What Cynthia Nixon is Teaching Us About Sexuality

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Joe Kort, Ph.D

When actress Cynthia Nixon declared that for her, being gay is a choice, she received much negative backlash from the gay and lesbian community.

I don't see her revelation as negative as much as I appreciate her giving us an opportunity to discuss a very complex concept of sexuality.

Most people -- gay and straight alike -- prefer to believe that you are either gay or straight. Bisexuals are seen as "bi now, gay later."

And those who are "heteroflexible" -- heterosexual but enjoying gay sex everyone once in a while -- are almost always seen as latent homosexuals, especially if they are males.

The truth is that it is not this simple at all.

To best understand how complicated this is, we need to be able to differentiate four terms that are often confused: sexual orientation, sexual preference, sexual fantasies, and sexual behavior. Contrary to common usage, they aren't always in alignment.

Sexual orientation encompasses one's sexual and romantic identity, in which thoughts, fantasies, and behaviors work together in concert.

It's the alignment of affectional, romantic, psychological, spiritual, and sexual feelings and desires for those of the same or opposite sex.

Sexual orientation doesn't change over time; it is fixed (although some women experience fluidity in sexual orientation; more on that below).

One's sexual behaviors and preferences might change, but like one's temperament, one's orientation remains mostly stable.

The term also refers to how someone self-identifies, not how others may categorize him or her. Some people self-identify as straight, while others self-identify as gay or lesbian, bisexual, or questioning.

It's important to ask how they self-identify, regardless of whom they have sex with.

Sexual preferences refer to sexual acts, positions, and erotic scenarios that someone prefers and finds erotic to have while engaging in sexual activity.

The term takes into account what individuals like to do and get into sexually, not necessarily with whom they like to do it.

Preferences and erotic interests can change over time, as one becomes more open or closed to certain thoughts and behaviors.

Sexual fantasies are any thoughts that one finds arousing. They can encompass anything -- sexual positions, romantic encounters, body parts, clothing and shoe fetishes, even rape fantasies.

Sexual fantasies aren't necessarily acted out. In fact, in many cases, they aren't. Straight men and women sometimes fantasize about having sex with members of the same sex and even watch porn and find it sexually arousing.

This is similar to lesbians who enjoy watching gay male porn. Lesbians who enjoy gay male porn movies report that it is not about the men in the porn but about the mutual and externalized sexual desire and power balance that exists between them, which is not usually seen in heterosexual erotica.

Sexual behaviors are any behaviors intended to pleasure oneself and/or one's sexual partner. It doesn't necessarily reflect one's orientation.

For example, gay men have sex with women all the time, and it doesn't reflect heterosexuality or bisexuality.

Men who are imprisoned engage in sexual behaviors with other men, but they do so out of sexual necessity, not because of erotic interest in other men.

They desire the sexual release it achieves, and the sex of the partner is secondary.

Men and women are different when it comes to reasons for having sex with the same sex. For straight men having sex with men, same-sex encounters aren't about romance or sexual attraction and desire but about sexual and physiological arousal -- "getting off" with another who's male and accessible.

They don't sexually desire or get aroused by looking at other men, only by the sexual act.

Women in heterosexual porn are not engaging in sex for their own pleasure only; they often are doing it for the pleasure of the straight men watching them, and because they are being paid.

Straight men in gay porn are the second highest-paid actors next to women, giving them a reason to engage in gay sexual behaviors.

But if they don't actively desire other men, how do they get to the point of having sex with them? These men typically want to bond with and get affection from other men.

Their behavior may reflect a desire to experiment, to engage in something that's taboo, or to express inner psychological conflicts involving their sexual feelings and desires that have nothing to do with having a gay or bisexual identity.

Young adults are showing us that they can be sexual with the same sex and the opposite sex while not labeling themselves or each other as the older generations do.


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How to Be a Better Homosexual

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Domenick Scudera

Apparently, I am not a very good homosexual.

I have had a real education this week. I started listening to Bryan Fischer, the Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association. He is very smart and has provided me with an eye-opening education.

He is teaching me about what it means to be gay. I have learned things I never knew before. I am not sure what his credentials are, but he talks about homosexuality quite often, so it is obvious that he is an expert.

First, he has made it clear to me that the average homosexual has hundreds of sexual partners, some as many as 500 or 1,000 in a lifetime.

I did not know this. He said that we homosexuals admit this in our own literature, but I haven't read that literature. I feel so remiss! I am way behind.

I am not getting any younger, so it seems that if I want to be at least average, then I'd better start sleeping around more. I figure if I find at least one new lover each week for the next few years, I will be getting closer to filling my quota. What have I been thinking these past 16 years, being monogamous?

Precious time has been wasted.

I also found out, thanks to Mr. Fischer, that I need to get some poppers. Using poppers is the way that gay people stay sexually stimulated for more than one sexual encounter in the same night.

I did not know this. If I want to get closer to 1,000 or at least 500 sexual partners, it is a good idea to get some poppers so that I can maintain sexual activity with more guys per evening.

