I’ve been wondering this for a while. Are there any gay couples out there that are waiting to have sex until marriage? Or does being gay pretty much go hand-in-hand with pre-marital sex?
For what it’s worth, I’m pro-gay rights. I’m just not gay myself and was curious.
I’d say premarital sex is expected in most relationships in general.
Don’t forget that until recently, there was no place on the planet where we could marry. And now . . . depending on your location, if you’re waiting for your right to marry, your wait might be longer than your life expectancy.
Well, I’ve never thought of marriage as being a legal thing. What do I care what the gov’t thinks? <straight, btw, just don’t see that it’s any of Uncle’s business what I do who with…or who I do who with…or…who I do!>
But in another light, I’d be curious about the question in terms of whether it’s as common for gays to wait until it’s a committed relationship before getting it on as it is for straights. Not that it is common or anything, and…alternately…if there were no marriage, at what point would straights who would otherwise wait get together?
I think that was english I just typed…not sure, at this point…
It seems to me that most (I want to say “all” because I can’t think of any exceptions, but no doubt there are some) people who wait until marriage to have sex do so for religious reasons. Now, there are plenty of religious denominations that are a-okay with homosexuality, but I don’t think very many of them overlap with the denominations that are really big on waiting til marriage to have sex.
In my very, very limited experience with gay people who come from conservative religious backgrounds, being gay removes a lot of the expectations from parents and the community that you’ll keep up with certain religious traditions, even if they’re okay with your sexuality. Now, I’ve known plenty of gay folk, and plenty of people from religious backgrounds, but if there was much overlap, they didn’t share it with me. The one exception is a friend I had in college who grew up in a Yiddish-speaking household in Brooklyn. His dad is a rabbi. VERY old-school, hard-core Orthodox. He grew up to be very gay. By the time I knew him, his parents had accepted this. My friend was still a fairly religious guy, although not in the Orthodox tradition, which is not accepting of homosexuality, and his boyfriends was…Greek Orthodox Christian. I once asked him if his parents minded that his boyfriend wasn’t Jewish, and he said no, they didn’t care. (I GUARANTEE you that if he were straight and dating a Greek Orthodox girl this would not have been the case.) I think the fact that there was no expectation that they were going to reproduce removed a lot of the pressure to stay within the religious tradition.
Okay, that wasn’t actually about premarital sex, but I think it falls in line - if you’re gay, you’re probably outside of the bounds of communal rules anyway, so expectations that apply to straight people are probably not going to apply to gay people.
Considering gay marriage isn’t legal in the vast majority of states, I’d say yes.
Looking back at my sexual history, I can think of a few times when we didn’t have sex until the second date . . . but even those were damn few and far between.
But back then (pre-late-80s) there weren’t many places to meet except for places where people meet to have sex. Nowadays, there are a lot of non-sex-related places to meet other gay people.
Is it expected that gay guys have sex on the first date or has this changed with the times?
I mean, I’ve met people specifically for the purpose of hooking up, but if I go on an actual date with a guy, I typically will not expect or pursue sex on the first date.
I think you make a good point about a government sanctioned sex life!
You also raise an interesting question about sex and commitment. Thinking on it, back in the day when I dated men (I came late to the gay party), I think there was still a certain stigma to being seen as a girl who ‘slept around’. It isn’t something I’ve come across in the lesbian community - perhaps some of these old societal rules/expectations about how women should behave just fall away when men are taken out of the process. Perhaps also being defined in society by who you have sex with raises the importance of sex in relationships? I don’t know, just pondering.
But in answer to your question, I haven’t come across any expectation for lesbians to wait for a committed relationship before they hop into bed, or criticism of girls who put it about a bit.
This is a good point, but there are some states that allow for domestic partnerships. Anyway, I have a good many gay/lesbian/transexual friends as well as straight friends. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter what sexual orientation a person has for how soon a person will have sex in a relationship. People will have sex whenever their values allow them to, whether it be personal or religious.
This has been my experience as well. Straight girls who hook up on a first date, or just hook up for the fun of having sex, are seen as at least a little bit slutty. Lesbians who hook up outside of a LTR are just lesbians who hook up outside of a LTR…there isn’t the same sort of judgement on them. It would be interesting to see how this might change if gay marriages were legal.
Ok, bear in mind that I’ve been in a monogamous relationship since 1987, and some things have changed since then.
There’s never been any stigma against having sex as soon as the guys meet. Even in an actual “dating” situation the attitude is that if you’re not sexually compatible, what’s the point of continuing? But yes, there were times when I’d meet someone, go have a drink or coffee or a meal, and it never progressed beyond that. But I’d say that if there’s a second date, sex is pretty much a given.
IME generally “saving oneself for marriage” is tied in with a religious belief of some kind. In many (most?) religions, a gay person is sinning whenever they have sex, no matter when that takes place. So I can understand even a religious gay person giving the “virgin until marriage” thing short shrift, even if they live in one of those states or countries where they could get married. There’s probably also a general sexual liberation that comes from discarding the rules of people who would have you suppress your natural desires for your entire life, especially initially. Sometimes this tips too far into unhealthy promiscuity (to my tastes), but sexuality and what you enjoy doing with it is a very individual decision.
It’s also been my experience (as noted above) that straight people who wait until marriage to have sex are a small minority as it is, probably a smaller minority than gay people.
Among my friends there’s an equal proportion of people who would want a serious, lasting commitment before sex in all orientations. I don’t know if you can equate that to marriage, but FWIW I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone (gay, straight or bi) who was saving themselves for marriage, specifically.
One of my close friends is gay and a practicing Hindu. He’s waiting to have intercourse until marriage or a civil union - but he’s not above doing everything else. It’s often A Problem when he’s dating guys, apparently - but it comes up in month 3 or 4. But definitely not on the second date - very few of my gay friends have had sex on the second date. But on the whole very few of any of my friends have had sex on the second date, so I probably run with a slow crowd.
I don’t think he’d be “waiting” if he weren’t religious.
My roommate is gay and dating and often bemoans how the gay dating scene is so rife with casual sex- he’s a romantic, he’d like to wine and dine and be wined and dined and hold hands and cuddle and walk on the beach, etc., and is becoming frustrated with the tendency of the men he dates to want to jump right in the sack.
My response… kiddo, that ain’t just the gay men, that’s MOST men! 
I can’t speak for all gay guys, but I personally wouldn’t consider being in a long term relationship without a test drive in the sack.
I was basically going to comment that the majority of my gay friends are pretty quick to jump in the sack… but then I realized the majority of my straight friends are too. I think you could describe most of the general population as ‘‘pretty much expecting’’ premarital sex.
So how did that cracker taste?
Technically, isn’t it supposed to be an oatmeal cookie?