LTRs in the Gay Community

[taylorky]

RE: All American Men = Pigs?

 

i new something about you was special!!!!!

[Guest pyell]

An interesting thread.

 

May I add a comment from a different perspective. I've never had a long term relationship, so my sexual encounters tended to be brief.

 

But I have a teenage foster son. He came to me from a string of rejections: his mother tried to kill him when he was 8, his father died when he was 6 (and his parents had already separated by then), and he'd been through umpteen foster homes and two boarding schools by the time he reached me around the age of 15.

 

The one thing I realised I had to give him above all else was security. And that meant unconditional love. No matter what he did I would not turn him out to yet another home.

 

That required a lot of work and effort to make it succeed. And succeed it has. His friends are all amazed at how happy, secure and contented he has become, for the first time really in his entire life.

 

For some reason, now that I'm in my 40s, I have this desire to put in that kind of effort to a relationship, even though it's not a relationship born of sexual desire, nor is it one that will see him live with me for the rest of my life.

 

I think there are potential gay parents out there with the same kind of desire to make a long term parental relationship work. So I don't think that gays lack the determination to make a relationship succeed any more than straight couples do. But I think there is something in having children that encourages a long-term determination for a relationship rather than just short term pleasure and gratification.

 

So I agree that children are often the key difference for straight couples in having longer term relationships. Maybe the trick for making gay relationships work is to make it easier for them to have children - either their own, or foster kids.

 

Or is that just a wee bit too radical for many in our communities to accept?

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

LD LTR

 

>Having been married, I find it hard

>to understand the interest in the gay community in the

>institution.

 

>I apologize for the rambling, but what I'm trying to ask

>is what, in your collective opinion, are the expectations and

>common modes of behaviors in a male gay LTR (sexual fidelity,

>merging of financial affairs, the whole for better or for

>worse thing are the common hetero expectations of marriage

>however often they are not practiced). I gather from the

>posts that neither sexual fidelity nor merging of financial

>affairs are expected in a gay relationship, so other than

>putting up with sleeping with the windows up (or down) and

>nursing the partner through illness what is expected???

 

When I moved to Atlanta in 1998, I have been engaing in a LD (long distance) relationship with a man. He owned his own home, was well established in his career and for a number of other reasons, for us to be together, it made more sense for me to be the one to move, if we decided to go that direction (which, obviously, we did). At one point, he offered to put both on names on a joint deed of trust, but I declined the offer. We did discuss a joint checking account, but we determined that was something to do after a while, when we moved to a home we both jointly owned perhaps. We did share our finances. He also requested and required monogamy; it was one of the few preconditions he made. For him, as I indicated in another post, it was more about trust and other issues than it was about sexual fidelity or sexual jealousy. However, I came to understand that it also stemed, in slight part, to his insecurity. For the entire year we were together, every man I met, no matter how innocent the meeting, became a battle and an issue between us.

 

Even though we were monogamous, his lack of trust without any basis thereon, was at least a small part of what eventually lead to the demise of this relationship.

 

Even with clients and friends of mine who are couples, most of the ones I know well own homes together, one couple runs a business together, and in many respect they are very much in relationships akin to legal marriages between men and women, with respect to issues like fidelity or joint responsibilites, among others.

[Bilbo]

RE: Rephrase the Question

 

I take exception to the question, "Why are there so few LTRs in the gay male community?" because it presupposes that there aren't very many. I agree with one of the earlier posters that they are out there and you're just not finding/noticing them.

 

My Cub, Maverick, and I have been together for some 5.5 years now. At a party this year he made a slightly embarassing faux pas when he assumed that two guys who were obviously not married to each other and both looked like they could be having a lot of fun bed hopping without a home bed to go home to were actually swinging singles. Turned out that they weren't married to each other but that one had a lover of 15 years and the other had been with his husband 18 years. Which I already knew but the Cub didn't. This was at a party of my Mardi Gras Krewe, where LTRs, rather than singles, are in the vast majority. Including another couple who had a wonderful 25th anniversary party this year.

 

Many of these couples (and, yes, a threesome or two) live out variations on marriage, ones which might not be identical to the one assumed to be the heterosexual model. (Do we have any recent studies on just what constitutes a real life hetero model? Really?) Yet, these people deserve to have their own marriages recognized by the govenment, and, of course, other gay men!

[+ Lucky]

RE: Rephrase the Question

 

I was a Cub Scout when I was a boy. But, since then, no one has thought to refer to me as a cub. So, Bilbo, there are those of us (me) in the big city who have no idea why you would refer to your partner as a cub. It doesn't sound very adult, but I am willing to be educated.

[Guest fukamarine]

RE: Rephrase the Question

 

>I was a Cub Scout when I was a boy. But, since then, no one

>has thought to refer to me as a cub. So, Bilbo, there are

>those of us (me) in the big city who have no idea why you

>would refer to your partner as a cub. It doesn't sound very

>adult, but I am willing to be educated.

 

One would assume it's because Bilbo is a bear and the "cub" is much younger - hence the nickname "cub"

 

Oh, I forgot - since you swore to never my posts ever again, I guess you won't see this explanation!

 

fukamarine

[+ Lucky]

RE: Rephrase the Question

 

fuka- I thought we kissed and made up in another forum. Anyway, my question is directed to Bilbo. Maybe he will explain all of this to me.

[Bilbo]

RE: Rephrase the Question

 

Honey, (and that is a term of endearment with this Bear, and probably others), there are entire books waiting to explain the gay bear culture to you. Many of them do it quite humorously, too. Fuka was nearly correct about me and mine. It is a term of endearment, but I use it with Maverick for slightly different reasons. He is only six years younger than me, but he is considerably less hefty and has less body hair. As a Bear, I enjoy mating with other Bears, but I do really prefer Cubs. As a Cub, Maverick can enjoy other types, though he seems to draw the line at Twinks, preferring his men to be at least 30ish. But he does zero in on Bears whenever he is given the choice. Clients around this board, as I have mentioned before, seem to me to prefer Twinks, which is all well and good. We would get pretty worn out if we could appeal to everyone equally, wouldn't we?

 

I'm going to send this section of this thread email to Maverick. He wouldn't find it for himself since he usually goes all over the reviews, including the links to websites (I don't do the websites due to lack of time) but thinks it would take too much time to check out the message boards. Chacun a son gout, again.

[Guest fukamarine]

RE: Rephrase the Question

 

>fuka- I thought we kissed and made up in another forum.

 

I luv kissing and making up! Would you also like a great Canadian blow job?

 

fukamarine

[Guest Love Bubble Butt]

RE: Rephrase the Question

 

>Would you also like a great Canadian blow job?

 

I would! :7