And did you know that the research says that 96 percent of us who engage in homosexual behavior are using poppers? And that poppers are the main reason for the spread of AIDS? They sound so dangerous! I am so out of the gay loop that I do not know how one even goes about getting poppers.

Can you order them online? Or will I have to find a drug dealer on a street corner somewhere?

I also might need to reevaluate Nazism. I always thought that Nazis were reprehensible, but I did not know that we homosexuals are closely aligned with them. Why is it not more widely known that the Nazi party was started in a gay bar and consisted largely of homosexuals?

Thank goodness for Mr. Fischer. This fact would have gone largely unnoticed if he had not brought it to the world's attention. He also says that today's homosexuals are basically Nazis.

I want to be a good homosexual, so I better give this whole Nazi thing a second chance.

Mr. Fischer says that gay parenting is "inhumane." I do not have children, but he reminded me that if I want to be a good gay, I need to start recruiting other people's children early on.

I have not done any gay recruiting before. How embarrassing! He does not provide any information about how to recruit, but I bet it is outlined carefully in the gay literature that I have failed to keep up on.

For now, I will start hanging around schoolyards so I can build trust with some kids, and then I will slip in some gay recruitment techniques later.


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Hate the Gays? Imagine the World Without Us

via Huffpost Gay Voices, by Kergan Edwards-Stout

In our current political discourse, right-wing politicians continue to demonize the LGBT community in sad and desperate attempts to rally their base.

While, happily, their efforts have not been as effective as in the past, any attempt to make gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender people feel anything less than equal can lead to devastating consequences, as the ongoing string of youth suicides so painfully highlights.

Any preventable loss of dignity and human life must be stopped. The question is, "How?"

While prior efforts have focused on the issue of harassment, it is time for the LGBT community to take the dialogue one step further.

When you are a teen, simply waiting for your next birthday can seem like an eternity. Telling our youth that life will indeed get better, some years into the future, is not enough.

We must instead create a world in which there is no longer any shame in being gay. We must show that each and every one of us has something of value to contribute to this world, period.

The first step is creating discussion with the haters around where their anti-gay beliefs come from, and challenging those beliefs with facts.

But we then need to take that dialogue even further and examine more closely what they hope that such convictions will ultimately achieve.

Typically, those who hold negativity toward those who are LGBT can be placed into two main camps: those who believe that being gay is unnatural, going against nature, or those who believe it goes against religious teaching.

With either group, the case can be made to counter such beliefs with facts.

For example, those who believe that being gay is unnatural may be surprised to learn that homosexual activity has been observed in close to 1,500 species, and that such scientific certitudes should be spotlighted. For those who believe that homosexuality violates religious principles, pointing to texts such as the Bible as justification, and dialogue around translation issues, intent, and historical context, might be beneficial.

However, in both situations, while factual evidence might change some minds, most will still be unwilling to let go of long-held beliefs.

My question to them then becomes, "What do you hope these beliefs will achieve?"

Most have never looked holistically at their views, nor tried to fit their beliefs into a larger framework. They were simply told by others that being gay is less than ideal, for whatever reason, and have not challenged that assumption.

If they truly believe that being gay is a sin or abnormal, what then? Does that mean they support the harassment of LGBT individuals?

Do they hope to "convert" LGBT folks to heterosexuality, which no reputable medical or psychological association supports or validates, even going so far as to consider such "conversion therapies" potentially harmful?

Do they want us to remain celibate and single, never experiencing love and affection? Do they wish LGBT people would simply disappear?

If anything, they are creating an environment where gay youth feel that suicide is preferable to life.

But imagine, for a moment, that there were no LGBT people on the planet. Just what would this world look like?

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Gay Men Being Trafficked in Kenya

via Advocate, by Diane Anderson-Minshall

Gay and bisexual men in Kenya are being lured into sex trafficking rings in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, according to a new report in African LGBT magazine, Identity.

Identity magazine says that the men attending Kenyatta University are particularly targeted, offered jobs as airline attendants or office workers,and given visas and passports (thanks to officials who've been bribed to help facilitate the travel arrangements).

Some of the men have reported violent sadistic sexual abuse at the hands of their captors.

Many countries, including Qatar, have no anti-trafficking legislation and remain on the U.S. Department of State watch lists for showing no progress in identifying victims of trafficking and prosecuting the perpetrators.

While Kenya did pass anti-trafficking legislation last year, homosexuality is still illegal in both the Arab states as well as Kenya, so the men are unable to report abuse to police.


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Op-ed: What Makes Him Gay?

via Advocate, by Michael Lucas, op-ed contributor

Society’s double standard says that a straight woman who kisses another woman is part of the continuum of her sexuality; but if a straight guy messes around with a man, it’s cause for hasty label-making.
Isn’t it time we stopped defining male straightness so narrowly? Gay liberation should liberate straight guys as well as gay ones, but our ideas about it are just catching up.

We all know the old double standard: Sexual fluidity is celebrated in women but treated with skepticism or worse in men.

If a straight woman kisses another woman, or goes to bed with her, it’s understood to be part of the continuum of her sexuality; but if a straight guy messes around with another man, it’s cause for judgment, suspicion and hasty label-making.

