"What's got us so worked up about sex?"

This piece was originally published on SameSame.com.au, on the 18th of August 2016, available here.

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So many people are weird about sex, and push their hang-ups onto others. It seems like it’s getting harder to be a sexually liberated gay guy.

I’m a proud slut. Yet although I’ve personally embraced a life of gutter-trash promiscuity, it’s sometimes difficult to talk about it openly. There’s an ongoing storm of sex-negativity and slut shaming that frequently comes from other gay men.

Now, I’m not saying people should care about my sex stories. Nor am I accusing all gay men of being prissy prudes. It’s simply the fact that many gay men are weird about sex, and some tend to make a point of it.

It started with disgusted whispers from the corners of smokers rooms, directed at the guy who would dare talk about his bedside manner.

Then in recent years – particularly with the advent of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP, which I take daily), and the surveyed realisation that more gay men are having casual sex and open relationships – those murmurs exploded into screams, as every comments section filled with cries of “You sluts! Keep it in your pants!”

Commentators and public figures talk about how ‘promiscuous gays are ruining our shot at equality’, that ‘PrEP users are giving us a bad name’ – and my personal fave, ‘straight people won’t ever accept us if we keep up all this rooting’. Because the straights aren’t deviants like us homos, and only have their marriage beds in mind. Apparently.

It all begs the question: What’s got us so worked up about sex?

Well, the simple answer to that is: Why on earth wouldn’t we be?

We’re living in what some might call ‘the shadow of the AIDS crisis’. An entire generation of young gay men have grown up with horror stories from their forefathers, detailing a time – one that wasn’t so long ago – when first-world gay men contracted HIV and, without adequate treatments available, crumbled in staggering numbers. When our lives felt out of our control, and the tides of homophobia swelled.

This has understandably had a huge impact on the way gay men approach sex. Our elders are scarred, with many not wanting to see history repeat itself. This anguish particularly burdens the young ones, whose only frames of reference for sex – alongside our terrible sex-ed system – are sad tales of torment and pain.

Gay boys are taught from society that not only is their sexuality bad, but that under the right circumstances, their sex alone could be deadly.

Now, modern treatments are available that allow people living with HIV to have an outstanding quality of life, and we have in our possession the combined forces of PrEP and TasP (treatment-as-prevention), two key tools in our arsenal that all but annihilate the potential for transmission.

I’m not suggesting that our ‘sexual liberation’ is perfect. For some, sexual liberation means defending our right to promiscuity – and everything else associated with it. This was seen with the release of the poignant and jarring documentary Chemsex earlier this year, with defenders of sexual liberation and ‘the right to do drugs for pleasure’ decrying the documentary as sensationalist.

Now, I’m no stranger to a sniff of amyl mid-coitus. But our community is quietly crippling itself under the weight of gay men having issues with not just drug misuse, but drug abuse and addiction, all happening in our bedrooms.

In the UK, ice is known solely as a gay sex drug. In Australia, the drug is associated with poverty and violence – not recreational bedroom use. We lack the lens through which to see gay drug misuse as the growing drama that it is. We’re also a proud and defiant community, one that is hesitant to admit we might ever have problems.

When so many gay people will experience issues with drug abuse in their lifetime, the tales portrayed in Chemsex become sensationalist – to all but those who have experienced them. To abusers, it is a grittily honest depiction, and reflects a desperate need for healthcare and research.

Yet staunch defenders of sexual liberation remain thorns in the side of professionals. While harm reduction strategies have their place among those who are going to use drugs despite warnings, we’ve seen that proclamations of “It’s not that bad!” actively hinder concerned individuals from reaching for support. Although you may feel you’ve won the right to ‘party and play’, it might be time for the liberated folk to step back. Our sex lives will not end when we address these problems.

Realistically, all of this sex-negativity stems from one thing: fear. The paralysing anxiety that one might contract HIV. The horrors of isolation, discrimination and violence on the basis of ones own sexuality. The worry our sexual expression will be stolen from us. The nightmare that the LGBT community might never ascend from marginalised group to first-class citizenry.

All of this fear coils together like a terrified snake – and lashes out at the Sexually Liberated Gay Man who dares express his sexuality, or tries to tell a tale of a morning he spent in bed with a stranger.

When you’ve spent most of your adult life constructing elaborate armour to suit a sexual-identity-in-crisis, it might make sense to bash the man who doesn’t play your game. But the fact of the matter is, we have options now. Our sex is no longer unsafe, whether through condoms or without.

Our sexual liberation has gone through some tumultuous turbulence, with an insidious fear blossoming within the hearts of so many gay men.

I, too, once lived in fear – but the rules created long ago to aid our community have changed. Now I own my sexuality, and marvel at the strides we have taken – PrEP, TasP, and the growing freedom to love – as the wonders that they are.

