| June
1998
Gay = hard-on and hardcore
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If you want to rub a gay person the wrong way, just say to him, "Gayness is only about lust and sex." But of course not! he will protest. That's too simplistic, betraying a prejudiced, ignorant attitude. Sexual orientation is far more deep-reaching and complex, rooted in the direction of his love, his emotional needs, blah, blah, blah. All true, of course.
Now I'm going to be really provocative. I'm going to say, lots of gay men also think that gayness is, well, lust and sex, and this essay is going to examine why.
Jomtien Beach, Thailand. Lovely day, not too hot, with a refreshing sea breeze. I had just finished a chapter, marked the page and was looking around, when I saw these two guys about 50 metres away. They looked like they had just arrived at the beach and were looking for the right spot. One pointed this way, the other pointed that way. Then they consulted their book, but didn't seem any wiser. I watched them for a while; each of them quite a dish. And I wondered whether they were gay and knew that this part of the 5-km beach was the "scene", or that were not gay and had just stumbled here by mistake. But soon enough, we made eye contact when they strolled past me. Gay! However, except for an exchange of smiles, they walked on. Then a minute and 100 metres later -- and of course my eyes were following them -- they turned around, walked back towards my area and stopped about 10 metres from me. They still appeared a little lost, as if searching for something. Hmmm, I said to myself, an opportunity for me to make their acquaintance in the guise of offering help. So I got up from my lazy chair, stretched my back and sauntered over. "Hello, first time here at this beach?" "Yes, first time," replied the slightly stockier one. "Where are you from?" "Taiwan. And you?" "Singapore." "So you are Chinese?" he asked. "Yes, I guess you can tell," I said. "Why don't you take one of these chairs?" pointing to some beach chairs begging for customers. "This stretch of the beach is relatively quiet, not like over there where you feel packed like in a jumbo jet." "Oh no, we are still looking." "Looking for what?" Now I was getting really curious. They just smiled and then repeated, "Well, just looking and thinking." "There's another 500 metres or so up that way," I went on, "then it leads to a children's playground, with screaming kids. But worse than that, that end of the beach is packed full with Russians." I could see that wasn't quite what they wanted to know, but I could only keep offering information until I hit the mother lode. "Actually ... er..." he opened his guidebook to a well-thumbed page. "I want to ask you, you know where is the gay beach?" "Ah!" and no doubt a great big smile came to my face. "You're right in the middle of it." "Huh?" they both said. "Yes, this is it!" "This is it?" they asked incredulously. "Look around you, nearly everyone here is gay." I suppose, come to think of it, it takes a bit of experience to be able just 'look around' and know that everyone is gay. I couldn't blame them for not being as sure as I was. Yet, they still seemed as if they had another question to ask. I could see the two guys exchanging looks, as if consulting each other whether it'd be OK to raise the next question. A slight nod from one to the other, and it came out: "No, I mean, do you know where is the nude beach?" Now that I didn't expect. What a titillating idea, but alas ... "There is no nude beach," I replied, "not in the Pattaya Jomtien area, at least. It is not legal in Thailand." They looked rather disappointed. I continued, "But what does your book say? Gay beach or nude beach?" He looked. "Gay beach," he said, rather dejectedly. Now why on earth do gay men read "gay beach" and think "nude beach"?
More recently, I was telling someone about an email list for gay Singaporeans. His face lit up. "You mean there are a few hundred people exchanging mail? Wow! How much disk space must I have to receive all the pictures?" Pictures? Now why do gay men hear "mail" and think "pictures"? And I don't have to elaborate what kind of pictures.
It aggravates gay people to think that society generally sees homosexuality as a sexual perversion. The mental images are of men (far more often men than women) disgustingly sodomising each other, of dirty old lechers luring away innocent children, of hustlers, drug-crazed and HIV-positive. These characters are seen against a backdrop of the most revolting pornography and slutty old queens. While the more educated heterosexuals may, on further reflection, acknowledge that the erotic is only one aspect of sexual orientation, the top of mind association is still between homosexuality and raw sex. It's the erotic that makes a person gay. The two incidents I described above made me wonder if maybe gay men also think the same way. The only difference may be that, for them, it is not loaded with hate and disgust. Rather the opposite, it is loaded with pleasure. But they too act as if their gayness is sex, sex and never-quite-enough sex. But then again, why should gayness be more than that? What is a gay person after all? He is any other person, except that his interest is directed to others of the same sex. In any other respect he is not different. He is as talented or as stupid as the straight blokes, he is as honest or as deceitful as his heterosexual peers, he loves beef, gets seasick, picks his nose and slurps his coffee exactly like the others. The only way he is different is in his erotic attraction and the direction of his love. A gay person does not see himself as totally removed from humanity. His other qualities, for example, being hardworking, introverted, or prone to sunburn, are not, in his mind, associated with his gayness. In these respects, he relates to other hardworking, introverted or sun-sensitive people. Unless he constructs his gayness to include these other aspects, the part of him that is gay is generally concerned only with matters of sex and love. Of these two, sex is the social activity, and love is the private and intimate activity. Yes, let me say that again. Sex is the social activity. For men at least. Men, both heterosexual and homosexual, use sex for gratification and for social status. There is a tendency to have many partners, and to find pleasure in casual sex. They also love to talk about it. They are rather insecure when they don't compare well, both in terms of bodily assets and in terms of conquests. And they need to compare. Men fall in love nonetheless. Head over heels, desperately in love, though somehow the literature don't address this as much as women falling in love. But for men, love is a much more private thing than sex. It's a matter between them and their partners. There's very little to tell. To talk about being in love is to talk about vulnerabilities. Men aren't keen to reveal their vulnerabilities. John will brag about how he had sex, yes! had sex! with a film star. John isn't going to brag about how he is love with the film star. He's going to be seen as such a loser unless he can prove the star is also madly in love with him. Thus my point: sex is a social thing; love is a private affair. Since sex and love are the two main aspects of gayness even to gay men, and sex is the more public activity, it should be no wonder then that when we think of gay places and gay interactions, there is a heavy underlay of sex. Gay equals hard-on and hardcore. A gay beach must surely be a nude beach to be worthy of its name; gay internet is nothing without porn. And if a gay bar does not lead to getting laid, forget it! Some of my readers may flinch at the thought. I beg to differ; it should be quite the opposite! Celebrate the fact! If gayness is reduced to meaning only sex (and privately, also love) then it only proves that in all other respects, gay people are indistinguishably ordinary. Some may ask, why must the sex be so blatant? But we should also ask, why is the celebration of food in any culture so blatant? Why is music so pervasive in our cities and homes? The only reason why anyone would blanch at the idea of sex, sex and more sex, is if he sees sex as dirty or shameful. But this is only true from the perspective of certain cultural and religious traditions (neuroses?) originating from the Middle East. To act as if sex is dirty and shameful and should never see the light of day, betrays the fact that you are a prisoner of certain prescriptive notions from such cultures. What is worse is that many people don't only believe them, but are intent on imposing the same prescriptions on others. It's like saying music is sinful, and should never be heard in public (and believe it or not, some fundamentalists do say that!)
Even gay men have internalised these ideas about sex, so that they are embarrassed by the very title of this article. But other gay men, rejecting the homophobia inherent in these same traditions, have also cast off many prohibitions on sex as equally unfounded. For them, the whole she-bang rightly belongs to the trash heap. Revelling in hardcore and
hard-ons, they are both gay and free. © Yawning Bread
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Footnotes None Addenda
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