Casting Aspersions:
I don’t think it can be argued that gay rights have come a long way since the days of Stonewall. If President Obama’s inauguration speech and the fact that the Supreme Court is hearing both DOMA and Prop. 8 aren’t enough, let’s examine the number of gay figures in the media, the number of gay-owned businesses and even the election of gay officials to our government (Tammy Baldwin comes to mind).
Yes, it’s clear the progress we’ve made as a people, but what have we had to given up to obtain it? Are there parts of ourselves that have been abandoned in the pursuit of our rights and freedoms? The gay world I see now is one of sexual repression, shame and internalized homophobia. There is a pressure to be just like our heteronormative counterparts which means having lots of sex with different people is bad. We are encouraged to pair off and embrace the marriage equality platform that has literally become 90% of the LGBT agenda. I will paraphrase the book, “The Ethical Slut” by Dossie Easton when I say that gay men and women have often been seen as sexual liberators, who have expanded the overall nature of sex as something good for us that should be embraced.
Do gay people really celebrate that image any longer? I don’t see it. I observe a world where gay men are called terms like whores and sluts and are called things like loose and easy. Tops are given some status like straight men, as in “another notch on the bed post,” while bottoms are often subjugated like our straight sisters. If we can accept that this has happened, then why did it happen?
Gay people, once seen as the leaders of a sexual revolution, have now been boxed into a heteronormative framework.The most likely culprits are the rise of religion in politics and the consequences of HIV. The rise of the Regan movement affected a lot of people and changed the way we think about sex. If the 60’s and 70’s were about sexual liberation than the Regan and Bush years were about highlighting it’s consequences.
The push to moralize gay sex as something bad has taken years, but now young boys are forced to contend with a paradox, a society that places extreme value on attractiveness, penis size and sexual prowess coupled with one that shames them for that sex they’ve just had.
The solution is simple, embracing that the number of sexual partners has nothing to do with one’s moral core and that there is nothing shameful about having lots of sex. We must also learn more about HIV and realize that having lots of sex does not spread the virus, it is the choices we make— or don’t make— during sex that increases or decreases our risk. Gay men and women must fight against a heteronormative culture that forces shame and ridicule on so many of us.
Casting Aspersions:
I don’t think it can be argued that gay rights have come a long way since the days of Stonewall. If President Obama’s inauguration speech and the fact that the Supreme Court is hearing both DOMA and Prop. 8 aren’t enough, let’s examine the number of gay figures in the media, the number of gay-owned businesses and even the election of gay officials to our government (Tammy Baldwin comes to mind).
