Is this what people think of as “The Gay Scene?”
I recently discovered this post on the blog, Unattractive Gay Man blog, originally published on February 2, 2010.
I have edited it, but by clicking on the blog link, you can read the entire original post.
Finding Our Way: My Friend’s Story
Sean Penn as Harvey Milk
Sean Penn, acting in the character of Harvey Milk, said to one of his young gay assistants in the award-winning 2008 film Milk, “You’re going to meet the most extraordinary men, the sexiest, brightest, funniest men, and you’re going to fall in love with so many of them, and you won’t know until the end of your life who your greatest friends were or your greatest love was.”
I’m thinking of one gay friend in particular; his name is Alim. I always knew that Alim was both something of an optimist and a pessimist about gay life.
He came here as a mature adult from a culture where homosexuality was strongly suppressed and gay life virtually nonexistent. Unable to confront his sexuality in this environment, he never had an opportunity to explore his love for men until he came to Canada.
He’s an optimist in that he continues to put himself out there, fully out there, not ever hesitating to love. No matter how discouraged he may be when things don’t work out, he knows he’s meant to love another man, and this fact continues to motivate him.
The strongly sex-centered nature of the gay community/culture, he believes encourages this kind of romantic superficiality. At a point, he found himself meeting guys and being persuaded to have sex almost immediately, followed by a complete collapse of the incipient relationship after one or two rolls in the hay.
A religious man with a strong appreciation for tradition, he was disgusted by his behavior and that of the people around him. These were not his values or beliefs, which he felt had been debased.
One of his great passions and goals in life was to love a man, but instead he was having sex without ever knowing the closeness and lasting intimacy that he sought. On recounting his story, he went so far as to conclude that he’s “had enough of sex
Furthermore, after years of experience, he has come to the conclusion that it is nearly impossible to build the kind of relationship he was looking for in the gay culture that he knows, which focuses too much on the “sex.” The gay culture is truly the poorest and most miserable on this earth; it isn’t even a culture, it’s an attitude, and an ugly one at that.
Gay life has been cruel to him in many ways, from his inability to live freely before coming to Canada to the maddening disappointment once he was finally able to express his love for men. And he has found a new romantic interest in this regard, a kind mind he hopes to start a relationship one day!
POSTED BY CT MONTRÉAL
In response to my comment on his blog, CT MONTRÉAL offered some additional context.
But the problem is that many of them say they want love, but in reality sex seems to be the most important thing for them (his undeniable sex appeal, rather than his modest, caring, good-humoured personality, may have been what they were most attracted to in the first place).
Alim also faces cultural differences in trying to live here as well, which further complicates any relationship. He came here not understanding why people want to have sex without developing a loving relationship, as in the experiences of his family and friends back home (a much more ‘traditional’ society) sex was not and activity generally permitted outside of marriage (and hopefully love).
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I found the article distressing because of it’s judgment about the gay community, of which I am a part, because it doesn’t describe my life or the lives of many of the men that I know or hear from.
However, there are a lot of men who have sex with men (MSM) who see the entire gay community in precisely the way described, and they often put in their profiles and conversations, “Straight appearing. Not a part of ‘the scene.’” Often they resist being labeled gay. I frequently wonder if these men are seeing “the gay scene” in only one dimension.
And we must acknowledge that there are some very outspoken, gay political activists who are very critical of gay men who remain closeted. Perhaps these men are also seeing the gay community as much more homogeneous than it is.
Is sex with another man or men too much a part of our world, or is it just so obvious because it is the one element in our lives which connects all of us? Or is possible the anticipation of sexual pleasure floods the brain with dopamine which short-circuits the neurons associated with rational thought?
I am very interested in others comments on this apparent contradiction.
There is a lot to digest here, and plenty of space for commentary, but I’ll try to keep it focused.
As gay men might it be that we became addicted to the floods of dopamine early in life, specifically as it related to sexual release? All boys masturbate, but we had to sneak in images of naked men, the thrill of not getting caught with magazines or photos on the Internet.
When we went into our first gay bar, we were flooded with heightened emotions. Then toss in some alcohol, and the party starts. The heart is pounding. The music is thumping. And then someone says hello!
Or how about sneaking out for sex with other men? The anticipation! The secrecy! The kiss. The erection. The climax.
The behavior started early and perhaps the chemical reward (dopamine) is what has propelled the ‘culture’. It’s an interesting thought, one I’ve not considered previously. It may be a stretch, but I’d be willing to explore it more.
It may, however, find a reasonable tangent to the culture of bars that seems ever-present within the culture, something I wrote about recently.
That being said, it does appear that, generally speaking, gay men have a difficult time integrating love and sex. I have no problem with the fact that the two can sometimes be completely separate entities. I do however find it difficult, the older I get, to find men who are willing to do the (emotional) work necessary to bring these two parts of their life together.
Thanks, Jeff, for your thoughtful comments.
It is easy to make rational commitments (think abstainence pledges) without the heightened sensitivities of thumping music, flashing lights, and an alcohol or other buzz. But when some or all of those things are present, I think many of us will disconnect from rationality. Then the kiss or the erection can push us over the edge.
As a young “straight” man, I was quite self-righteous about rationality, but then succumbed to powers of dopamine, testosterone. my genes or whatever it is.
However, I often hear from young men, disenchanted with some of the elements of the gay culture, and many of them have been drawn toward relationships with older men whom they feel have balance the powers of their primitive brains with the more rational parts of it. Some men come to that at an earlier age.
Hi Dr. Olson, thank you for the interest in my article and bringing some fresh light on the issue.