It amazes me more people don’t see it that way. A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.

'The evangelical leader teaching celibacy to the same-sex attracted'

This piece was originally published on SameSame.com.au, on the 11th of August 2016, available here.

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When Wesley Hill, the gay celibate Christian theologian, was in his university years, the first person he came out to was a high-ranking member of the Church.

That’s what he told us in Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Doncaster, during a seminar titled ‘The Bible and Same Sex Attraction’. It was one of three seminars on a speaking tour he’d been flown to Melbourne to give, by Ridley College in Parkville and St. Hilary’s in Kew.

Years after his coming-out, Hill believes, and publicly proselytises on, the idea that gay men should remain single, that they should abstain and forever await God’s judgment. That’s his shtick that gets Christians interested. That’s his gospel, and it’s the good word he came to Melbourne to preach.

I’d attended his seminar, as a writer, a tentative agnostic – and a promiscuous and outlandish homosexual. The last article I published was titled ‘I Went To A Naked Gay Bar’. I was not his target audience.

Spend any time flipping through the Bible, and you’ll see it has some pretty dodge ideas on human relationships – particularly involving marriage. It’s utterly rife with incest (Genesis 1:1-2:3, 2:4-2:25), the violation of virgins by their soon-to-be husbands (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), and with trophy wives stolen from murdered families (Judges 21:7-23). Hell, at one point it even permits a union between a man and a pillar of salt (Genesis 19:25).

Yet none get a bad rap quite like the homosexual. So sayeth Paul from the Bible, one of Jesus’ fabled disciples, who apparently knew same-sex relations as violent and exploitative. Sure, if that’s your kink.

Wesley Hill is not an aggressive or threatening figure. If I had to pick his Grindr tribe, it’d be a mix between ‘twink’ and ‘geek’. His pleasant tone and unimposing demeanour – an attitude common amongst members of church groups, one I’d experienced on my way in – takes you by surprise.

He stood spewing religious diatribe, and despite years of theological research, often contradicted himself – he says that Paul felt homosexuality was wrong due to his patriarchal cultural upbringing, so we should view his words as flawed – yet also ‘Paul’s word is Jesus’ word’? It’s the way he does it, though.

Knowing that Hill had been surrounded by strong religiosity from a young age, it’s no wonder he eventually embraced religion over his sexuality. That he chose the path of an evangelical leader, one who mystifies the masses with his acceptance of his identity – but sexual submission to the Lord on High.

It also makes him palatable to church audiences, who, though they claim to love their gay friends dearly, can’t vibe with what they do in the sack.

What struck me about the sold-out crowd of seminar attendees, were the sheer number of families and elderly present. Their faces were those I might have seen at shopping centres, or spotted having barbecues with their children at nearby parks. I grew up with these people. I might have gone to school with them.

I wondered what drew them to Hill’s ideas – until a young woman nearby opened her phone, and instead of Beyoncé plastered on the cover, there was an image of Jesus Christ. These were beaming suburban churchgoers, drawn to a narrative on a controversial topic that might support their beliefs.

Indeed, Hill’s words aren’t violent, nor does he stand spouting hateful invective. He’s quite pleasant to listen to – almost titillating, really. It’s the subtext that is insidious.

To be a homosexual, in Hill’s eyes, is to present with symptoms of something that is apparently true for all humans: we’re all sinners. We’re all ‘fallen’, and Jesus struck away our sins so that we could sin again, and again, and again, and repent those sins, soon as committing them.

He says that that everybody sins, that we are all equally sinful – yet to be a homosexual is to live in that sin. We fail to ‘live in difference’ – to engage in partnerships with the opposite sex. And yet, like we must apparently deny pleasure through celibacy, heterosexuals must deny indulgence through commitment and the oh-so-heterosexual institution of marriage, which somehow renders us equal.

Hill can’t outright state that homosexuals are destined for lifelong torment, in constant repentance of their infinite sin. That would be too heavy.

Until he utters the following phrase: “Where the sin comes in is how we act with our bodies, and how we think in our minds”.

And later, that churned my stomach: “The due penalty for same-sex coupling is its own punishment.”

It’s at this point that I realised there were same-sex attracted people in the audience. Without a doubt. Maybe they’d come with an almost mocking curiosity, as I had. Or maybe they’d approached out of fear, out of doubt, out of toxic self-hatred.

They’d just been told that their very thoughts of same-sex attraction need to be cleansed, and their every mental utterance is blasphemous to the great and vengeful God. Told their relationships must remain platonic – and that all of this is punishment for their very existence.

Hill beckoned churches to care for their homosexual brethren – but encouraged them to push their same-sex attracted peers towards ‘celibate friendships’, in an effort to turn their heads towards Christ.

