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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.
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