Given the social taboos against gay male sex, the argument goes, no man would experiment with another guy unless he really, really needed to.

Ergo, any guy who has ever fooled around with another guy must be gay — or at least decidedly bisexual. It’s an outdated, fundamentally homophobic view: the sexual-orientation equivalent of the old racial-purity laws whereby a single drop of so-called “black blood” defined you as black.

It would be one thing if this antiquated attitude were limited to homophobic straight men (to whom any hint of homosex makes alarms go off), or even of worried straight women (who don’t want to be stages in the coming-out journeys of gay men).

But many gay people — eager to “claim” celebrities or acquaintances for the gay team — often share this approach, gleefully gossiping about same-sex encounters by people who say they are straight.

The implication is not just that straight-identified men who have dabbled in gay sex have skeletons in their closets, but that they have the closet in their bones: that they are “actually” gay and only pretending to be straight, whether because they’re in denial to themselves or just lying to the rest of the world to protect their careers or reputations.

In reality, male sexuality is a whole lot of more complicated — especially in a culture that is increasingly tolerant of homosexuality.

When I was in college, the sexual revolution was just beginning to sweep through Russian culture. Although I knew by then that I was gay, I didn’t have many ways to meet guys, and I became sexually involved with a girl from my school.

Did that make me straight? Happily, it did not.

Meanwhile, I was infatuated with a male friend of mine. One day he stayed late at my place to study for exams, and ended up sleeping over; we shared a bed, and one thing led to another.

We fooled around several more times. Did that make him gay? Sadly for me, it did not: He fell in love with a girl, and that was that. I was devastated, but despite our little affair, he was straight and both of us knew it.

This kind of thing happens with women in college all the time. There are even cute acronyms to describe this phenomenon: LUGs (for Lesbians Until Graduation) and BUGs (Bisexuals Until Graduation). Shouldn’t guys have a similar freedom to be Homos Until Graduation? Why not embrace the HUGs?

Straight actor Thomas Jane, the handsome star of the HBO series Hung, helped push the dialogue forward last month in an interview  with the Los Angeles Times, when he broke a taboo by talking openly about gay sex he had when he first arrived in L.A.

He was careful, at first, to frame it in terms of economic necessity: “I didn't have any money and I was living in my car,” he said. “I was 18. I wasn't averse to going down to Santa Monica Boulevard and letting a guy buy me a sandwich. Know what I mean?"

But Jane didn’t stop there. “It’s not a choice until you're open enough to experience both male and female sexuality,” he continued. “Until you've tasted the food, you don't know whether you'll like it or not, as my mom always said.”


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Does Gay Sex make one Homosexual?

via blackgaymensblog, by Storm

The previous blog post about black gay and bisexual men seducing straight men prompted a lot discussion on Facebook and on Skype.

I decided to start a separate dialog, because there was a lot of focus on whether or not a man could be considered straight if he has had gay sex.

For me, the previous blog post had more to do with wanting someone, who was unattainable and lusting after straight men, who are often perceived as sexually superior, than whether or not straight men who might engage in gay sex are still heterosexual.

The minute straight men are mentioned on Black Gay Men’s Blog, some of us immediately lose sight of the totality of the article and focus on whether or not straight men, who engage in gay sex can still be straight.  So, I thought we could explore that here.

Personally, I do not believe that engaging in gay sex once makes a man(or woman) gay. I don’t believe sexuality is that clear cut – it all depends on the circumstances surrounding the sexual encounter.

I am not suggesting homosexuality is a choice, but I think engaging in homosexual acts can be. Let me make one thing clear, I am not talking about repetitive, on-going sexual encounters or referring to those men, who might be in denial. 

I think that any man who has gay sex for a prolonged period of time, or has numerous male sexual partners is at the very least bisexual.

Especially, if he does so when he has free access to women and the life of a loved one is not threatened.  This is just my opinion and not the opinion of other contributors on Black Gay Men’s Blog. 

I have never claimed to be politically correct 100% of the time. Quite frankly, I prefer being thought-provoking and getting us to have some sort of dialog, than being politically-correct.

I think some gay men are too quick to want to label anyone who has had homosexual sex as gay or no longer straight. Sexuality is simply not that black and white – not all sexual encounters define one’s sexuality.

The label “gay” is a western concept and there are societies, in which that label doesn’t exist and others where the gender of one’s sexual partners is not as big a deal as it might be here in the USA. 

In those societies, “gay” is not a political statement  and Black Gay Men’s Blog does have readers from all corners of the globe, so I try to look at things more broadly.

We don’t have to agree, but we can respect and maybe learn from one another.


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Meet my Partner or Boyfriend?

by Sebastino Aviles

Language is one of the few things in life that we don’t really think about, I mean unless you’re a linguist or something like that, I consider it something that we take for granted.

That being said I’ve noticed that I catch myself changing up my language, depending on different circumstances, such as where I’m at, who I’m with, and what I’m doing.

 I’m sure everyone experiences this phenomenon all the time in their lives but do we really take the time to notice when and why we are doing it?

