Interesting Article

Just read this...whaddya think?

http://thenewgay.net/2009/08/slut.html

Zack's Ramblings: Slut

Last summer, at a 4th of July party, a combination of alcohol and an escalating series of dares lead to my peeing on some some guy’s face. The recipient of the beery splash was actually the one leading the dares, and the six or so men around me were in support. We were all naked and hanging out in an oversized kiddie pool. If nothing had happened it would have been infinitely more surprising than any of the revelry that followed.

My dad doesn’t know this. He doesn’t know any of my stories, or at least he didn’t last summer. That was when he voiced his relief that I had not fallen into the “promiscuity” that he believed characterized the lives of many gay men. This is several minutes after he told me how happy he was that I had just celebrated a year with my boyfriend, and that when he was my age he was like “a pig in shit” when it came to his dealings with girls.

It’s not gay men who chase sex desperately. It’s all men. Men are dogs, pigs, aardvarks or any other mammalian nouns ascribed to those who can’t control themselves. The only thing that generally stands between most men and utter sexual exhaustion (or at least the promise of such) is women. Women love sex just as much as men do, but I believe there is truth to the fact that our genetic hard-wiring leads men to spread their seed far and wide and women to try and nest with one partner. (Again, I really stress these are broad generalizations and many exceptions exist.)

I don’t think most men don’t fully understand their the grip that sexual desire has over them. We just know it’s there. Every single guy reading this: think of one truly bad decision that you made just in the name of having an orgasm in another’s presence. Wait -- I bet you couldn’t stop at just one. How about this -- can you think of ten bad mistakes? Fifteen? Cars entered, sleeps lost, asses made of yourselves, shirts purchased, weights lifted, drinks consumed, condoms bought in bulk and never used, late-night texts sent?

I know that this is a part of me. The first time gay sex became available to me was in college, and though the dating pool was small I splashed around in it every available chance. Soon my telltale pruny fingers, toes and other parts marked me as a frequent swimmer. I loved this designation. The first time I got called a slut it caused me a little thrill. It just meant that I was being recognized for going after what I wanted. All subsequent iterations -- tramp, freak, whorezilla -- are similarly exciting. In fact, it was the times in my life when I was being known as a good, innocent boy that I felt sad, because this is when I wasn’t be true to myself. Even my boyfriend likes to joke about the eternal, unquenchable horniness that causes me to ogle bus drivers and hospital nurses and say hi to strangers on the street. He appreciates all my foibles, and remembers what it was like to be my age, but mostly he’s just a man.

Though gay men’s lives are not purely defined by sex -- I don’t need to tell you that the richness of the modern queer experience goes beyond an eternal search for dick in ass -- I think we do ourselves a disservice by forgetting that we have been designated like we are because of sex. Not love, not companionship, not dating, but sex. Gay marriage is verboten because it leads to gay sex. Parents freak out about gay teachers because they think we’ll teach their children about abhorrent sex. Gay adoption, gay blood donors, all “controversial” aspects of us as a people can be traced back to a popular disdain for how we get off.

However, the way to address this is not to cut sex out of our lives. Some people seem to think that we can whitewash ourselves to equality. Show no affection, no desire, no indication that you have anything between your legs but a smooth strip of plastic and we’ll be able to do what everyone else does. This is true in a sense, but if we win our acceptance as a sexless people we’ll be forever robbed of sex. It’s common sense. Not everyone wants to be joined in holy matrimony or to fight in the military, but everyone wants to have sex. And if the way we have sex is fundamentally accepted, then all of our other rights would fall into line. I’m sure of this.

Gay men are only cast as the societal whores of Babylon because we have the kind of potentially unfettered access to the one thing that most people only dream of. Gay men might be the most understanding about how different the concepts of love and sex are. When both are present the gods themselves will smile on us, but we know we’re not going to hell if we have one without the other.

We should have sex 100% safely. Anyone that hasn’t learned that lesson from history is a fool. We should be honest with our partners about what we’re looking for, and not use people for sex when they are looking for love. Those of us with boyfriends should keep their behavior within whatever parameters are set for them. But we should never beat ourselves up for seeking pleasure.

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