SEX!!! - That's What Being Gay is ALL About, Right?

For years, I struggled with the idea of coming to terms with my sexuality because I had always heard how rife the gay world was with lascivious sexual activity.  After all, if you were a gay man, you were guaranteed to get AIDS and, of course, that was godly punishment for your sins and the sins of the gay community at large.  

Being a child of the ‘80s, it’s easy to see why, looking back, coming out is so terrifying for men my age and older. Honestly, religion aside, I can remember riots, protests, and parades flashing across our old tube televisions in the name of gay rights.  These memories are as clear to me as were the bomb drills in elementary school at the tail end of the Cold War. Some of my earliest childhood memories are filled with fear and the literal idea that I was going to be destroyed by nerve gas or the ‘homosexual disease.’

I remember elementary teachers making comments like, “If the Russians don’t destroy this country, the fags will.”  To this day, two decades later, I abhor the term ‘fag’ for this reason. 

Similarly, I remember my dad berating the Red Cross for asking on their questionnaire whether or not he, as a male, had “had sexual contact, even once, with another man” before he could donate blood - every time! As a result, he would go on for what seemed like hours, sharing his plans to ship all the fags to a desert island and leave them to die.

You see, it was a win-win scenario: all the men could screw like bunnies and kill each other off (because they were all going to die of AIDS anyways) while the rest of the world could live in peace, absent the fear of contracting the world’s most dangerous and destructive disease. To top it all off, the world would be free of the gay agenda and all of its associated propaganda.

As I grew older, and became increasingly more aware of my own sexual identity, I began to look towards my future with a renewed sense of fear and trepidation.  Any time I saw anything to do with ‘the gay lifestyle’ it was plastered with sex.  The AIDS Epidemic was all but over and the homosexual revolution was well into its return. It seemed like news stories from across the country and globe sounded the gay siren call back to sexual liberation. “Look at us, we figured out how to stymie the transmission of HIV, we can reopen the saunas and bath houses. Free condoms for everyone, hooray!”

Today, decades later, the general population still views homosexuals as deviant fiends who never get enough sex.  Everyone seems to think if we gays aren’t out dancing in our underwear at the local discotheque, we are in the bathroom blowing each other through glory holes.

Well, I’m here to tell you that we are not all muscle gods who sleep with anything and everything that walks.  We have not all contracted HIV, nor are we all dying of AIDS. We aren’t pedophiles and we don’t secretly want to take advantage of our grandparents’ farm animals.

We are regular, everyday people with the same-strength sex drives as our heterosexual counterparts. The difference between gay and straight people, when it comes down to sex, is merely this: preference.  I prefer a man with a little scruff just as my straight best friend prefers brunettes with large breasts.

To those who accuse us of making it “all about sex,” I challenge you to look at mainstream media and quantify the amount of heterosexual activity on screen, in magazines, and on TV. I promise you will see a vast majority of straight sexualization in the media versus that of the attention and focus on homosexual activity.

Sure, there is a sexual adolescence that many gay men and women go through when they come out. It’s almost like we’re making up for lost time.  The reality of it is that our experiences are no different in principle than horny teenagers who get to act out their sexual impulses without fear of condemnation from family, friends, and society - we just have to wait a few extra years.

Sex is a part of the human condition and I celebrate it in all of its forms.  Whether you’re lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or straight, I celebrate your individuality and I encourage the responsible expression of your sexual identity.  Love yourself, love others,and express your love and passion with someone who loves and respects you, too.