I believe that my language is reflected on who I am in terms of social constructions such as gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, class, and age. If I use those social constructions I would describe myself as a young working class gay Latino man.

Language itself is a social construction and as a social construction it is subject to change depending on who is using it. Which brings me to my next point, as a gay man I often monitor my language depending on where I’m at, who I’m with, and who I’m talking to.

My prime example is how I change up my language is when talking to people about a significant other. Depending on who I’m talking to or where I’m at I would either call my significant other my partner or my boyfriend.

If I were to talk to a heterosexual person and I have my significant other with me I would normally introduce him as my partner, however if I’m talking to someone who belongs to the LGBTQ community or identifies as LGBTQ I would introduce him as my boyfriend.

On the other hand if I know the heterosexual person well enough like if they are a family member or a close friend I would introduce him as my boyfriend.

Once again my language would change depending on where I was at, for example if I were in a formal setting like at a reception for some event I would introduce my significant other as my partner, and if I were in an informal setting like a bar or something he would turn back into my boyfriend.

I think for me having two options as to what I call my significant other can be problematic at times because it seems that I am conforming to what other people would find acceptable and thus creating a dichotomy that doesn’t need to be there, but at the same time I feel that having two options is also important because it gives me the choice of choosing how I want to define my relationship and how I want my relationship to be perceived to myself as well as to society.

I Need a Bi Guy

via Bisexual-Talk, by msarko

Over at Net Insanity, another blog in the Klat network, I run a recurring feature called The Craigslist Files. In that column, I compile and comment on the strangest, most ridiculous posts I can find on the world's craigslist sites. Recently, I came across the following post and felt like I had to comment on it, but Net Insanity wasn't really the place for this particular piece.

 Looking for a bi guy who's dating a woman - m4mw - 31

You know what they say: it's not gay if your balls don't touch. j/k. 

I'm looking for a bi guy who is in a relationship with a woman to hang out with and possibly fool around with.

 A bi guy. Actually. Really. Bi. A bi guy, as in a guy who who actually has has sex with men and women. And you're dating or married to a woman. And she knows that you're bi. 

Looking to hang out, get to know each other, and possibly fool around with if there's a click. 

About me: I'm 31, a professional, work downtown, put in too much at my corporate job, work out when I can, try to get in a happy hour once in a while during the week and live for my weekends.

Oh, and I'm gay. Way gay. Very much in to men. Even when they're into women. And men. 

Why am I looking for a bi guy? I want more guy friends. Not girl-guy friends.

Oh, want to understand other men better, and their relationships with women. Ok, and maybe I'm a little bi myself. I'm not sure. But I'm still in to guys. 

This is more than a little silly and it's indicative of a problem in our society that never really gets addressed when discussing discrimination based on sexual orientation. The man who posted this ad is very clearly bi-curious, except he comes from a rarer angle of bi-curiosity.

He's a gay-identified man who, despite fervent insistence that he only likes other men, is very particular about wanting to engage in sexual acts involving a woman.

 It's only at the end of the ad that he admits he may be "a little bi", only to once again reinforce his homosexual identity to anyone who may be reading.

Now, I can't say whether or not this man is actually bisexual. What he's asking for (a sexual relationship with a man who is physically involved with a woman) is the tiniest of baby steps toward exploring something that scares him.



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Sexual Liberation and its effect on Gay Monogamy

via Slate, by Amanda Marcotte

Folks of all sexual orientations who are in committed relationships have become more monogamous over time, or that's what a study that was published Family Process found.

There are some hinky things in the reporting on this piece at USA Today. For instance, the only heterosexual couples mentioned are married, but gay couples who are committed but have no formal union were also recorded.

Additionally, the reporting conflates cheating with sex outside of the relationship, even though many couples have an understanding that allows for outside relationships.

In fact, nonmonogamous cultural norms in gay male culture go a long way toward explaining why they're far more likely to have sex outside of a committed relationship than everyone else. 

Still, even with those caveats in place, the results of this survey are stunning. The rate of sex outside of the marriage has dropped for every category of people studied dramatically between 1975 and 2000.

Twenty-eight percent of straight men in 1975 had sex with a woman outside of their marriage, but in 2000, it was only 10 percent. For straight, married women, the rate dropped from 23 percent to 14 percent. For gay men, 83 percent to 59 percent, and for lesbians, 28 percent to 8 percent.

The USA Today article focuses mainly on gay couples and how the mainstream acceptance of homosexuality has a lot to do with increasing rates of monogamy.

There's a lot to think about there, since it is true that cultural acceptance has introduced far more stability into the lives of gay people, and the gay marriage movement has also increased the pressure to value monogamy.


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The End of Gays: Gay Marriage and the Decline of the Homosexual Population

 via Scienctific American, By Jesse Bering

[ Interesting article! Please comment!]

Although the precise genetic mechanisms underlying homosexuality are still relatively unknown, we do know that, however these mechanisms actually work, there are indeed clear, contributing genetic factors underlying homosexual orientation.

