Sex, Intimacy, And Being Gay

[iamziz]

Sex, Intimacy, and Being Gay

 

 

I started to write this piece a few weeks ago but have since had to start over. I had a conversation with my best friend and found I wanted to shift focus. All of this came about because I read a few pieces on this site and others about how women should have more sex with their husbands or why women may not want to have sex with their husbands. The fundamental theme was about intimacy and communication between partners. It made me think: When was the last time I read something in the LGBTQ media about sex as communication between partners? Maybe I'm not reading the right magazines. Perhaps lesbian-centered media talk more about it. Certainly I can't remember the last time I read anything about sex and intimacy in media focused on gay men. But why not?

 

As I thought about it, I came to the conclusion that gay male culture in general doesn't talk about intimacy between partners, or at least either not in the same way or not as often as happens elsewhere. There's plenty of talk about sex; we are a very sexually permissive group. But there are ways in which sexuality for gay men is complicated beyond fighting broad systems of oppression. There are ways in which that oppression, especially isolation and rejection from families, has damaged many of us. A therapist once asked me if I thought my relationships with the men in my family negatively impact my relationships with other gay men. I've thought about that a lot in the past couple of years, especially as I've more recently had a growing awareness of the extent to which my self-loathing is affecting every aspect of my career and search for a mate. Perhaps this estrangement from the men in our families makes it difficult for us to trust and to open ourselves to emotional intimacy. It certainly presents a pivotal developmental experience of rejection that could inspire the fears of rejection so many of us suffer from.

 

I don't mean to say all our problems date back to childhood, however much that may be true. Gay male culture has a strange attitude toward sex. I feel isolated at times by the choices I am presented with. I know from past experience that an open relationship doesn't work for me. I don't know if I think monogamy is the same for gays as it is for straights, but I think there is some value to making a commitment to someone to be sexually exclusive. It says something about how much you respect and value that person that you would eschew others for them. I have also experienced and seen too many scenarios where opening up a relationship has been about creating emotional barriers or been a way for a partner wanting out of the relationship to cause it to fail. I've seen the chaos involved in relationships where partners decided to be open, and I've watched the hurt and anger fester in other relationships where two people decided to stick together in spite of jealousy and self-doubt caused by being open. It isn't that I'm saying open relationships can't work long-term, just that I've never seen them last. If that works for you, then I wish you the best and hope you have many happy years.

 

But, returning to my point, sex seems central to intimate and romantic relationships. If it is a means of intimate communication, and communication is the secret to a lasting and healthy relationship, why don't we gay men talk about it that way more often? When I'm online I see a lot of guys claiming to want more than casual encounters. But we're men, and men are socialized to want sex, so there's often the caveat of having fun while waiting for Mr. Right. That's in some of my profiles too. But this seems to follow the trope of sex as sport or separating emotion from sex and just having fun. But do I really want to have sex with someone I don't even really like? And how do we refocus sex from fun to intimate communication between partners once we find the right guy?

 

I've read profiles of guys who were recently out of long-term relationships who wanted no strings, no commitment, and just to have fun. That right there seems to be a way of acting out on hurt feelings by drowning in as much dick and ass as they can get, which then makes me think they can't actually separate out emotions from sex. It instead sounds like they want to punish themselves or their ex, using sex as a self-defacing act to fuel self-loathing over a failed relationship. But even more than that, when sex is such an intimate act, a kind of interaction that is so out of the ordinary and places people in uniquely vulnerable positions, doing it with someone you have no reason to trust seems slightly self-defeating, if not self-destructive.

