Are gay men weaker than straight women?

Feminists and progressives like to remind women that they don’t need a man. Their mantra is, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." The message, put simply, is that a human being is whole, is complete in and of her own person; she needs no one to complete her. There is no "other half" out there in the world who is waiting to complete her, or is in need of her in order to be complete their person. A woman can have a full and fulfilling life without being partnered with another person. She has her career, her home, her friends, her activities, and those make for a full life. If she wants, she can raise a child without a mate as well. Friends and other family are there, hopefully, to step in and help.

I believe this is true. For centuries society and religion taught women that their roles were limited to wife and mother, and that they found their completeness only within the bond of marriage. (And it’s no coincidence that “bond” was used for both marriage relationships and relationships of ownership, such as slavery or indentured servitude.) Religions even promoted the idea of "soul mate" to mythologize the bondage of marriage: the idea that God created souls, split them in half, and sent the halves out into the world into individual human beings, who are then driven to wander around until they find their other halves. Religions and societies promoted this idea in order to keep the institution of marriage, which was fundamentally about possession and economic exchange, going. They would tolerate fundamentally unhappy marriages or even spousal rape and abuse in order to preserve the institution. Women and men were essentially incomplete without being pair-bonded, even if some men could get away with being single if they were priests or explorers.

With the rise of feminism, we did away with this ideal. Human beings are complete in and of themselves. They are not half-souls wandering around the world looking for their other halves. We are all a little damaged: that’s what life does to us. But that doesn’t mean we’re broken beings until we manage to find someone to "complete" us. If and when we pair up, the relationship is formed out of our essential completeness. We may be well matched, and many people stay together for the rest of their lives. But that’s not because they’ve found their other halves. The two individuals involved were complete before the relationship started, and remain complete within it.

We tell this to women because it’s true, and because we want them to know their own essential strength as human beings. We wish well for them in society, and we know that people who spend their strength in longing for a mate are not spending their strength on themselves, on their careers, or on the world around them. We know that loneliness is a problem in life, but we also know that people who are paired with a mate still experience loneliness. It’s painful, but it, like all other pleasures and pains, passes over time. We tell women that we hope they realize their essential completeness, and that whether or not they find of relationship, it’s optional to their happiness and meaning in life. They can be complete, fulfilled and content as single people.

We tell this to women because it’s true. So why do we tell gay men the exact opposite? The emphasis for women in progressive society is to realize their completeness and to be strong. The emphasis for gay men is to find a mate and get married. All our focus as a gay community has been on partnering and marriage. Our message has become that one isn’t really a mature gay man until he has found a mate, gotten married and formed a family. Marriage and family for gay men are now seen as the hallmarks of maturity in gay men; without them a gay man is seen as stuck in adolescence, permanently self-crippled.

Why do we tell this to gay men, when we tell women the opposite? I think it’s due to this: the gay community reacted to the accusations of straight society that we were immature hedonists incapable of being a positive contribution to society. I think that’s why our first pushes for equality in the US were to be able to serve openly in the military and to be able to get married. Even housing and employment protections were secondary to seeking these rights.

And we are winning. Marriage equality is spreading through the country. Marriage equality has already come to several countries around the world. The wedding-industrial complex is salivating in anticipation of the flood of gay dollars coming into their coffers. After all, gays are seen as doing everything with great splash and elaboration, so we are bound to spend excessive amounts of money on our weddings, right?

This emphasis on marriage has led to redefining what it means to be an adult in the gay world. We aren’t considered mature until we’ve pursued marriage. If we’re single, we’re seen as not getting with the program; and that failure simply must be due to the stubborn willfulness of an extended adolescence. Single gay men are viewed as immature, incomplete. And so we tell gay men the exact opposite of what we tell women. Women don’t need a soul mate to be fulfilled. Gay men must have one in order not to be immature.

This, of course, is bullshit. Why is a woman viewed as a complete human being whether or not she is in a relationship, but a gay man is seen as fundamentally broken if he is single, especially if he is not looking? Are women and gay men from different species? Is one group human and the other not? Of course not! What has happened is that yet again, the gay community has let the larger society dictate our values to us. We reacted to their accusations of instability and immaturity by going overboard in emphasizing marriage and partnering as evidence of our maturity. Instead of being secure in ourselves, we let society dictate the terms of the debate, and then set out to prove them wrong by over-emphasizing their traditional values. This is foolishness on a community-wide scale.

So, let me be plain: if it is a human value for women, it’s a human value for gay men, too. A gay man needs no soul mate. A gay man in complete in and of himself. A gay man can be fulfilled– can have a meaningful life– while single. He doesn’t need to establish a family to be of worth to society. Singleness for a gay man is just as valuable as singleness for a woman. Human beings, female or male, gay or straight, are not half souls wandering around looking for their other halves. We are complete in and of ourselves. We need no one else to save us.

Violence and the Moral High Ground

Yesterday's shooting at the Family Research Council really disturbed me. Of course, we are still learning about the details of the incident and the perpetrator. But it highlights an issue that needs to be addressed in the LGBTQ community: the potential for violence.