 The best evidence that homosexuality runs in families as a heritable biological trait comes from 1990s-era twin studies, which revealed that the concordance rate (the rate by which twin members overlap on anything from schizophrenia to creativity to sexual orientation) for homosexuality is significantly greater in monozygotic twins (identical) than in dizygotic twins (who share only half of their genes, just like non-twin siblings).

The more rigorously controlled twin studies adjust for possible shared environmental influences by taking into account, for instance, the sexual orientation of non-twin siblings or twins separated at birth, and yet all reveal that homosexuality is at least partially heritable. 

Homosexuality is often presented as an evolutionary “mystery” because of the obvious reproductive disadvantages, and thus for decades researchers have sought some adaptive function for the culturally recurrent percentage (anywhere from 1 to 10 percent of the population, depending on the measures used) of the human population that is aroused more by the same than it is by the opposite sex. Yet if we consider the historical, and perhaps even the ancestral, percentage of the homosexual population that did in fact reproduce because of societal proscriptions against adult relations with the same sex, the mystery becomes considerably less profound. 

Read more.

Black and LGBT in the Black Church

via Black Enterprise, By Tomika Anderson

Rigid attitudes around homosexuality in the church, mosque and in communities of color overall may explain the fervor that surrounded embattled Georgia pastor Eddie Long.

After years of publicly denouncing homosexuality—even going so far as to lead a special ministry for gays and lesbians in order to convert them into heterosexuals—Bishop Long was sued last year by four young men who alleged he used his pastoral influence to coerce them into a sexual relationship with him. A national uproar ensued as he scurried to settle with them out of court.

Some argue that had it been women Long had the affairs with, he might have gotten a slap on the wrist. But because his dalliances allegedly involved (underage) men, his feet were put to the proverbial fire.

New York City-based trauma expert and wellness coach Dara Williams says it is the fear of public condemnation that keeps folks—in and outside of the church—from being honest about who they are when it comes to their sexuality. “The black community is very conservative about most sex-related issues,” she says, “and homosexuality is one of them. Sexuality in our community is generally oppressed or not discussed, and we can see through our [collective] rate of HIV infection that this kind of secrecy is literally killing us.”

Read more.

Homosexuality in history

via boulderweekly, By Davis Accomazzo

But sexual attraction is a spectrum, shades of gray rather than black and white, and therefore, academics, particularly those studying queer theory, have problems with that simplified dichotomy.

 The terms homosexual and heterosexual weren’t coined until the late 19th century, and it’s not like same-sex attraction didn’t exist before then. In fact, history is populated with famous people who fancied members of the same gender. But can you call them gay?

There are two schools of thought on this, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. On one side are the essentialists, who feel that homosexuality is a “specific, natural kind rather than a cultural or historical product.” On the other side are the social constructionists, who say that homosexuality is a “modern, Western concept” and that “the acceptance of the contemporary heterosexual/homosexual dichotomy is conservative … and forecloses the explorations of new possibilities.”

Basically, you have one side saying homosexuality is natural and genetic, while the other says the labels “homosexual” and “heterosexual” are oversimplifications. So, in order to keep the academics happy, here is a list of famous people in history who, from time to time, enjoyed the “company” of the same gender.

Read more.

Black Gay Men, Homophobia and The Black Church

via Black Gay Men's Blog

Black Gay Men’s Blog takes a look at homophobia and the Black Church. How do black gay men, many of whom were brought up Christian, in black churches, balance their homosexuality with the overt homophobia and hypocrisy of the Black Church? The guilt many black gay men, bisexuals and MSM feel is often as a direct or indirect result of the homophobic teachings of the black churches we attend and this homophobia has spilled over into the black community at large. Is it possible for black gay men to truly love, accept and respect themselves, be happy and emotionally balanced and live honest fulfilling lives, while listening to homophobic rhetoric from the pulpit every Sunday, or is the answer to either abandon our Christian faith, or form our own churches?

Read more

The Last to Leave the Closet?

by Stephanie Chen, via CNN  

"It's either you're in the closet or out of the closet, and it's not that simple," David Malebranche, a physician and professor of medicine at Emory University, says about the common perception of bisexuals.

Excerpt:

Ben Pierce, a 22-year-old recent college graduate living in Massachusetts who identifies as bisexual, can understand why bisexuals are hesitant to come forward. He likens being bisexual today to being biracial in the 1960s, a period when racism and discrimination were widespread. A person who was mixed race often couldn't feel comfortable among either racial group, Pierce explained.

"You're caught in between these two very different groups of straight people and gay people, and neither one really accepts you," he said.

Read the whole thing.


[Chicago hosted the 2009 Bisexual Health Summit as part of the 2009 National LGBTI Health Summit. Learn more about that event.]

Gay? What-evah....

 via New York Times, by Charles M. Blow


The dire predictions for diversity have not only not come true, but, in fact, they’ve been proved the other way.

Last week, while many of us were distracted by the oil belching forth from the gulf floor and the president’s ham-handed attempts to demonstrate that he was sufficiently engaged and enraged, Gallup released a stunning, and little noticed, report on Americans’ evolving views of homosexuality. Allow me to enlighten:

1. For the first time, the percentage of Americans who perceive “gay and lesbian relations” as morally acceptable has crossed the 50 percent mark. (You have to love the fact that they still use the word “relations.” So quaint.)

