I have noticed in a number of gay blogs I would read from time to time a growing frustration within the 'gay community'. The criticism is aimed at gay men who live and work to play hard, go clubbing all night, take recreational drugs and have plenty of sex without commitement and often without protection. The arguement seems to run along the lines of when do gay men grow up, when does this teenage mentality in gay culture become more, more than than drag queens, outrageous Pride Parades, body beautiful focused, youth orientated,sex obsessed drug fueled self indulgence!!

Also last night on TV here in the UK a co- founder of Stonewall chastized the continuing self obsession of gay culture with sex/drugs/the body beautiful etc etc when so much has been achieved with respect to legal protection at work/in civil partnerships/adoption/ the provision of goods and services...etc etc. Why do many gay men live for the here and now, for the moment of ecstacy with no real thought for the future...even consider their future as a middle aged gay guy for instance? When will gay culture see itself as the norm...equal without the need for fabulous excess to make a point.

Why do we present this image where sex is first and foremost in our psychy....the next/better/different guy rather than the one we are with now is the driving force, which is having a huge impact again on the incidence of STI's and giving right wing..christian groups attempts to present gay men as an easy target, a reprehensible group within society the ammunition they need at this time.

Ok that is not what I guess many guys here in GF.com may relate to,...now possibly, and I have nothing but a healthly love of being a gay man and everything that infers, but do you get my drift. Is there a growing backlash within the community to aspects of gay culture? Is this criticism valid...should we be concerned at this juncture in our history how the St8 world sees/views us? Do our kids see being gay through the lives we lead or that of Will & Jack in W&G, or the life style mags we leave lying around....or the Pride Parades they see on TV etc etc

Cheerio for now...Vincent...xx

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Vince in Ireland,

I think this is such a good topic of discussion that I linked to it on my journal as well as on our blog Gay Fathers. I have two journals, on for my poetry and then there is one mostly for silliness and venting. Here is a link to the discussion there.

So far we've had a couple of interesting replies there and I'm hoping Vince gets more input from the rest of you on this as well. I'll comment on some of the responses in my journal as soon as I can. Meantime, you, dear- yes- you, sitting there reading. Don't keep it all in your head; share your thoughts with us!

Some good questions Vince.

In my opinion and it's based on my observations, I'd say that the gay youth (less than 30 yrs old)...sex obsessed, drug fueled self indulgence is really not much different than that of the same caliber of hetero individuals. One difference though is that because a hetero relationship is much more commonly accepted, a male in a hetero encounter might be more accepting of a more than one-night-stand relationship.

I think there are actually three dimensions or worlds as far as the gay community is concerned.

The first is the above, the large numbers of visible gay men and women making up the
'scene' in today's bar scene, full of guys/gals hooking up for one-nighters, not going beyond that level of connection.

Second and probably as large in numbers, are those gay men and women who have settled in their relationships and are in committed relationships.

3rd, there are those who are resigned to the corners of glbt life. They are you and I who are not in a relationship and not much chance of any either. They watch the gay culture and groups 1 and 2 go by, but they really sit in the shadows quietly.

What you're missing in the question of why the guys go out in the one night sex/drugs/alcohol frenzies is that they can. Not all can, that's the key.

Just my thoughts.

Jim

Vince, wanted to say more about this one, but for the moment, since I was posting on our blog and mine about this, I thought I'd share a few answers that some Journalspace members gave. Click Here .

Interesting topic that I hope gets some discussion. I'm not sure what the answer is, actually, I don't think there is an answer. I think one of the biggest problems with gay men is they are always looking over their shoulder for someone "better".

Maybe that happens in straight life too, I don't know. My ex-wife has had at least 3 or 4 relationships sine we split 2.5 years ago and I would say she is not settling down any time soon. (I've had two relationships, about as long lived as hers - 4 month average)

I think my ex stayed with me as long as she did only because of family and society expectation that we were together "for better or worse, though sickness and health". She definitely left the marriage emotionally and even physically before I did many years ago. If we were not trying to live up to that expectation of marriage for life, then I think she would have left me about 8 years before she did.

So... I guess my point is, perhaps the lack of societal expectation, not just the expectation of gay men, but society in general, makes gay relationships so much more prone to failure. Would "gay marriage" help? Probably not, at least not for a few generations, and even then, it would probably have a higher divorce rate than that for heteros... which is amazingly high in its own right.

The problem is... even when gay men do find a partner, they can't exactly celebrate it the way straight couples do. It is a lot more private and known usually just between them and their close friends/family etc. We are all more in the closet than out in many ways for sheer matter of survival, or to avoid confrontation, condemnation, judgement, opportunity, etc.

My ex-wife, who refused to use birth control in the marriage on religious grounds, now uses birth control. I confronted her on it... only a hunch, since I knew whe was having sex I could not imagine she would risk getting pregnant out of marriage. I confronted her on her hipocrisy, and, at the time, what I considered (correctly) her bad choice of a partner. Her response was: "It's a lot easier to hold conservative beliefs about abstinence and birthcontrol when you are not alone" and later, when the bad relationship ended "She was in the relationship out of lonliness".

So my point... gay men are no different. We seek out intimacy due to lonliness... and believe in monogomy when we are in a relationship. But the culture around us, gay and straight, does not favor, support or allow a full expression of committed relationship for gay people... so many have given up, and resorted to the comfort of intimacy at the moment it is available, hoping maybe, some day, they will find intimacy that will last.

David (alphapax)

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world" - Mahatma Gandhi

Yes, this is a good discussion. I too am hoping that others will chime in here. But for now I must run off to work and I am thinking that I need to change this section of the message board to a title of something other than "Light Stuff."

I think there's some pretty significant stuff that David said that I'd tried to say but wasn't so elloquent.

The societal expectations in a western cultural hetero 'normal' relationship (and I'm not calling it 'normal' to be argumentative or combative) are that the man and woman date, get serious, become monogomous and eventually perhaps marry as the highest form of commitment.

Naturally, there are significant numbers of hetero guys and gals who will continue down the same dance weekend after weekend with different parnters. I think they're hooked on the idea of something new every weekend, looking for something better than they had before.

With homosexual men (I think lesbians fall more in the hetero relationship scheme of things) have a vision of beauty that they see, and continually strive to get connected to that male physical beauty. If they become involved in the drug/sex scene with something different every weekend, it's only because of one thing....they can. I've said this before but I'm not sure anyone hears it. They can.

Just some of my thoughts.



Jim

I think the " gay community" is coming out of the closet. Since Stonewall gay people have been peaking around the closet door to see if it was realy safe. We always had the people who couldn't hide out in plain sight. Now more and more of us closet dwellers are hitting the sunlight and finding out that thay like it.
Thay come out with a bang doing all the things that thay think that wanted to do all along.
Then thay see that the club life is just as empty as the closet was. I think it's sort of like when you get your first car. Your dad hands you the keys and your FREE!!!!!!!
You then drive all over creation going 195mph.
Then after the glow wares off you realise hay I've got to put gas in this puppy, fix the brakes and put new tires on because i've been laying rubber all over town.

I read the Gay Times alot and you see young gays
on there that are into the clubs, but more and more there are more people on line questioning if gay people are aloud to have a God, wanting to have a real relationship and asking themselves " now that i'm out what do i do next?"

I think that in the end thease religous nuts are
going to find out that we are more like them than thay thought.