The end of the gay "sex culture"?

[bcohen7719]

A colleague suggested that the older gay culture in which overt sexuality

and sexual freedom had been emphasized is now being replaced

by "de-sexualized" marriage equality, relationships, gay parenting, adoption, gay family

life, etc.

 

Also, that this was a necessary tactic in order for marriage equality

to keep winning approval state-by-state.

 

What do you think?

 

Related to this, a movie trailer below....

 

BC

 

[video=youtube;Yvpdk-igoLY]

[JT Brooklyn]

He might have a point! To be taken Seriously usually means acting Seriously!

 

Cumming should not be the Biggest thing in Life just one of the Perks of a Good Life..

[+ purplekow]

Hot meaningless gay sex is still alive and well in the US. Or so I hear.

[bcohen7719]

Hot meaningless gay sex is still alive and well in the US. Or so I hear.

 

Fair enough, but during state-wide ballot initiatives, hot meaningless sex may indeed

have been replaced (temporarily?) in the public discussions by more digestible sound-bites of "equality" and "fairness."

 

Is it possible we're all going back into the closet for awhile?

 

BC

[bigvalboy]

As always an excellent post BC.....

Personally I don't think that we are going back into the closet, even for a moment, if anything the door is wide open. I do agree with your colleague, that much of how we viewed ourselves is not necessarily changing but rather expanding. How we see ourselves as a community has clearly expanded and pushed boundaries. I think that "gay marriage" gay parents "adopting" and the thought of gay families is an addition to, not a replacement for, how we thought about ourselves in the past...

[Diverdan]

I agree with BVB... I know a lot of guys who are in committed relationships, have sired and adopted children, are excellent parents, and as a result have changed the attitudes and minds of many professional colleagues, straight friends and relatives. I think this is a natural evolution and in some ways even a revolution. These changes were, IMHO very good for gay men. In 50 years, I think most historians will see these changes as a natural part of evolution.

[+ azdr0710]

As always an excellent post BC.....

Personally I don't think that we are going back into the closet, even for a moment, if anything the door is wide open. I do agree with your colleague, that much of how we viewed ourselves is not necessarily changing but rather expanding. How we see ourselves as a community has clearly expanded and pushed boundaries. I think that "gay marriage" gay parents "adopting" and the thought of gay families is an addition to, not a replacement for, how we thought about ourselves in the past...

 

 

yes, very good issue brought up by BC.....the long-term goal, of course, is full acceptance and no "double-takes" (staring and pointing at that same-sex couple with a couple kids in tow) by the public, but, as diverdan says, this is going to be an evolution and can't be done any other way....the prancing queen/pink boa/wild anonymous sex/taking-it-up-the-ass thing (sorry to be blunt) is still the primary vision many heteros think of when they think "gay" and I wonder if that "sex culture" thing will delay speedy acceptance....in fact, does the flamboyant gay guy handicap the progress???

[bcohen7719]

yes, very good issue brought up by BC.....the long-term goal, of course, is full acceptance and no "double-takes" (staring and pointing at that same-sex couple with a couple kids in tow) by the public, but, as diverdan says, this is going to be an evolution and can't be done any other way....the prancing queen/pink boa/wild anonymous sex/taking-it-up-the-ass thing (sorry to be blunt) is still the primary vision many heteros think of when they think "gay" and I wonder if that "sex culture" thing will delay speedy acceptance....in fact, does the flamboyant gay guy handicap the progress???

 

BVB and Azdr: Excellent, excellent insights! One hopes the "equality/relationships/marriage" view is an expansion of gay culture, not return to repression. Yet this is also a political fight. In culturally conservative states/regions, it is possible that the flamboyant gay guy hurts "the political cause." Honestly I don't know. I'll send out some diplomatic feelers to various state marriage equality groups in the South and Midwest, and see what they say...

 

BC

[Phil_musc]

I agree with BVB and AZDR. But I am also glad that I'm not in my twenties at this point. I had too much fun with that hot meaningless gay sex that PK alluded to and I would have hated to miss that in the name of putting forward a good face on gay culture as a whole.