2. Also for the first time, the percentage of men who hold that view is greater than the percentage of women who do.

3. This new alignment is being led by a dramatic change in attitudes among younger men, but older men’s perceptions also have eclipsed older women’s. While women’s views have stayed about the same over the past four years, the percentage of men ages 18 to 49 who perceived these “relations” as morally acceptable rose by 48 percent, and among men over 50, it rose by 26 percent.

Read the rest.

Queering Darwin

Can animals be gay?

via New York Times, by Jon Mooallem 

 “I still cringe at the memory of seeing old D-ram mount S-ram repeatedly. To think of those magnificent beasts as ‘queers’ — Oh, God!”  

Excerpt:

Various forms of same-sex sexual activity have been recorded in more than 450 different species of animals by now, from flamingos to bison to beetles to guppies to warthogs. A female koala might force another female against a tree and mount her, while throwing back her head and releasing what one scientist described as “exhalated belchlike sounds.” Male Amazon River dolphins have been known to penetrate each other in the blowhole. Within most species, homosexual sex has been documented only sporadically, and there appear to be few cases of individual animals who engage in it exclusively. For more than a century, this kind of observation was usually tacked onto scientific papers as a curiosity, if it was reported at all, and not pursued as a legitimate research subject. Biologists tried to explain away what they’d seen, or dismissed it as theoretically meaningless — an isolated glitch in an otherwise elegant Darwinian universe where every facet of an animal’s behavior is geared toward reproducing. One primatologist speculated that the real reason two male orangutans were fellating each other was nutritional.

Read the whole thing.

Can spirituality enhance the lives of gay men living with HIV? [part 2 in a series]

Observing Research Trends


Since the onset of HIV/AIDS, medical and behavioral researchers have focused their energy on the physical, psychological, social, and socioeconomic ramifications of HIV/AIDS. However, with respect to HIV+ gay men, spirituality as a coping style has been neglected. Why? 

By Anthony Oltean MSW LCSW CADC* [Essay #2]
Read Essay #1


Multiple factors may account for this neglect in research. Both social science researchers and therapeutic clinicians tend to be less religious than the general population. Religion seems to be taboo in research and health care settings.

One possible explanation for its avoidance can be that some clinicians fear imposing a system of beliefs or values onto their patients. The construct of spirituality is often considered vague, difficult to operationalize and therefore difficult to build empirical support for specific measures. And lastly, researchers may not want to be associated with the less empirical or “softer” science.

All and all, there remains considerable debate regarding the definitions of religion and spirituality. Given the abstract nature of these concepts, they are often criticized as overlapping and non-mutually exclusive. Characteristics inherent to religion may also be found in spirituality, and vice versa.

For example, both spirituality and religion may involve a sense of personal transformation, an encounter with transcendence, or a search for ultimate truth or an ultimate reality that is sacred to the individual. However, the research literature tends to regard religion as the institutional and doctrinal expression of faith. In contrast, spirituality has been observed leaning predominately toward beliefs, activities, and experiences referring to the personal connection to sacred beliefs.

Documentation of the gay community’s exploration toward several spiritual and religious avenues (such as Dignity for Catholics) practices or new spiritualities altogether (such as shamanism, and earth-spirit faiths, etc) are emerging in the social science literature. However, the positive relationship of spirituality and religion to mental health is less clear for gay individuals when compared to the literature describing their heterosexual counterparts.

As indicated in the limited literature on this topic, the integration of a sexual identity with a traditional religious faith is typically portrayed as a struggle. Gay men are typically left abandoning or being abandoned by their faith in the process of developing and securing an openly gay identity. These individual’s struggles often overlap those of the organized religions themselves, particularly over the ordination of openly gay and lesbian clergy and support for same-sex marriages.

Difficulties from integrating concepts of spirituality and sexual orientation don’t only play out externally and/or socially. Many gay individuals do report internal conflict between their religious faith and sexual orientation. Further, these conflicts are associated with increased shame, depression, suicidal ideation, and difficulty accepting a positive gay identity.

Gay individuals who are members of faith communities that frame homosexuality in a negative light face significant distress when attempting to reconcile the two identities, often furthering a sense of learned shame, hopelessness, and damnation. Given the fact that the majority of mainline Protestant, Catholic, Islamic, and Judaic traditions strictly prohibit any desires or behaviors of homosexuality. When homosexuality is not outwardly condemned in traditional religious activities, it is rarely embraced as a viable sexual orientation. Gay parishioners and their relationships typically remain unacknowledged and invisible.

In additional, some religious messages perpetuate that mythos that the HIV/AIDS crisis was caused by God’s divine retribution for homosexuality. Because gay men and intravenous drug users were the first populations to enter societal awareness as AIDS sufferers, this disease has never fully escaped the moral judgments and scrutiny. Lack of immediate response to current minorities (non-gay men) impacted by HIV/AIDS has exemplified an ever-present sense of degradation to this disease by the U.S. government. Researchers have reported that many patients encounter stigmatizing experiences among religious congregations because of such attitudes.

