My idea of tolerance is twisted? Show me once where I silenced someone.
I have spoken in favor of the rights of Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, and others of their hateful ilk. Their rights to speak ensures mine.
What is twisted is the way you seem to see yourself as a lone martyr for the cause.
gobear, please - you’re way off base here, IMHO.
Esprix
juxtaposed with
The question really should be turned around, Matt. Re-think your priorities. Log off, put down the mouse, and go get laid.
Sua
Yes, yes, yes, Sua, it’s been done to death now. Trust me, they were quite thoroughly laid before they went home.
Well, since people are giving me pointed Looks, I’ll be a good boy and shut up.
Well, you’re free to do so, gobear, but it’s your own decision, and I really would much rather read an answer to my question, because now you’ve piqued my curiosity.
Hmm, well I’ve got some concerns about some of the posts in this thread by you Matt (this may be off topic, but what better way to snub pkbites than having a rational discussion!), especially where you appear to promote your promiscuity as a positive thing.
First, it is undoubtably your right (gay or straight) to be promiscuous; however you also have to accept the responsibility that comes from these actions and I have yet to see you do so (haven’t read all of your posts, my apologies in advance if you have and I haven’t seen it). There are no actions without consequences. The consequences for promiscuity (no matter your sexual orientation) are many, most importantly in my opinion an increased exposure (even if you practice safe sex every time) to bacterial and viral pathogens. If you have AIDS, you could literally be killing all the people you engage in sex with even if you’re being safe. Even if you don’t have AIDS and have some relatively benign STD such as herpes, genital warts, etc. etc. you are, at the very least, spreading discomfort and misery–the cures (if one is even available) for these things are not easy–to your partners and their partners and their partners ad nauseum. My point here is that if you are promiscuous, you have a responsibility to both yourself, your partner and society at large to practice safe sex. To do otherwise is ignoring, out of laziness, stupidity or simple selfishness, your responsibility to treat your partner(s) as a human being. Everyone–straight, gay or other–should realize this.
Secondly, you have a responsibility to yourself. Are you happy? Is having a large number of sexual partners necessary to your sense of well-being? If so, why? If not, why have so many? You need to ask yourself these questions. Would you be more happy in a monogomous relationship? Have you tried it? Try being celebate for, say, a year and see if this makes you more or less happy. I’ve known 3 promiscuous people (one gay male, 1 heterosexual male and one heterosexual female) and not one of them was happy; in fact there was an air of desperation about them and they used their sexual activities to avoid confronting something about themselves and/or their lives. I get this same sense from you and a few others (male and female) on this Board but I obviously don’t know anyone here well enough to make an assessment either way so I’ll settle for urging you to think about these questions.
Thirdly, you have a responsibility to your partners and not only in the physical health dept. as I’ve stated above. Make sure you’re not treating them as objects there for your pleasure, but as human beings. Every time you sleep with someone you are engaging in an act which is physically and emotionally intense. If it’s not emotionally intense, you’re just engaging in a biological function and missing the best part of being intimate with someone. I don’t want to get too mooshy here, but have you ever been in love? Being intimate with someone you actually know and like is ten times better than just boinking some random guy on the street. I wouldn’t find your posts so troubling and (not meaning to flame you here, just being honest) sad if you were detailing how you were making love to your husband rather than just a long line of anonomous men. You are most likely not going to find a decent person by ‘carrying on’, so to speak.
Anyway, something to think about. I think the adage ‘you can have quality or quantity, not both’ holds here and might be something you’d want to consider at some point. Just remember to be safe or you might not be around to enjoy a meaningful relationship and that, Matt, would be a tragedy.
Wabbit
I’m gonna let matt cover this as it’s addressed to him, but I did want to address just one thing:
“Every time you sleep with someone you are engaging in an act which is physically and emotionally intense. If it’s not emotionally intense, you’re just engaging in a biological function and missing the best part of being intimate with someone.”
For some people (and I don’t mean this to sound judgmental or condescending), there is a difference between fucking and making love. Matt, to my knowledge, has engaged in sexual acts with people with whom he was not in love. Um, and? He wasn’t engaged in an emotionally-intense act there, as far as I know matt:) And I submit to you that you, Wabbit, not being/knowing matt, don’t know what the best part of being intimate with someone is from his POV:)
True enough–perhaps I have an overly romantic view of ‘the act’ (which is rather shocking as I’m not the sentimental type!). I just wonder why you would want to share an orgasm with someone you hardly knew.
<shrug>
Not trying to be judgemental here, just asking!
Wabbit, your message just drips smug. It’s irritating. Your tone is clearly that of one who knows better, trying to explain things to a poor lost lamb. How do you know that promiscuity is not more satisfying than monogomy? Have you tried it? Trying having sex with a different person every night for, say, a year and see if this makes you more or less happy. How do you know that having sex with many people for several years won’t make someone a better partner when/if they do form a monogamous relationship?
