After reading chaoticdonkey’s post in another thread, it did occur to me that a lot of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex and associated threads were cropping up. This is an attempt to maybe reduce some of the clutter and provide a free-for-all zone for the asking and answering of questions revolving around queer-related subjects. I don’t know whether the concept will pan out but here are the guidelines I’d like to follow:
Keep things respectful. This thread is about fighting ignorance of each other and, as such, we should approach all questions as attempts to understand what can often be complicated and difficult issues. If the flaming begins I will ask a Moderator to shut the thread down for me.
For the sake of tidiness, please do not quote the entirety of someone else’s post before answering. Simply put their name in bold at the top of the post and use quotes only when necessary to make points.
Those two rules laid down, let’s see how things work. Who has the first question or comment?
Roger, Roger. While certainly based on the past work of our Fearless Queerer, I’d like to make a fresh start even if it means repeating old questions. Old questions lead to new answers.
Y’know that’s a tough question for me, not because there aren’t any good things but because I’ve found so many.
My friends - I’ve got close friends who I trust implicitly from before I came out (a point I wanted to make clear) but I’ve found so many of that quality in the queer community that I probably never would’ve even met otherwise. Honestly, I do believe this to be tied in with queer identity because we tend to lean harder on our support network over time due to some of the stresses dealing with society. I don’t believe this is exclusive to us, but I do feel our situation makes it more likely.
Challenging my own assumptions - Not so long ago I was a good Catholic boy who didn’t ever question his faith, his politics or his path in life. The coming out process has forced me to become much more self-evaluative, thinking hard about what I really believe and what I really want. I’m not sure I would’ve come to such a point quite so soon otherwise and it’s a trick I really needed.
The chance to love as I want - This is perhaps linked into my second point. I’ve been given the opportunity to realize that love does not follow one track on shiny rails from boyfriend/girlfriend to fiance to married to popping out babies. I can find my own way, create a path that suits the relationship I’m in rather than the relationship society feels I should be in.
In short, I feel it has made me stronger, more thoughtful, more passionate and (ironically enough) more spiritual than I’ve ever felt before. At times it has been a burden, but one I wouldn’t trade for the world.
Being able to be intimate with someone I’m physically attracted to. No more, no less.
(Coming out has forced me to be more open-minded about a lot of stuff that I formerly took a knee-jerk gut reaction to, but I like to think that’s not a result of my being gayer but a result of my being smarter.)
Continuing in what appears to be headed for a lifetime theme (“I’m not gay but I’m in that crowd and it ain’t for the mood lighting and ambience”), I’ll take a shot at it. The best thing about my sexuality is how it challenges people (me, my family, whatever) to think through things more thoroughly. The whole sex/attraction thing is nice sometimes (incredibly annoying sometimes, too. “Damnit, you’re hot but you’re oh so totally unavailable!” … happens to people regardless of gender) but frustrating as well. A’course, the challenge aspect of it can be trying.
Damn straight. Y’all are incredibly important: there’s only so many people out there who are likely to be the GLBT part of the acronym, but many many more can be A. It is always a good thing to meet someone who is an ally.
I would define homosexual sex as any sexual act between members of the same gender. Gay sex is not about what is being done (that ranges as much a gamut as straight sex) but who is doing it. Some gay men don’t particularly enjoy oral sex. I’m sure some lesbians don’t really enjoy cunnilingus. We’re all individuals with individual things that get our engines going or just leave us cold.
For me certainly I’m not rip-roaring enthused about anal sex for various reasons, not least the sheer amount of trust involved on both ends. More than even vaginal sex, you can really hurt someone else if you have a mind to. As much pleasure as I’m sure it brings when done right, so it can bring discomfort and pain if done without concern for the other. With the correct person, someone I feel like I could drop all my walls in front of, I’m sure it will happen eventually but probably not very often nor as some sort of “be all, end all” for the sexual repertoire.
Since I’ve already done one “taboo”/cliche, how about another? Promiscuity. Or at least my take on it.
Homosexual men go out of their way to stress their relationship (singular) with their loved one (singular), who they may want to marry (monogamy). This has become the default way for intelligent homosexuals to present themselves.
And yet homosexuality is still - by accounts of gays here on SDMB - rife with promiscuity.
What is the relationship between homosexuality and multiple partners? Does this reflect on the insecurity of many gays, or on their immaturity?
Is it in the best interests of homosexuals to pursue the current PR offensive re singularity, or will this ultimately backfire, revealed as a sop to the societal norms that radical homosexuals despise?
roger: well this is really going to depend on the person and the area.
My take? A lot of men (gay men included) tend to go through wilder days when they’re young and not really looking to settle down. The difference is society frowns upon straight men keeping this up as they go along in years. You’re slowly expected to start settling down with some nice woman and pop out some kids. Gay men don’t get this sort of nudge, for good and ill. Indeed, some religious affiliations actively discourage two men from settling down with each other since two men making a life together causes a certain amount of discomfort in the worldview of those who would simply like to view us as one dimensional caricatures.
The result would be an overall increase in the tendency to promiscuity. However, with only anecdotal evidence to back me up here, even those gay men who are sleeping around still often want that one great love. They still want to commit to someone. Some are polyamorous, as are some straight relationships, but still they want that commitment to be there regardless of whether it encompass two or five people. One night stands are not the penultimate goal for the majority of us want our lives to be.
Here I would note that the above answer covers only gay men. Lesbians are, statistically, a whole other kettle of fish in this area. Studies of varying quality have shown that lesbian relationships are actually more prone to commitment and stability than both straight and gay male relationships. Please note that commitment and stability do not always = healthy, just as lack thereof does not always = unhealthy, but it should be considered in its own category.
An afterthought, based on my knowledge of a lesbian couple, one of whom was previouisly married (to a man), and the other of whom was unmarried and a longer-term (out) lesbian. They split - after more than ten years together - and the formerly married one wanted to return to her ex husband.
Any suggestion (one might say evidence, but I eschew that word as so much of the studies in the social sciences are crap) that a lesbian orientation is more reversible than a male homosexual’s? (I’m not referring to bisexuality.)
Does Anne Heche have any counterparts in the male world? (However bogus you might consider her to be - much needs to be taken on trust in the realm of sexuality.)
There is some amount of evidence indicating that female sexuality, while still quite outside the individual’s control or whim, seems to have more fluidity built in. This means that a woman who truly identifies herself as straight may one day find herself attracted to a woman or to women in general. So also it can go for some lesbians. Remember however: this is noted solely as a generality. Plenty of lesbians have very fixed attraction to other women and negligible attraction towards men. It would seem that, were sexuality laid out on a scale, the data points for women would either be a shallow inverted bell curve or shift around somewhat over time.
In men the sexual orientation seems much more fixed and extreme. Thus it would remain an inverse bell curve, but the sides would be much steeper with very little movement over time. I suppose I’d be one of those few shifting data points, but the experience of the men I know seems to bear out the overall trend.
Regardless, though, it does not seem that whatever mechanism causes sexuality of one kind or another is currently affectable by external impulses or internal conscious decisions. This means that while sexuality may be mutable over time in some, it is not currently within our toolset to modify sexuality in anyone.