In response to heterosexist, hetero-normative, and/or unwelcoming religious institutions, HIV+ gay men, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) affirming faith communities have evolved. Either by altering traditional denomination’s doctrine to be inclusive (e.g., Dignity for LGBT Catholics) or creating entirely new denominations (from traditional religious ones) specifically serving the LGBT community (e.g., Rev. Troy Perry and the Metropolitan Community Church MCC), these communities are present in most major cities in America.

As a result of these and other movements toward greater inclusiveness, LGBT individuals are experiencing increased opportunities (perhaps unlike any other point in history) for integrating their sexual orientation with their religious or spiritual beliefs. Although research and anecdotal literature have explored the conflict between sexual and religious/spiritual identity, minimal empirical research has investigated the role of affirming faith group experiences on the spiritual and mental health of gay men.

As discussed briefly above, the literature indicates that many LGBT individuals, including HIV+ gay men, have reported negative experiences with their faith groups. These experiences have lead to an elimination of formal religion (such as church/temple attendance) from their lives. Unfortunately, spirituality as a coping style is also eliminated.

However, many who leave their traditional faith find spiritual growth by redefining their spiritual and/or religious beliefs and practices. From this, LGBT and HIV+ gay men are provided with a sense of spiritual awakening. Likewise, LGBT and HIV+ gay men who are lucky enough to find affirmation in their formal/traditional faith groups might feel that affirmation enhances both their spirituality and their psychological health (particularly when combating negative feedback and/or homophobia from the larger society).

Given the developing distinction between organized religion and spirituality, it is necessary to consider them separate constructs as they relate to psychological health. Because spirituality can be seen as distinct from religion, developing a sense of spirituality separate from more formalized experiences with their faith groups may mediate the effect of negative religious experiences on the psychological health of these individuals. This can prove particularly useful and advantages for individuals living with HIV/AIDS that have felt that a relationship with a God or higher power was no longer an option for them, and not able to benefit from spiritual coping mechanisms.

In the next essay installment, the science behind how spirituality can benefit HIV + gay men will be discussed. Stay tuned.

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* After a hiatus from all religion, coming out, building myself into a proud man (all of which were challenging chapters), I have only recently begun to reconcile my feelings about a higher power and their place in my life.  I know that many young LGBTQ people have had experienced similar, and often much worse, messages from religious figures in their lives.  Many have turned away from religion and/or any spirituality because of these experiences.  This is a great injustice. Spirituality, at a minimum, is an important coping skill for millions of people around the world. Many of those people are LGBTQ’s.  However, researchers in the behavioral sciences have only begun to explore its utility for LGBTQ’s with regards to self-esteem, coping with chronic illness such as HIV/AIDS, and coping with an oppressive society.  The following essays are part of my dissertation.  They will discuss spirituality as a coping style, how it works, the academic dilemmas in examining these topics, and will hopefully spark more interest from researchers, and those of us still in hiatus from spirituality.

Black Manhood, Same Gender Love, and Civil Rights

Often when I have these discussions in the Black community, someone gets up talking about reproduction. To reproduce or to not reproduce being the measure of who deserves the most rights or respect. This is not logical because most sex that people have, including heterosexual sex, is not to reproduce.

-- Cleo Manago, founder AmASSI Health & Cultural Centers

Read the article on Echelon.

Reforming Macaulay

Here's a great piece from Asian Age on the decriminalization of homosexual acts in India, which happened earlier this month -



By Kajal Bhardwaj

"Madam, card dikhaye…" This was the fourth time I was stopped for "checking" on my way into the Delhi high court the morning of July 2. Not that one can blame the security personnel. There was a media circus outside the court compound. Satellite-topped OB vans took up the better part of Sher Shah Road and reporters with cameras and microphones in hand were starting to flood the footpath.

Clearly they too had got the previous night’s exciting news — the judgment on Indian Penal Code’s (IPC) Section 377 was to be delivered.

It is a case that, like so many others, my colleagues and I have followed with great interest. The 377 case, filed way back in 2001, was about gay rights, yes, but also about the broader notions of equality, dignity, "minority" rights and of womens’ rights in challenging legal and social norms that impose a single understanding of sexuality. So July 2 was indeed judgment day.

I sighed and showed my Bar Council card yet again and pushed the door into Court No.1. It was 10.30 am and the room was packed. Gay rights activists, lawyers, several petitioners of the case, reporters and spectators packed the room waiting for the judgment that could change many lives. As judgments in other cases were read out, the rising nervousness was palpable.

The group looked up expectedly as the Bench that had heard the case — Chief Justice A.P. Shah and Justice S. Muralidhar — walked in. In keeping with court tradition, the room rose and bowed to the judges in respect and sat down, this time on the edge of their seats. The judges, perhaps keenly aware of the path-breaking judgment they were about to deliver, kept a studiously straight face.

