The cotton ceiling for gay men

[MindTheMinotaur]

Someone just asked on another thread, if there is a cotton ceiling equivalent for gay men. I thought I'd post this link

Something makes me very uncomfortable with the assumption that because you now identify as a gay man that you are going to immediately want to go to saunas and go cruising.

I think it reinforces some pretty nasty homophobic ideas about gay men.

I have lots of gay friends who go cruising but I have an even larger number who don’t.
To intertwine risky sexual behaviour with a sexual orientation is murky ground in my opinion.

What message does it give to young gay men to hear that this is ‘just what gay men do’. We don’t live in 1921 where men had to meet in alleyways and bars because homosexuality was illegal.

Cruising and group sex isn’t what makes you a homosexual man, being a male who fancies exclusively other males does.
Making risky acts as part of the identity makes me very uncomfortable, I think it’s regressive.
I think that people should be able to get advice about cruising and I don’t think ‘wrong’ but being gay and being promiscuous are two completely separate things.

calvinsman you make a good point that we shouldn't conflate the two, but out of the gay men I know personally, only two of them have a non-promiscuous life style. The others are into the bear scene. They have shared, quite graphically, what they get up to with each other, and my biggest worry for any transman getting into that scene, is that women's bodies are softer and weaker, and what they do to each other would definitely cause damage to a woman's body, regardless of which hole is used.

Young women wouldn't necessarily have that awareness, and think maybe it's just going to be a bit of anal sex.

The messages on consent were conflicting. Apparently some people don't want to tell partners. I personally think that's a very very bad idea.

They should also have written about the dangers of fecal incontinence. I would imagine the risk is greater for biological women engaging in lots of anal sex. Or did I miss that bit?

www.medinstitute.org/2016/08/the-consequences-of-heterosexual-anal-sex-for-women/

been

I just think that in the same way that young women are groomed into doing dangerous sexual acts by porn, young gay men are by the gay community.

There is a real epidemic of hardcore drug use and stds within the gay community and I don’t believe it as simple as ‘gay men like group sex’.

One of my best friends was diagnosed with hiv last year and another killed themselves due to drug induced psychosis after becoming addicted to party drugs taken at orgies.

These men are adults and I don’t believe for a second that they don’t have the right to whatever they want with other consenting adults.

But I grew up with them and I remember what it was like when we were 14/15 and we first started going clubbing. We thought we were dead grown up and they couldn’t wait to go and be free with people who understood them. It never occurred to them that they could just be gay and not promiscuous because it wasn’t an option shown to them. It’s just what you did, it was part of being gay.

I worry that we are failing young gay men by going along with this narrative, and not providing an alternative where you are completely accepted by society anyway and being gay is as simple as the sex of the person you fancy.

I feel really uncomfortable talking about it actually as I worry it comes across as me being homophobic.

But seeing men that I love, right in the prime of their lives dealing with such heavy things, that they probably wouldn’t have been exposed to had they been straight breaks my heart.

This casual correlation between being a gay man and risky behaviour is so dangerous for vulnerable people. ‘Oh you identify as a gay man now? Well you’d better know how to cruise then’.

It’s yet another example of men’s orgasms taking precedent over everything else.

I understand the history of how it’s happened and how sexual acts were a political act, and how sex had to be front and centre in the gay rights movement because it was that which was illegal. Two men kissing needed to be normalised, and that happened through showing it. Sex was a rebellion, a subversion and key to liberation.

But I think we’ve ended up in a situation where the identities have become so intertwined that we put the horse before the cart.

*cart before the horse rather 😂

Also porn culture and societal pressure to be the male equivalent of 'cool girl'

Totally agree.

Male entitlement is at the crux of this (isn’t it everything).

Why as a society do we think that being a gay man means you must be promiscuous?
Is it the gay part? Or the man part?

Well we don’t have the same standards for lesbians so it’s not the gay part.
But we do believe that men just can’t help themselves, that they are wired to want sex all the time and it’s up to women to stop them.
When we take the women out of the equation what happens?

Its an extension of our societal beliefs around gender and sexuality. That men’s orgasms are untouchable and women are there to be vessels or handbrakes to men’s sexuality.

I can see why a woman would want to identify into a sex category where they could leave their female gender roles behind and relate to their sexual partners as a man and the entitlement that comes with it.
(Though obviously we know that’s not what happens).

I have had taunts from gay men to me ..hetero male..that they bet I'm jealous of the easy sex they get at saunas without paying for it . I think there is an element of truth in the male sexuality aspect of this , a straight male fantasy is to have sex with as many women as easily , willingly and happily as gay men seem have with each other .

a straight male fantasy is to have sex with as many women as easily , willingly and happily as gay men seem have with each other

Do you think that’s true of the majority of straight men?
What do you think stops straight men from being able to have sex in the way gay men do?

I think there is less of an expectation of monogamy within the gay male community.

I wonder if there is a correlation between the percentage of gay men in monogamous relationships and the number of straight males who are faithful to their partner, i.e. only a percentage of males of any sexuality are actually in a monogamous relationship by choice.

Do you think that’s true of the majority of straight men?
You didn't ask me but yes

What do you think stops straight men from being able to have sex in the way gay men do?
Women. Women don't go in for casual sex like men do. Even those women who do have casual sex and meet strangers for sex don't do it with the frequency men do.
If men want anonymous casual sex for free they will be getting it mostly from other men.
I think it's because of the implicit risk to women (assault, pregnancy etc) and the fact women's sexuality is different to men's.

I think homophobia and internal homophobia is at the heart of risky, self-destructive (emotionally and/or physically) behavioural patterns associated with gay men.
I'm pretty sure that back when Stonewall actually gave a fuck about gay people they used to do work on this kind of thing.
Lesbians and gay men both drink more than straight people, gay men in particular take more drugs, there are some domestic violence issues with lesbians, both groups have employment trouble, both groups have specific healthcare needs.
But internalised homophobia is massively powerful and affects many gay people. Shame it's "yesterday's news" now, really

What flyingoink said. ..exactly that .Theres an old saying about why men use protitutes .."I dont pay for the sex , I pay them to go away afterwards" ...and why men who use prostitutes want that fantasy of the willing Happy Hooker.

Yeah male sexuality is different to ours. I'm sure there's a Venn overlap, of course! But the focus on the mechanical is quite a male thing. Women don't seem to express much excitement for the idea of glory holes for example. I should imagine if you asked women if they'd like to have sex with a random man who they couldn't see and would never know who it was, most would recoil in horror
Whereas if you told a fella "put your cock in there and it will get sucked" it is a more tempting proposition for them.
I'm sure lots of it is down to socialisation and societal expectations etc but I do think some of it is innate.
It's not "cool girl" to admit casual sex can be emotionally damaging for some of the women who partake in it.
It's not cool to admit some parts of the gay scene aren't very nice, either.
I wonder if added testosterone undoes female socialisation to the extent that a woman in transition having anonymous gay sex with men (if that makes sense) isn't emotionally affected by it.

Good points made about the vulnerability of young gay men. The story of serial killer Stephen Port is a horrific example. I think young trans men are even more vulnerable and its irresponsible to assume they should automatically wish to access casual sex in this way.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-d32c5bc9-aa42-49b8-b77c-b258ea2a9205