 

Now, we have very few models of what commitment looks like among gay men, one of the few reasons I sometimes envy lesbians despite all the systemic disadvantages they face. Marriage equality has changed that, and there are more and more gay men benefiting from the validation that legal recognition provides. But our cultural dialogue on sex still focuses so heavily on disease and non-exclusive sexual behavior that it is hard to develop and sustain attitudes of intimacy and trust. This is certainly true as a single person; I then imagine it is true for couples. While all relationships are work, and while it takes a lot of emotional security to trust a partner over the course of a long-term relationship, it is especially difficult to do so as gay men. One of my few couple-friends who are making it work have discussed the pressures of maintaining the trust and communication in their relationships. They have to deal with the pervasive attitude among single gay men that one or both of them is fair game despite their committed status. They then tried to develop more friendships with other couples only to find that many of them saw my friends as fair game as well, with one or both partners looking to mingle with one or both of my friends. However prevalent this may be among heterosexuals, there are two things that make it different for gay men. First, dominant narratives insist that heterosexuals are mostly sexually exclusive with partners except when men cheat. Second, the members of the heterosexual couple are presumably not attracted to the member of the second couple who is of the same sex.

 

None of this is meant to provide any answers to these problems. It is too easy for us to essentialize that all gay men are promiscuous, that all lesbians are monogamous, that men only want sex, and that it's all due to damage done by our parents. If we want committed relationships, however, we have to face down these self-defeating narratives and stop creating obstacles to intimacy with our (potential) partners.

 

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/j-nelson-aviance/sex-intimacy-and-being-ga_b_5693464.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices

[leibniz]

I've been wandering in my head that I should put sex at the top of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs or cross it out entirely, meh.

[mate69]

Sex should be very high on the Maslow's hierarchy, as we all need (and want) it. 

[EasleyLim]

Sex should be very high on the Maslow's hierarchy, as we all need (and want) it. 

 

Actually it's very low. As in, right at the base - along with air and water - where physical requirements for human survival is at.

[mate69]

Actually it's very low. As in, right at the base - along with air and water - where physical requirements for human survival is at.

 

Thanks for pointing it out. Yes you are right.

I had meant it from the other point of view, as in high in priority.

[nickelback]

if sex is a higher priority than developing a decent relationship, then people will just be addicted to sex instead of creating something meaningful. Sex addiction is very real if you know how the brain works. There was an interesting article that points out that men think less about sex when shown a picture of a girl clad in bikinis after looking at the picture of their girlfriend. However, when the order is reversed, the men tend to think more about sex.

 

This raises two points- 1. men who viewed pictures of their partners first is more resistant to act on their sexual impulse. 2. men who viewed pictures of their partners first thought of the romantic time they have together and how lovely their partners are. 

 

So how you treat your partner is relative to how likely they are to act on their sexual impulses. 

[Guest wozzit]

I've more recently had a growing awareness of the extent to which my self-loathing is affecting every aspect of my career and search for a mate

 

I'm sorry I did not read that long article with the care it deserved. But this comment struck me right near the start. How can anyone even start to consider relationships with others - be they gay or straight - if you loathe yourself? I don't see how it is possible. The first 'rule' in relationships is that you must feel good about yourself - 'love' yourself, some call it. If you constantly feel yourself unworthy, your attempts at relationships will almost certainly fail, sorry to say.

 

A relationship is a partnership of equals. The writer is correct when he says "trust" and "communication" are vital to lasting relationships. What is not essentially, though, is faithfulness - always provided this issue has been discussed first and both parties to the relationship agree to it. I have gay friends who have lived happily as couples for 35 years, 30 years (this coming October) and 25 years - all in mixed gay/caucasian relationships - and who remain utterly devoted to each other. When one dies, all their estate will be passed to the other. However, after being monogamous for the first half dozen or so years, each couple eventually decided that the individuals would be free to have sex outside the relationship - provided the other knew about it and all safe sex precautions were taken. This may not work for others, but it has certainly worked for them.

 

The writer says "I know from past experience that an open relationship doesn't work for me." I suspect that says a great deal about him and his fears - almost certainly of eventually rejection. Throughout our lives, we all develop worries, fears, tendencies to think we are ugly and that we can never have a relationship. As long as we feel that way, the chances are we won't. We have to learn to get rid of all that mental garbage and start living and loving without fear. Life is great. Love is great. The first few relationships may not last. But with each we learn. And eventually we should find one that works for us. 