FRC, and other organizations of their ilk are our mortal enemies. Of that there is no doubt. They will not rest until LGBTQ people disappear from society. As a former fundamentalist Christian, I understand their thinking. They cannot compromise; to do so is to risk hellfire. To achieve the world they long for, LGBTQ people must die or become straight. We must be wiped off the face of the earth.

Faced with such enemies, I find it easy to give into hate, and to wish the same fate upon them. Throw in a culture saturated with guns and violence, and the mix becomes toxic. I understand the frustration LGBTQ people feel, but we must not let that frustration get the better of us.

So let me be very plain here: we must resist and denounce violence. We must not inflict acts of violence upon our enemies, even if they inflict acts of violence upon us. I'm not saying you should not defend yourself when physically attacked in the streets. I am saying we must not go and shoot at the people who would happily kill us if they could.

Why? Well, for one very obvious reason, it's simply wrong. Just because Christians want to destroy LGBTQ people doesn't mean LGBTQ people ought to do the same. I think we can agree that just because Christians think something is right doesn't make it right. Killing people is wrong. Shooting at people is wrong.

Secondly, if the culture wars turn into shooting wars, we will lose. They outnumber us, and they have most of the guns. In terms of sheer attrition, the religious right can kill more of us.

Third, perpetrating acts of violence on Christians is exactly what they want. They love feeling persecuted, because it makes them feel holier. Using violence against them will not lead them to question their own acts or motives. They already believe they are perfectly right; shooting at them only confirms that belief in their minds.

Finally, we cannot let ourselves descend to their level. The only way we have of surviving the culture wars is to maintain the moral high ground. If the Christians are the only ones behaving odiously, in time the great middle (social, not geographical) of this country will come around to our side. If we descend to their level and end up behaving odiously as well, the rest of the country will not give a damn about our rights. The only way we have of surviving the culture wars is to appeal to the humanity of the rest of society. We cannot do that if our side perpetrates violence.

We have to have higher moral standards than the Christians, especially when it comes to treating our enemies like human beings. I won't say we have to love them, since the word "love" has devolved to signify mere affection. Rather, we have to give them more respect than they give us, to resist their ideas and their influence with rationality and appeals to the hearts of the larger public, and not visit the same harm upon them they would visit on us. We have to be stronger, more patient and better people. That's the only way we'll survive and thrive. Besides, it's the better way.

Gay Sex, Barebacking and Condoms

There's no question that bareback sex (anal penetration without a condom) is on the rise among gay men. The act is inherently risky. Even if two people are HIV negative, and in a relationship that is ostensibly monogamous, there is no guarantee one or the other partner will not stray, sero-convert and bring home the infection. Clearly, if anal penetration is part of someone's repertoire, condoms are the best way to go.

The problem as I see it is that HIV/AIDS prevention educators have not done the best job they could have done in this arena. I do not fault their earnestness, their dedication (usually involving long, unpaid or underpaid hours), nor the intent of their efforts. I came out in the early 90s, and I remember the intensity of the education efforts, and even did some volunteer work with an organization in a major southern city. I believe in the effort to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, and I have tremendous love and respect for the lives and work of prevention educators. But I find two ways I think they should have approached the topic differently.

First, they should have been honest from the beginning and said that condoms really, really suck. They decrease sensitivity dramatically, especially if the wearer is circumcised. If one has experienced bare sex, wearing a condom feels almost as if one's partner in sex might as well be in another room. This especially becomes an issue when the lack of sensation leads to the loss of erection. The bottom line is that a lot of men cannot top with a condom on. It becomes physically impossible for them, unless they choose to take expensive erection-enhancement pills. But even those able to sustain erections won't feel nearly as much with a condom on. Educators should have been honest and up front about this aspect from the very beginning. They should have made a point of saying, "Look it's too bad, but anal penetration sex acts are just going to be a lot more work and a lot less fun so long as AIDS is a possibility. Still it is the mature, responsible and compassionate thing to always wear a condom when penetrating a partner." Had they been honest, instead of all these campaigns which tried to either minimize the difference, or even eroticize condoms, I think their campaigns would've had more traction.

Second, they should have more actively celebrated the other ways of having sex than anal penetration. I think as a legacy of the "gay 70s" anal penetration somehow became the sine qua non of gay sex, and other forms of intimacy/sexual activity were regarded as not being "real sex". This is a shame. Let's face it, hands wrapped around a penis are more nimble and dextrous than an anal sphincter wrapped around a penis. Mutual masturbation is a fantastic, enjoyable and very intimate form of sexual activity. It should have been celebrated, promoted and, hell, even sanctified as the best possible gay sex. Second to the brain itself, one's hands are among one's greatest, most versatile sex organs. Hands and the digits on them, can do many wonderful things. (For that matter, one's digits can be used for prostate stimulation if a "bottom" requires it.) Educators should have taken the opportunity to redirect gay men's attention toward all the wonderful things they could do and the great variety of sexual possibilities available to them, instead of emphasizing only the mechanics of anal sex with a condom.

I think there was a missed opportunity in HIV/AIDS prevention education, and I think that barebacking was an understandable response to this failure to deal honestly with the facts of anal sex and condoms. Unfortunately, young men will die because of this.