Jules. In the latest episode, Cassie allows him to dress her how he likes. He dresses her as Jules and Nate emulates the rough sex he saw Cal and Jules have. 

Like we said, complicated. 

We're not here to define these strange feelings, but we will say that Nate's attraction to Jules – however complicated and toxic it is – is not gay, as Jules is a transgender woman. This is a heterosexual attraction, and saying otherwise invalidates Jules's gender and is therefore transphobic. All of Nate's attractions that we've seen play out on screen have been with women.

Now about the dick pics Maddy found on Nate's phone last season... we have no explanation for that. Does he have an attraction to the men on the hookup app he was using or was he collecting these photos for a more benign reason? His attractions to women feel genuine, so perhaps he's bisexual. Or fluid. Or maybe his attractions are completely skewed by his relationship with his father and utterly unexplainable. 

Nate has never explicitly stated his sexuality and we can't for him. Perhaps we will never know how he identifies. Perhaps that's the point. Sexuality doesn't need to be put in a clearly defined box. Only he can put a label on himself.

So is Nate gay? The simple answer is no. What is he? Not for us to decide.