[+ Charlie]

I don't think that flamboyant behavior and promiscuous sex will ever disappear from gay life, or even from the ideal that some gays have of gay life. But I do think that many gay men have now recognized that they don't have to conform to that image in order to identify as gay. Gay men have always been involved in traditional domestic relationships or parenting situations, but they were virtually invisible in the media, and therefore invisible to most straight people, except as particular individuals with whom they happened to be personally acquainted, but whom they thought of as extraordinary. What has changed is the greatly increased visibility of gay men who look remarkably like straight people in most aspects of their lives, and the willingness of those men to openly identify as gay.

 

I recently shared an airport shuttle with some young legal professionals who were coming from a convention dealing with "non-traditional families" and legal issues affecting them. It was obvious they thought this was a very new issue. I told them I couldn't help overhearing their conversation, and said that I knew a male couple who were raising an infant whom they had paid a surrogate to bear for them--fifty years ago! Sophisticated though these youngsters were, they were amazed that such things could have been going on before Stonewall.

[+ deej]

I recently shared an airport shuttle with some young legal professionals who were coming from a convention dealing with "non-traditional families" and legal issues affecting them. It was obvious they thought this was a very new issue. I told them I couldn't help overhearing their conversation, and said that I knew a male couple who were raising an infant whom they had paid a surrogate to bear for them--fifty years ago! Sophisticated though these youngsters were, they were amazed that such things could have been going on before Stonewall.

 

We really are everywhere. Always have been. But now (some) people see it.

 

It's like the Hollywood "overnight sensation" who got there by spending YEARS building a career.

[+ FreshFluff]

I recently shared an airport shuttle with some young legal professionals who were coming from a convention dealing with "non-traditional families" and legal issues affecting them. It was obvious they thought this was a very new issue. I told them I couldn't help overhearing their conversation, and said that I knew a male couple who were raising an infant whom they had paid a surrogate to bear for them--fifty years ago! Sophisticated though these youngsters were, they were amazed that such things could have been going on before Stonewall.

 

I'll confess: I'm surprised too. Given that males couldn't touch each other in gay bars, I wonder how the power-that-be allowed the two men to raise the child. (I'm guessing that a "mom" agreed to be listed when the kid was enrolled in school.) There's a fascinating story to be written about them if they would allow it.

 

Barring that, would you tell us how they decided to take this huge step in the early 60s? Did social services and/or the surrogate ever try to take the child away? If they are alive, are they still together? on good terms with the child?

[bcohen7719]

I don't think that flamboyant behavior and promiscuous sex will ever disappear from gay life, or even from the ideal that some gays have of gay life. But I do think that many gay men have now recognized that they don't have to conform to that image in order to identify as gay. Gay men have always been involved in traditional domestic relationships or parenting situations, but they were virtually invisible in the media, and therefore invisible to most straight people, except as particular individuals with whom they happened to be personally acquainted, but whom they thought of as extraordinary. What has changed is the greatly increased visibility of gay men who look remarkably like straight people in most aspects of their lives, and the willingness of those men to openly identify as gay.

 

I recently shared an airport shuttle with some young legal professionals who were coming from a convention dealing with "non-traditional families" and legal issues affecting them. It was obvious they thought this was a very new issue. I told them I couldn't help overhearing their conversation, and said that I knew a male couple who were raising an infant whom they had paid a surrogate to bear for them--fifty years ago! Sophisticated though these youngsters were, they were amazed that such things could have been going on before Stonewall.

 

Charlie, you are so smart! Yes, of course you are right. There had always been a "reverse closet"

years ago. I also remember very straight-acting, domesticity-attracted young guys who were

excluded (or felt excluded) from the gay bar "in" crowds. There were homebodies, committed

monogamous couples, young guys still close to home and their families. Now they have a well-deserved

rightful place, and proudly so. Wonderful point (if I have it right!).

 

BC

[bcohen7719]

Quick historical trip (related to this thread)...