I suspect your motivations are legitimate concern and compassion, which is nice, but your tone is (to me) condescending and annoying. (Bolding the word responsibility multiple times really didn’t help.)
“‘Easy:’ Is there, we wonder, some value in being difficult?”
I apologize in advance for the lengthy hijack. I wouldn’t be sure where to put this thread, and I just want to respond to Wabbit, because his/hers hers is a quite comprehensive summary of many questions that I often have to deal with on the board. I am not interested in getting into a flamefest about this.
You pose some important questions, Wabbit, and you deserve a thoughtful response. The opinions I express below may seem surprising or shocking to you, but I hope you’ll believe I’m sincere in expressing the content of my experience, convictions, and tastes.
The main point, for me, is that self-awareness is key. I devote a large amount of my self-awareness resources into ensuring that my sexuality is fulfilling and positive for me. Looking at my emotional and mental life, I sincerely believe myself to be succeeding at this, as unorthodox as my practices may seem.
On preview, I’d like to say that (pace Giraffe) your questions didn’t sound smug to me; they just evinced a certain way of thinking about sex, and understandable confusion about a very different way. I realize that many people are not used to thinking about promiscuity in terms such as “healthy,” “happy,” and “self-aware”. There’s little I could do over the Internet to forcefully convince you of this if you were determined to disbelieve it. However, I hope you’ll trust me to disclose fully and express myself sincerely.
Finally, let me say that this is all how it works in my own life. I know from experience that there are tons of people who not only are happy being monogamous, they wouldn’t be at all happy as sluts.
Just to clarify, I don’t appear to promote my promiscuity (and I mean my promiscuity) as such: I actually do.
You are very responsible to remind everyone of the necessity of safer sex. I put in my post earlier in this thread that ethical sexuality, for me, is safe, sane, and consensual, a precept I follow scrupulously.
Having worked as a volunteer for AIDS Community Care Montreal and for a gay and lesbian peer support line, I am fully aware of the absolute necessity of safer sex precautions. I religiously apply the safer sex guidelines prescribed by AIDS Community Care Montreal and by my physician, and I limit my sexual practices accordingly. I am tested at each physical (and often in between, depending on any medical events between them) for the full range of STIs, and have come up negative every time, most recently two months ago.
Is having a small number of sexual partners necessary to your sense of well-being? If so, why? If not, why not have more? I have as many sexual partners as it suits me to have.
Having been out since sixteen, self-examining of my sexual life has been very important to me. There have been times, particularly before I left my parents’ house, when I found my sex life unfulfilling or used it as an escape. However, those times are long since past.
When I seek sex, it is because I want to have sex, and for no other reason. When I do not seek sex, it is because I do not want sex, and for no other reason. It has nothing to do with my sense of self. It is an enjoyable pastime, a physically pleasurable way of associating with and enjoying the company of other men, as physically stimulating as an engrossing conversation is intellectually stimulating, or a romantic dinner is emotionally stimulating.
As it happens, I’m not right now in a time of my life when I am purposefully seeking out sex, as I often did, for example, for the last few years. I do not regret that period of my life, and if I should find myself wanting those kinds of encounters again, I would have no hesitation about starting again.
I did not desire sex at all for a few months this winter. At first I found this somewhat alarming, as it was unusual for me, but I accepted it and continued to monitor my desires. I have recently started to have sex again, although not finding my partners using the same methods I had in previous years. I am enjoying (as you can see) the sex life I have now. My schedule is currently extremely busy, due to my campaign, upcoming exams, and other commitments; however, I am in the early stages of getting to know one particular gentleman, and we shall see how that evolves - as a sexual relationship, romantic relationship, both, or neither. Time, and our mutual desires, will tell.
I have a drawerful of objects there for my pleasure. They’re called porn and sex toys. If I wanted objects, I would use those. When I go to bed with a human being, it’s because I want to go to bed with a human being. The men I have sex with and I are adult freemen, rational and capable of accepting or refusing a sexual encounter as easily as anything. I cannot, do not manipulate them into serving my pleasure. We consent to please each other.
Experience has taught me that love and sex as separate. Having sex with someone you love can be wonderful, but so can having dinner with someone you love. Furthermore, many of my most ecstatic and memorable (and some of my most emotionally significant) sexual encounters have been with people I was not in love with.
As for “a biological function,” eating is a biological function, too, but this doesn’t preclude or vitiate the wonderful, pleasurable varieties of food and fine dining available - to be enjoyed with a romantic partner, a casual acquaintance, or alone.
Finding the right man is not one of my goals right now. I recently ended a relationship, and I am not looking for a boyfriend. That’s right, I’m not looking for a boyfriend. I am taking care of my emotional needs by myself, through my work and interests, and with the help of my good friends. A romantic interest is not a gap in my life that I am hoping to fill through my sexual encounters.
