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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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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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.

Do We Need to Rethink the 'Homophobic' Label?

Very interesting piece. Should we show some empathy and a little bit of understanding towards the people we'd label "homophobic?" Are these misguided folks "homo naive" or plain and simple "homo haters?"


via HuffPo, by Loren A. Olsen

While I was working on my book, "Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight," I received a very angry email about my being gay from a man named "George." I challenged the things he said about me, responding, "You don't know me."

George wrote back, "Oh, but I do know you. You have identified yourself as a homosexual, an immoralist. Nothing binds your conscience. Morality is just a matter of taste."

The best way to confront such prejudice is usually to become a real person to the other person and develop a relationship with them. I made some attempts to find some area of common ground. George could never respond to anything I wrote back to him other than to condemn me.

Some would say George is homophobic. I am not a fan of the word "homophobia." Gay men and women struggled for years and years to free ourselves from being diagnosed as pathological deviants. I see little value in attempting to pathologize those who oppose us by labeling them all homophobic.

Prejudice is based on the "Law of Small Numbers": What is true for one must be true for all. Like George, the rules of "in-groups" and "out-groups" dictate that those on one side attempt to define those on the other by applying stereotypical descriptions while never seeking information that dis-confirms their beliefs.

Do we as gay men and women move discourse forward by labeling those who oppose us "homophobes"?

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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.]

If gay guys use condoms more than straight people, why do they get infected with HIV at much higher rates?

via rabble.ca, by nico little of ickaprick and ironpussy

While working in the prevention team of a Canadian AIDS service organisation, I was part of an inter-agency group that offered training to local social workers, nurses, shelter employees, etc on how to offer better services to sexual minorities.

To get the ball rolling in training sessions, I often start by saying:
 
Studies show that gay guys consistently use condoms with casual sex partners at rates way higher than do heterosexuals. In one study conducted at Toronto Pride in 2006, 75-80% of gay guys reported consistent condom use with casual partners. And even if that number is inflated, it's still much higher than the rate for heterosexuals. Yet in Ottawa, gay guys still account for more new HIV infections than any other population and, in the US, gay men are the only group among whom HIV infections are currently on the rise.

If we are going to provide effective health services to men who have sex with men, it's essential that we understand what's going on. It seems totally illogical: gay guys use condoms more often, yet are infected with HIV more often. 

So as professionals who are paid to serve this community, I'm asking you: why?

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Loving Him His Fag Hags

by Topher

History shows that behind (or next to)
many a homo is a great fag hag

Such the debate as of late between many of my LGBTQ friends….Heterosexual Bachelorette parties a NOOOOOO in gay bars!? I and my friends have been mulling this topic over for weeks. Have we gone so far to forget who helps pave the ways for gays, sissies, homos…? My answer: FAG HAGS! From prom dates to being our beards when needed yet when our fellow fag hags find true love….they aren’t allowed to share and revel in it with the ones they love…us and our community…just because some lawmakers say we shouldn’t be able to wed? PSHAW! (pshaw - how 1991 , eh?)

Recently, I was approached by my sister-in-law (to be) about her coming bachelorette party on October 3rd. Now, my sister-to-be is my fag hag, my confidant, my bestest girlfriend, the closest thing I have to a real sister, everything I could wish for in a friend and more. We share everything from holidays, to each others birthdays, our friends misgivings….she has become the glue between much of my family and I. The idea had been posed to bring her bachelorette party to the gayborhood. Why not? ALL THE GIRLS love us boys, we all know how to throw down with out trying to get into their skivvies while having a good time (important to woman have a few to drink AND BEING SAFE). WITHOUT hesitation I jumped for it and let her Maid-of-honor and her know that I GOT IT, and let’s bring her bachelorette party to homoville!

Ironically, it was she who asked me if having a bachelorette party in gaytown would be emotional issue with proposition 8 topic, and if it bothers me that while I am not afforded the right to marry? And until I read a few articles written about bachelorette parties just being nuisance I had no idea that others in my community would feel so ill about bachelorette parties in fag bars. So, I bring us back to my first question, have we come so far to forget who helped us in our hours of needs. History shows that behind (or next to) many a homo is a great fag hag.

For me, a world of drugs, and a fall from grace was eminent in my early year with all the negative choices I had made. With the help of my brother and his soon-to-be wife I found the much needed help …and when she wants to revel in her found happiness amongst her real friends (us fags) I’m suppose to say NO gay bars for you (oh but by the way next week when you want a drink we’ll take your money)? Does that not make us just as much a bigot as our right-wing heterosexual counterparts rallying against us in our search for marital bliss? Ack! Have we come so far that we (the LGBT community) are a community of exclusivity instead of inclusivity?

Personally, I say F#CK MARRIAGE! A religious institution I want no party to because religion is not a central issue in my life. However, civil unions, that’s a different story. Politically get rid of marriage (since it is religious in origin and that SUPPOSED separation of church and sate we all so talk about) and place civil unions for heterosexuals, and homosexuals, and lesbian…all human kind…wanting to healthily enter into this legal binding. IF religion is a central focus in your life, be my guest and celebrate before god, I choose to want to celebrate it amongst my family and friends and leave God out of it (but I digress).

When that day arrives, you bet my sister-in-law will be there at the alter beside me, the week before helping my best man throw that bachelor party (which will look much like her bachelorette party) and together we will revel and celebrate in our happiness together. BUT UNTIL then, I refuse to think that my fellow faggots would be so rude to turn a blind eye to the fag hags that helped pave our ways when we were younger, that still pave the way for many of things today and still stand next to us in our fight for everything that we hold dear...because they are female and their celebration of there marriage is somehow being flaunted in our face? THINK again and get over it!

AfterElton asks - Is “Heteroflexible” the New Gay?

What does it mean that there are three new entertainment projects where straight men are sexually involved with other men?

Read!