I understand your frustration regarding the image of the gay community that it presents, as it is certainly not a positive one. I alternate in my articles between positive and negative portrayals, those few times I discuss interacting with the gay community. I also discuss my own personal failures in becoming part of this community.
The point of this article was to present my friend’s viewpoints, not all of which I personally subscribe to, and to honestly cast a critical eye toward the gay community.
While it may be a judgmental assessment, and I wholeheartedly admit that the physical act of sex is definitely not the most important part of the gay culture, nor should gay culture be considered to be ’sex-crazy.’ However, the sexual aspect of the community is still a major, and I’d argue, overwhelming part of the gay community. Where people’s thresholds are regarding how much sexuality they are willing to take before being overwhelmed, of course, depends on the person, and I have a reasonably low tolerance. However, try as you might, you can’t ignore the reality of sexual relations when entering the gay community; people won’t let you.
This particular article is slanted toward my own agreement with my friend regarding the importance of sex in a gay relationship. I don’t think you can honestly call Alim an MSM, as sex is not really what’s he’s looking for, he’s outright looking for love with other men. I don’t believe MSM fairly describes someone who wants to be permanently, consistently, and openly in love with a man, and in any case he readily identifies as gay.
Nor can you label me MSM, as I readily admit to being gay (with caveats to the actual label itself), nor am I looking to have sex with men while remaining aloof from the gay community (although not aloof from the gay community, I do hold myself aloof from the sex I often see proffered there—voilà, an important distinction). Trying to label the people involved in the argument really doesn’t add anything to the debate; it only creates more divisions.
My argument is that sexual orientation and romantic orientation aren’t always equally fused. The very fact that we think more of being gay as the consequence of a ‘sexual’ orientation rather than equally recognizing a ‘romantic’ orientation drives this point home. Alim is more romantically than sexually oriented toward men, but of course he wants to have sex with them as well. However, he has thus far been most successful at achieving the latter at the expense, he believes, of the former.
To paraphrase his words, the relationship becomes too sexual too early, and then what?
I’m not judging the gay community—let people have sex (or not have sex) with whomever they want, as much as they want, as soon or late as they want, whenever and wherever they want. That’s a personal choice. But in an environment where everyone is eagerly and constantly having sex, how much respect is relegated to those who would rather be in love before sex? How seriously are individuals like this taken? How successful are they likely to be?
Even just today—I wrote a post about my last few interactions with four gay men (last paragraph), most of it rather sexual (implicitly if not explicitly). Despite being 24 years old, I personally find such interactions a massive turn off, and I would in the real world setting of the bar as well.
Although I don’t drink alcohol or do drugs and don’t go to bars or clubs, gay or straight, no one could persuade me to get excited enough to have sex with them after one or even five nights with them in a bar. I might be an anomaly, but I don’t personally find anyone I’m not romantically interested in any way sexually stimulating, and romance/love takes time to develop.
Sex precedes love for many people—great for them. But that doesn’t work for me, and I’m going to have to live with the consequences of my personal philosophies and the nature of my romantic orientation. But what happens when people oriented like Alim and I give in to the have sex before love, contrary to our desired nature?
Well, everyone is different, but the consequences are not particularly rewarding in Alim’s case. I’ve always been true to myself in that regard, so I don’t presently have worry about “forgetting myself” in quite the way Alim has. Of course, I’m also a virgin and look to be remaining that way for the foreseeable future.
I agree that much of what Alim is experiencing is probably related to your assessment of the bar scene—the music, the alcohol, the excitement—leading to sex. Alim’s been immersed in the gay bar scene here (that’s the only venue he’s really been exposed to and the only one he knows), and I think that’s where he meets most people. It’s one but probably not the optimal venue in a city such as this for finding romance before sex, although I have no clue what would be the right one (probably a religious group).
He’s also admitted to being attracted and choosing beautiful guys, and let’s face it, if you choose someone for solely physical reasons and they choose you for solely physical reasons, can we really expect a strong romantic bond to develop? I think that’s the lesson Alim’s learned over the years, and you pointed out in the comment section—it’s important to establish shared values early in the relationship and not base it exclusively on physical attraction.
Any cultural environment, and certainly the gay cultural sphere, has minority groups of differing opinion within it. I’m simply representing the attitudes of one such minority, to provide a counterpoint to the “obvious” sexual consensus (to quote the comments of this post).
After all, sexual orientation is itself multidimensional, and the situations is even more complicated when other orientations (such as romantic) are thrown into the mix. As a consequence, I would say that such a consensus doesn’t exist, and thus want to expand and diversify the image of “what it is meant to be gay” rather than narrow it to a single oversimplified homogeneous group (which I think we can all agree it is not!).
As for your last comment, stay tuned! I am one such younger man and will be sharing my thoughts on how I chose to both shift and expand my age range upward for reasons similar to those you described
I am concerned that my comments may have suggested that I disapprove of the way you’re choosing to live your life. On the contrary, I asked to use your post on this site because I wanted to present your perspective.
I think that there are a lot more men than you may know who share your views; the problem is always accessing them.
Gay bars are and MSM on-line chat rooms are often where our community meets because of their accessability, visibility and availability. But gay bars and chat rooms are diverse, too, and some are far more oriented to heightened expression of sexuality than others. Other venues for meeting gay men are in churches, political parties, service organization, support groups, alcohol and drug recovery, etc., and are good ways to meet men who are not as explicitly sexual.
You are young, and I see this time of your life as a time of examination of inherited values and a construction of a more personalized value system. Feeling good about yourself is living into those values once you have committed yourself to them, and they do evolve over a life time.
As a community of gay men and women, and including MSM, we need to accept and respect the fact that we are not all the same, in spite of the fact that much of society sees us and judges us as if we are.
Loren Olson