CRUISING for SEX - View Single Post - Liberation and Assimilation, Sexual Edition

infopop · #1 21st August 2015, 10:24 AM

Yesterday our local LGBT Center posted a link to a follow-up interview with Noah Michelson, the author of this Huffington Post piece. I had missed his original article I'm A Gay Man Who Loves Sex (And Here's Why That's Suddenly A Problem)*|*Noah Michelson which I thought a lot of folks here would find interesting.

Here's an excerpt. I'll reserve comment for now and let you all discuss amongst yourselves:

Quote:

Oh the hours -- the afternoons! The days! The weekends! -- I have spent looking for and having sex. And oh the incomparable joy it's brought me!

But you're not really that shocked, are you? Of course you're not. After all, gay men have always had a bit of a reputation when it comes to sex. And why not? Unbridled by the restraints of "traditional" relationships and (until very recently) solely straight institutions like marriage and the nuclear family, we've long enjoyed the pursuit of sexual relations whenever, wherever, however and with whomever we could get our sweaty gay mitts on.

Even in the face of AIDS, which has ravaged our community and caused so many gay men -- myself included -- to tragically equate sex with death, we didn't stop looking for opportunities to get off, we just found ways to do it more safely.

No, pleasure has never been a dirty word for us, though many of our straight counterparts (who are, let's admit, equally interested in the same wondrous carnal arts but, thanks to our society's sturdy puritan mores, remain unable or forbidden to indulge in them or at the very least admit they secretly do indulge in them) may wish it otherwise.

And in some ways, I'm actually fine with that. As much as I want straights to join us in ushering in a brave new age of sexual liberation, I understand that change takes time and that thanks to a whole bunch of heady terms (think: religion, sexism, patriarchy) it's not as easy for them to partake in sex the way that gay men historically have.

But you know what I can't understand, and furthermore, won't stand for? Other gays playing sex police -- and it's starting to happen more and more.

Example A: A New York Times article entitled "Chelsea's Risque Businesses" from earlier this year, which highlights a number of gay parents living in what is perhaps one of the most famously gay neighborhoods in the world and who are now lamenting the fact that their children have to grow up just feet away from sex shops.

Some in the article worry about the storefronts' mannequins with their "bulging crotches," condoms strewn across the neighborhood's sidewalks and the daunting task of having to explain ads for a lubricant called "Boy Butter" to their kids. But here's a radical idea: How about instead of demonizing sex and the people who are looking for it and having it, we demonize our society that labels the sight of a bulging crotch (plastic or otherwise) as indecent and embarrassing and threatening. And, if you'll permit me just one more humble suggestion, how about we tell our kids exactly what Boy Butter is and why it exists and stop acting like it's something to be ashamed of? (I'll save my full rant about sex education for another time.)

Now that we can get married and queer people having children is becoming more and more accepted, it seems we've forgotten that sexual liberation has always been, in my mind at least, a cornerstone of queer liberation. And it seems some queers think we've just been having all of this sex and pushing back against all of these sexual boundaries for all of these years as just another way to pass the time until we could become just like straight people. Like, "Hmm. We can't get married yet. What should we do in the meantime? Needlepoint? Nah. Competitive baking? No. Oh, I've got it! Let's get off!"

As if the New York Times article isn't bad enough, earlier this week, in an op-ed for Elite Daily, Thomas Caramanno felt compelled to rail against "certain gay men who objectify other men and change sex partners as frequently as their 2(x)ist underwear" and who are giving a bad name to the gay men who "are currently in, or are actively pursuing, romantic relationships, [and] revere notions of monogamy and family." (more...)

Be sure to read the rest then come back and let us know what you think.