It’s perfectly likely to find my future husband at work or school or someone’s brunch party. (I don’t spend all my time having sex with people - I do those things too!) However, I don’t see what you mean by not being able to find a decent person among the people I have sex with. I believe the most part of the people I’ve slept with have been decent people. I don’t usually sleep with people I know to be obnoxious twits. (Unless they’re very hot. Just kidding.) I don’t see why being willing to have sex with me would select against nice people. That would strike me as a very self-hating thing to believe.
A few closing thoughts:
No offense, but you’re right, you don’t. Your concern was thoughtfully expressed, but a lot of others don’t show such courtesy, and I’m getting a little tired of exhaustively demonstrating my self-actualization and emotional equilibrium to everyone who asks about my sex life.
As Alice B. Toklas said, what is sauce for the goose may be sauce for the gander, but not necessarily for the turkey, peacock, or guinea hen. A great many people do not want to be promiscuous, and that is fine for them, but I’m not one of them, and I find it tiresome to be assumed to be emotionally identical but in denial.
If I were to ignore an inclination to have sex in favour of an imposed celibacy, I would be as unhappy as I would have been if I had forced myself to go and have sex during the months this winter when I felt like being celibate.
I’ve had both, many times, so I would have to disagree with you. But I thank you for your concern.
Ah, I think I have a clearer understanding of where you’re coming from now Matt. Thank you for the response, and my apologies if I came off as sounding smug.
It almost seems to me that there are strong elements of Tantic Buddhism in your worldview, although from what I’ve read it also promotes monogamous sex. Maybe this is a modern re-interpretation of Tantric ideals…
Anyway, it bears thinking about.
Thanks again, and good luck to you!
Wabbit
I think it is clearly time for a group hug. 
[Cartman]
I love you guys.
[/Cartman]
To: The Members of the SDMB,
Inasmuch as a “group hug” involves at least the merest hint of the vaguest possiblity that some man might, inadvertantly or vertantly, touch another man, and forasmuch as the merest thought of a man in any way touching another man will cause my client (Mr. Bites) to start to cry, you are all herein forbidden by court-order to not have “group hugs” on this Board.
Sincerely,
Jay Snap, Attorney at law
Snap, Crackle and Pop, Esq
171 West Krispie Avenue
Battle Creek, Michigan 49017
Dear Mr. Snap,
The order forbidding us not to have group hugs is one we will be pleased scrupulously to comply with. In fact, such members as desire to will probably demonstrate our enthusiasm by proceeding to yet more lubricious forms of homosocial interaction.
Yrs,
Matt _Mcl
The Fagtorium
69 Ste-Tapette, &c.
“lubricious forms of homosocial interaction.”
Read that initially as “lubicrated forms of homosexuals” … i.e., naked, glistening gay men. And as it was matt what posted it, it’s matt who came to mind.
Eat yer heart out, ladies:D
Oh my. fans self
**Hayduke Lives!! wrote:
I don’t recall him saying that. He only said he doesn’t hang out with gays or have them over to the house. And he avoids visiting his uncle. So what? He’s not raging this big war you guys are painting on him. He’s not standing on street cornors with signs or anything. I don’t think he’s as extreme about it as you say.**
What I am calling him is a hypocrite. On one hand, he labels gay people as perverts and shuns them, even those who are his relatives. Then he turns arounds and gleefully uses their products and services. I find that hypocritical.
**Esprix wrote:
Um, well, not entirely happy, but that had mostly to do with the way he was treated by society and the government - little things like being forced to take hormone treatments, stuff like that.**
Agreed. The point being that his homosexuality had nothing to do with the unhappiness he experienced.
matt, you are far, far, far more patient than I would have been, and that is why I love you.
Wabbit, what matt said in spades. As another sexually liberal gay man, my keywords have always been “safe, sane and consensual.” I have sex when I want it and when I find someone else who is so inclined, and when I don’t, I don’t. I don’t get used, and I don’t use. I am always safe, and tested regularly. And, most important of all, I do not need a boyfriend to be happy. Is it nice? Sure it is. But if I can’t be happy just being who I am, then I consider myself to have serious problems. Like matt, however, my path of constant self-exploration continues, and if someone else’s differs, so be it.
And Wabbit, your post also left me smoldering - you have matt to thank for defusing the situation.
Esprix
No one’s business: a man is a homosexual.
Everyone’s business: anyone who wouldn’t associate with that man.
I guess what I just don’t get is why pkbites must be compelled to associate with that which he doesn’t like. I have no particular reason that I dislike country music. It “just doesn’t appeal to me.” The end, really. Should I be morally obligated to learn line dancing? Play Hank Williams on the juke? Hang out with country-westerners? I don’t know what pkbites has against gays, and I don’t much care. For all I know he finds brunettes more attractive than blondes (like any sensible man would). SFW?
Well, as long as pkbites felt gay marriage should be allowed, and that same-sex benefits are enabled throughout the land, and so on, I say more power to him. But if gays aren’t afforded the same chances that straights are, well, that’s a bit rude IMO.