Edited August 23, 2014 by wozzit

[Guest Glyph]

Sex should be very high on the Maslow's hierarchy, as we all need (and want) it. 

 

It shouldn't be. It already is and has always been.

[Guest Guest]

Very well-written and true. Everyone should read this.

[Guest Guest]

Gay guys overcompensate being gays by not talking emotions, intimacy. Portraying masculinity by putting sex before intimacy?

[leibniz]

Sex should be very high on the Maslow's hierarchy, as we all need (and want) it. 

 

That's a sweeping statement. Anyway, he mentions in that in certain people the pyramid is altered in some way. He says in some people some needs are deadened like a person who has experienced life at a very low level such as chronic unemployment may continue to be satisfied for the rest of his life if only he can get enough food. 

 

Other exceptions that he mentions in his paper include that:

1. There are some people in whom, for instance, self-esteem seems to be more important than love. This most common reversal in the hierarchy is usually due to the development of the notion that the person who is most likely to be loved is a strong or powerful person, one who inspires respect or fear, and who is self confident or aggressive. Therefore such people who lack love and seek it, may try hard to put on a front of aggressive, confident behavior. But essentially they seek high self-esteem and its behavior expressions more as a means-to-an-end than for its own sake; they seek self-assertion for the sake of love rather than for self-esteem itself.
2. There are other, apparently innately creative people in whom the drive to creativeness seems to be more important than any other counter-determinant. Their creativeness might appear not as self-actualization released by basic satisfaction, but in spite of lack of basic satisfaction.
3. In certain people the level of aspiration may be permanently deadened or lowered. That is to say, the less pre-potent goals may simply be lost, and may disappear forever, so that the person who has experienced life at a very low level, i. e., chronic unemployment, may continue to be satisfied for the rest of his life if only he can get enough food.
4. The so-called 'psychopathic personality' is another example of permanent loss of the love needs. These are people who, according to the best data available (9), have been starved for love in the earliest months of their lives and have simply lost forever the desire and the ability to give and to receive affection (as animals lose sucking or pecking reflexes that are not exercised soon enough after birth).[p. 387]
5. Another cause of reversal of the hierarchy is that when a need has been satisfied for a long time, this need may be underevaluated. People who have never experienced chronic hunger are apt to underestimate its effects and to look upon food as a rather unimportant thing. If they are dominated by a higher need, this higher need will seem to be the most important of all. It then becomes possible, and indeed does actually happen, that they may, for the sake of this higher need, put themselves into the position of being deprived in a more basic need. We may expect that after a long-time deprivation of the more basic need there will be a tendency to reevaluate both needs so that the more pre-potent need will actually become consciously prepotent for the individual who may have given it up very lightly. Thus, a man who has given up his job rather than lose his self-respect, and who then starves for six months or so, may be willing to take his job back even at the price of losing his a self-respect.
6. Another partial explanation of apparent reversals is seen in the fact that we have been talking about the hierarchy of prepotency in terms of consciously felt wants or desires rather than of behavior. Looking at behavior itself may give us the wrong impression. What we have claimed is that the person will want the more basic of two needs when deprived in both. There is no necessary implication here that he will act upon his desires. Let us say again that there are many determinants of behavior other than the needs and desires.
7. Perhaps more important than all these exceptions are the ones that involve ideals, high social standards, high values and the like. With such values people become martyrs; they give up everything for the sake of a particular ideal, or value. These people may be understood, at least in part, by reference to one basic concept (or hypothesis) which may be called 'increased frustration-tolerance through early gratification'. People who have been satisfied in their basic needs throughout their lives, particularly in their earlier years, seem to develop exceptional power to withstand present or future thwarting of these needs simply because they have strong,[p. 388] healthy character structure as a result of basic satisfaction. They are the 'strong' people who can easily weather disagreement or opposition, who can swim against the stream of public opinion and who can stand up for the truth at great personal cost. It is just the ones who have loved and been well loved, and who have had many deep friendships who can hold out against hatred, rejection or persecution.