When all was said and done, the seminar ended, all he had managed to do was turn my head to the back wall in discomfort and concern.

And, in a way, fear.

Fear that those seated around me shared in these beliefs. Fear that these ideas were being affirmed. Fear that my nature – as a gay man who has embraced his sexuality and all of the whims and pleasures of the world – stands in opposition to their faith.

A faith unrelenting, that is often violent, and often toxic to the fragile minds of gays nearby – hidden within that audience of Stepford-smiling churchgoers, who need comfort, community, validation and care. Not Hill’s idea of biblical salvation.

'I went to a naked gay bar'

This article was originally published on SameSame.com.au, on the 4th of August 2016, available here.

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I should start by saying that I have no hang-ups about sex.

I’ve hit up my fair share of saunas and cruise clubs in my time. Yet gay culture can so often feel superficial and obsessed with the body beautiful. In the past I’ve struggled to appreciate my body, as someone who’s never taken a gym selfie since I’ve never been inside a gym.

So when I got invited to attend a nude gay bar – that is, a regular-old homo drinking hole, with the added bonus that everyone there is completely naked – I was decidedly nervous.

ADAM is a men-only night on Mondays and Tuesdays at Sircuit Bar in Melbourne, co-presented by DownAnDirty with the Victorian AIDS Council, and describes itself as their take on “the Fitzroy local pub”.

Happy hour starts at 6:30 when the beers are $2 a pot. The pool games are competitive and the banter is plentiful. They also partner with Wet On Wellington, a gay sauna around the corner, giving you $5 entry there when Adam shuts at midnight. Nightcap?

The catch is: You’ve gotta strip down on entry, and spend the rest of your night in nothing but your shoes.

They had their birthday last Tuesday night, and I was asked to go and check it out. My editor clearly thinks I’m a slut.

Now, I’ve been to several of the sexy gay soirees here in Melbourne. In most of these environments, the expectation is that you’re basically there to get your fuck on. These nights don’t particularly run off intellect and good conversation, so a lot of the more muscled and strong-jawed blokes generally rule the school.

Adam was apparently a socially nude alternative – but that didn’t stop my anxiousness. The lead-up was spent panicking about whether or not I was pretty enough (insert Kasey Chambers reference), or if the two beers I chugged to ease the nerves would give me a beer gut before I’d even left the house.

I arrived – and was met with dozens of naked bodies scattered about the bar. Even the bartenders were naked. The smoking room was veiled from public view by a huge black drape. Up in an elevated booth, a professional masseuse – also nude – was giving free rubdowns (although fair warning: the massage oil will make your ass a slip-and-slide. Wink, nudge, etc)

I paid my entry, and got given a bag for my clothes. Stripping down, I stepped out of my pants and into my shoes, and hopped to doing what I do best: drinking large amounts of liquor and ogling strangers at the bar.

Without ever having attended Adam, one might assume that the event would be a sex-fest; an orgy of brimming testosterone, with the “uglies” left on the sidelines while the “pretty boys” have their own fun. I came prepared for just another gay night, all sleaze and superficiality.

However, spend an hour boozing with the guys here, and you’ll quickly realise it’s purely a social night – with fewer clothes.

It was Fitzroy’s local pub with a nudist twist. Not long after registering that yes, those are a swarm of penises; you eventually forgot that you were even naked. The bodies – in all of their many shapes and sizes – faded into a blur, until all you were left with were faces and names. It was suddenly too easy to chat and make friends.

And before you shout “Sounds like another night for dumb gay sluts, if you ask me! I was raised to hate my sexuality.” – nobody tried to grope me. Although shout-out to the dude who whispered in my ear, “You’re lucky kidnapping’s illegal”.

If you did want to have sex, however, there was an upstairs cruising lounge. Suddenly remembering the naked body of a guy you were chatting with moments ago, is a little jarring – but fun.

Every person at Adam felt far more approachable, the conversations shared with complete strangers more involved and intriguing, without a touch of fabric on.

Did I feel… liberated? Was I suddenly sold on what they were selling? Had I, in the space of a few beers, become a full-blown nudist?

The “pretty boys” of the gay community have no power there: nobody cares about how your body looks, when every body in sight is in some way flawed, no matter how they’ve tried to gym those flaws away. Taking off my clothes had robbed me of my shallow ego.

Nudism is often seen as ‘alternative’ and out of the ordinary, but what the lads behind Adam are providing is surprisingly progressive. They’re catering to a void in a community slightly obsessed with the mirror. The organisers are even thinking of welcoming trans men into the fold, providing an inclusive space for all male bodies, and further challenging notions held by a group that so often oppresses itself.

I crept into a naked gay bar expecting to swat away hands and feel bad about myself. Instead I met some interesting new faces and felt good in my own skin.

I think they’ve made a nudist out of me.