It's ironic that we've concluded sex is our problem after decades of insisting otherwise...
by Tony Valenzuela
[Tony is a Los Angeles writer and activist in the international gay men's health movement.]
In the television drama, Mad Men, about early 1960's advertising executives in New York City, ad wiz Don Draper has a beautiful wife, Betty, who
sees a psychiatrist for anxiety. She has presumably everything she could ever want: a beautiful home, two beautiful children and a successful and handsome husband. What more could a woman ask for? The spectacled psychiatrist listens to her discontent as she lay on the leather daybed while he jots down notes on a pad. He rarely talks to her. There isn't any of the "how did that make you feel" or affirmations of Betty's emotions that she might encounter in therapy today.Instead without her knowing, the psychiatrist calls her husband to consult over the phone his wife's elusive progress. "We're basically dealing with the emotions of a child here," he tells Mr. Draper after a couple of sessions with his wife: woman confides in doctor, doctor speaks to husband to determine wife's diagnosis: immaturity.
I watched that particular episode and thought about gay men today, our lives interpreted by experts as stunted and adolescent. But what I've found disheartening lately is that gay men, as far as I can determine, seem to agree. Here are some examples. I was recently asked to sit on a panel about "hot sex" during a one-day city of West Hollywood sponsored gay men's health conference. A therapist from the L.A. Center sat to my left and he opened the discussion by relaying the many problems he sees that gay men have with "sexual addiction." No one in the audience blinked an eye. Though I tried to interject that gay men are also sophisticated, ethical and yes, adventurous, perhaps more than most groups regarding sex – we celebrate different body types like bears, muscles, older, younger; and lifestyles like leather, fetish, nudist, non-monogamous – the audience, when it came down to it, preferred to discuss struggles with intimacy and low self-esteem.
I was stumped. A forum designed to discuss hot sex became a group therapy session on unhealthy sex. Next, I recently met a producer with one of the gay networks who is going to do a series on gay men's sexuality. The producer told me the series, "would not be celebratory" in the way they had already produced a series on lesbian sex. Instead, he, a gay man, wanted to "hold up a mirror" to our unhealthy behaviors. No matter what I offered for balance, it was clear the kind of series he wanted to make. He seemed astonished that I would object.
Finally, I just read an article in OUT magazine that poses the question: has Manhunt destroyed gay culture? The article, written by a guy who clearly felt bad about the many hours he wasted cruising online over the past decade, presented the views of therapists, researchers and famous gays who all pretty much agreed that Manhunt is the devil that makes us do it. I almost expected to be asked to sign a petition at the end of the piece seeking to put a measure on the ballot to outlaw online cruising.
It seems hard to imagine for 2009 a gay men's health movement that affirms the good in gay men's lives when what we hear, read and discuss – the movement far more gay men seem to want to be a part of – is how unhealthy we really are. I know it sounds as if I want to deny the real problems we face in our lives. On the contrary, I know how too many gay men struggle with drugs, depression and the challenges of safer sex. But it's ironic that we've concluded sex is our problem after decades of insisting otherwise. Tellingly, the OUT magazine article pointed out that Manhunt has more members than all our national LGBT organizations combined.
And Manhunt is the problem?
Obviously there's something in that hook-up site many of us enthusiastically partake in. It makes me wonder, are gay men truly masochists, do we love to be ashamed, or do we find it inconceivable to imagine our sex lives as anything but compulsive, diseased and dirty? Have the homophobes been right about us all along?
I'd like to imagine for 2009 a gay men's health movement where we create two lists: Healthy and Unhealthy, to discuss all the ways we live our lives that fall under each category. Then I'd like us along with media, researchers and activists to reflect in our conversations and work the substance of those lists. We might be surprised by what we find.
*** LifeLube has been asking folks around the country to weigh in on what a 2009 Gay Men's Health Agenda might look like. Click here to read some of the ideas that have been circulated. Please feel free to comment here - share your own ideas, or spout off on whether you agree or disagree with Tony - or, you could send in a full post of your own here. We will be happy to publish it!
Related links on LifeLube
- Key word: internet
- Podcast: Driving Tips for Sex on the Superhighway
Tony, this is a nice piece of writing and mirrors a lot of what I've been seeing. It is hard to believe how hard the public is now on sexual morals. Clearly anyone with an extra-marital affair is no longer fit to be president! Does that extend to any public office? With marriage at the top of the gay agenda, we are moving forward towards rights with little discussion about consequences. For most people, marrige = monogamy, which is why gay men marrying is considered a "threat" to the institution. But of course, the community can't talk any more about "open marriage" or it will just affirm what the right is saying - we want to somehow "harm" the institution. Frankly it is one reason I've opted not to marry my partner (we live in Massachusetts). Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteTony, as always, a lovely call for sanity. The OUT magazine was obviously moralizing and on the cliche side -- though, I do have to say, the comparison between cruising those sites and online gambling was compelling. Sex addiction surely isn't the issue here, since 95% of the times I logon I'm not actually interested in having sex. My friend Ethan and I were talking about this very issue over drinks last night. We concluded that what we were looking for on Manhunt and Adam4Adam -- why we logged on when we had no intention of meeting up -- was to feel wanted. I think that gay men, at the end of the day, are just looking for that. To feel desired, to feel validated that they are sexy, beautiful, etc. Because growing up gay, you feel pretty ugly most of the time. In this way, I agree with the article's author that Manhunt is able to tap into a deep-seated insecurity that many of us share. Is it all bad? Of course not. I've had some great sex and met friends and even boyfriends online. But at some point, I do want to say that there is such a thing as unhealthy sexuality. And in my book, in includes having repeatedly mediocre / unsatisfying sexual encounters. I find that a lot of sex I have via Manhunt is of that ilk (particularly when I'm in San Francisco, but that's another post). So I guess, for my money, the question we should be asking isn't "Is Manhunt Destroying Gay Culture?", but instead, "How can we promote and encourage gay men to have the best sex of their lives?"
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