Chief Justice Shah looked out at the packed courtroom and said, almost grimly, that he would read out the conclusion. The front row comprising the lawyers for both sides — Naz Foundation, Voices Against 377, the Government of India, Joint Action Committee, Kunnur (Jack) and B.P. Singhal, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s former Rajya Sabha MP, stood at attention to hear the verdict. Three sentences into the Chief Justice’s reading and, like a wave sweeping a football stadium, one row after the other rose in attention —holding hands, straining to catch every word.

It was expected. Yet when these words were read out, "We declare that Section 377 IPC, insofar it criminalises consensual sexual acts of adults in private, is violative of Articles 21, 14 and 15 of the Constitution", an audible gasp went around the room. By the time the Chief Justice had finished reading the conclusion of the judgment, people were openly weeping and there were handshakes and hugs all around.

Watching the spectators collapse on each other, overcome by emotion, the guards charged with maintaining decorum in the court room quickly ushered the group out. Out of the court room and down three floors, most walked in a daze, looking around at their friends and colleagues wondering if they had actually heard what they had been waiting to hear for so long. Other lawyers in the Delhi high court gaped at the big troop descending the stairs, one wondering out aloud with unintentional accuracy, "Kahan se release hoke aayen hain ye sab? (Where have all these people been released from?)"

There was little time for the news to really sink in, to truly appreciate the enormity of the moment. As they all stepped out into a beautiful Delhi day, the activists and lawyers were mobbed by the television media asking their favourite and most inane question — "How do you feel?" As one activist put it later in the day, "How can you explain what freedom feels like?"

One-hundred-and-five pages long, the judgment was almost immediately available on the Delhi high court website. The conclusion, having been read out in court, was being quoted in all the news reports. But as a lawyer I couldn’t wait to read the "meat" of the judgment — the reasoning, the leap in our understanding of the law and the Indian Constitution, of the rights of privacy, equality, dignity that the judgment no doubt held.

The judges had a difficult job with this case. Not only were they being asked to determine if the gay community enjoyed the rights of privacy, liberty, health, equality and whether Section 377 in its disproportionate impact on the gay community violated these constitutional principles, they were also confronted with a provision that they could not repeal completely. Something even the petitions did not ask for.

Section 377 is a colonial relic. A provision of the IPC authored by Lord Macaulay, it reflected the most conservative in Victorian values by prohibiting all sexual acts, consensual or not, that did not lead to procreation and punishing "whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal". This included consensual oral and anal sex, making straight people criminals under this law as much as gay people but the force of the law weighed squarely against the latter. What complicates matters is the emphasis in the IPC on male to female penile-vaginal rape as the primary form of sexual assault; so other forms of non-consensual sexual acts including child sexual abuse against boys that are not covered by a specific provision in the IPC are covered by Section 377.

The judgment grapples with these diverse and complex issues with finesse and inspirational legal acumen. It is first and foremost an equality judgment articulating in unambiguous terms the impact of criminalisation and discrimination — from the inability to access government HIV programmes to extreme harassment and violence. It recognises that discrimination based on sexual orientation is prohibited by the Indian Constitution. It asserts a "constitutional morality" rather than a popular morality as the basis for law and government policy. And on all these counts, the judgment finds that Section 377 fails, insofar as it applies to adult, consensual, private sex.

As requested by the organisations that filed the case, Section 377 continues to be in force for cases of non-consensual sex and sexual abuse of children. In doing so it still requires the attention of Parliament to reform this centuries-old law which, with its limited understanding of sexual violence, denies many full protection of the law.

The 377 judgment has given voice to the ultimate vision of India — a society based on inclusiveness. To quote from the judgment, "Where society can display inclusiveness and understanding, such persons can be assured of a life of dignity and nondiscrimination". Captured in this one statement is the idea of a country that accords dignity and equal rights to all — regardless of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth and, now, sexual orientation; indeed of any status or identity that becomes a basis for exclusion or ostracisation. It is a call, finally, for an anti-discrimination law that will ensure that government and private actors alike are bound by constitutional morality.

And it is, ultimately, a judgment that has served as a great reminder of why, sometimes, we do in fact, love the law.

Kajal Bhardwaj is a Delhi-based lawyer. She works on issues related to HIV, health and human rights.

Sexual Mixing Patterns and Partner Characteristics of Black MSM in Massachusetts at Increased Risk for HIV Infection and Transmission

A new study by the Fenway Institute of Boston is highlighting the need for a nuanced approach to HIV prevention in the Black MSM community. Findings suggest that sexual risk
behaviors of Black MSM differ across partner type and by the characteristics of their sexual
networks and that this sub-population of MSM are at high risk for HIV acquisition and
transmission.

For instance, men who reported having serodiscordant unprotected anal sex (UAS) with a male partner in the past 12 months also reported being at risk for social isolation, having unstable housing, and using poppers at least weekly during sex. But those who reported having unprotected vaginal intercourse with a female partner in the past 12 months had different risk factors, including those with unstable housing, those who used cocaine at least weekly during sex, and those who were HIV-infected.


The study underlines the need for effective prevention strategies that address the distinct sexual and behavioral risk patterns presented by different sexual partnerships reported by Black MSM.

You can check out the abstract here.