 

BC

 

[video=youtube;tFPfycMoTWU]

[+ Charlie]

Fresh Fluff,

 

One of the men fathered the child with the surrogate mother, and she then signed over all custody rights to him. Since he was legally the child's father, there was no reason why he couldn't raise the boy with the help of his "friend." They were monogamous and not openly gay, didn't go to bars, had stable middle-class careers, and they didn't fit the contemporary stereotype of homosexuality, so there was no reason for social services to get involved.

 

I lost touch with them many years ago, so I have no idea what eventually became of them.

[+ FreshFluff]

Thanks, Charlie. That's a fascinating story, and the two men and surrogate mother were brave people.

[bigvalboy]

Quick historical trip (related to this thread)...

 

BC

 

[video=youtube;tFPfycMoTWU]

 

Wonderful, and a heartfelt nod (sorry lookin) to all those 'brothers and sisters' that came before me, and made life easier than I could ever have imagine...

[+ FreshFluff]

Quick historical trip (related to this thread)...

 

BC

 

[video=youtube;tFPfycMoTWU]

 

I remember posting a parody of one of the films in that video a while back.

 

This film is obviously shameful because it claims that homosexual means child abuser!

 

But according to the famous, late-60s sociology study Tearoom Trade, the scenario described in the film wasn't uncommon back then. The author, Laud Humphreys, divided the men in the tearooms into four "types" based on survey data he obtained in a covert way.

 

One of these four types was the "closet queen." This kind of man was often married and in a job that he would lose were he to be open about his sexuality. Contrary to the image shown in the film above, such men were often religious and politically conservative. (Think Larry Craig.) But unlike guys like Craig and Haggard, who played with consenting adults, these men had a dark side: "Many closet queens seem to prefer teenage boys as sex objects." This is one of the features that distinguishes them from all other participant types...A number of these men regularly cruise the streets where boys thumb rides each afternoon when school is over. One closet queen in my sample has been arrested for luring boys in their early teens to his home...[Another closet queen in Humphreys' study] was murdered by a teenager he had picked up."

 

FWIW, the author was ultra liberal, especially for the time, and supported the legalization of tearoom sex. He was married at the time he did the study but ironically, later came out as gay himself.

 

Here's my interpretation: The molestation of teens, male and female, was probably more common in those days because the penalties were not as severe as they are today. (There was another movie called "Girls Beware" which focused on straight child abusers, though of course it didn't claim that all straight men were molestors!) Also, most kids were not taught about good and bad touch back then. Even when the kids opened up, parents often didn't believe them or swept the incident under the rug to avoid "disgracing" the child. So child abusers knew that the risk of getting caught was relatively low.

[Guest]

I'm sure my domestic partner would say "He's ugly!" but I find one of the movie's stars, Jason T Gaffney, mysteriously appealing:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2J8Bp9DJmxY/UiydMl1bHYI/AAAAAAAAB2U/eLBXCbMUnmM/s1600/Jason+T+Gaffney+2.jpg

 

http://photos.modelmayhem.com/photos/111019/11/4e9f13cc18872.jpg

 

http://photos.modelmayhem.com/photos/110803/13/4e39b0b96d75c.jpg

[Guest]

Not classically gorgeous, but quite interesting-looking, in my opinion. What do you guys think, stud or dud?

http://jasongaffney.com/www.JasonGaffney.com/Resume.html

 

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BOTIzMjUxMzE5NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjI3NjczNw@@._V1._SX640_SY960_.jpg

 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AP7FruU4dE4/UiydO0ARDZI/AAAAAAAAB2c/S2t2BZ-wVLI/s1600/Jason+T+Gaffney+3.jpg

 

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTUzNzY2MjA3MF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTQ2NjczNw@@._V1._SX640_SY427_.jpg

 

Jason T Gaffney

Male

27 years old

STUDIO CITY, California, US

[+ purplekow]

End of the nighter.

[bigvalboy]

Not classically gorgeous, but quite interesting-looking, in my opinion. What do you guys think, stud or dud?http://jasongaffney.com/www.JasonGaffney.com/Resume.html

 

I think your definition is perfect. He may not be gorgeous in the classical sense, but he's cute. Not my type perhaps, I prefer the muscle boys, but he's fine.