Whats the thing you fucking hate about being gay?

[DEVELISH]

Steve - I guess you got it -except I was not just sexually attracted to that very person... but I cam to the "screw him" conclusion. Actually I felt better yesterday after ventilating my feelings.

DEVELISH

[abostonboy]

Be careful on what you say and how you say it! The last Texan on GWW that made posts like that ended up in prison in Canada.

shhhhh.... that may be a good thing...

[abostonboy]

My friend's mom told me once that she worked with a lady who came to her and said she was concerned that her son was getting involved with a religious cult and what should she do. So my friend's mom asked her if she knew the name of the cult or anything about them. The woman replied that they were called Buddists. LOL!!!

LOL!

My Mom says the same thing. She thinks I am in a cult....

[abostonboy]

Personally I have no problems at all being gay, I love being gay and and am so greatful for this life. I look at the lives of 90% of straight people and think my God, how fucking boring!!! We have it so good in so many ways, a few examples:

1. We get to fucked and be fucked, so get the best of both worlds.
2. We have a much easier time getting laid then our straight counterparts.
3. We don't have to be so tied down doing the whole 'marriage and children' thing.
4. We know how to party, dress, and of course have fun!!!

I do agree with Boston Boy however that being 'gay' is just a sexual behaviour, but I don't think of myself as 'a gay.' I am a person and should be judged as a person first, unless you want to sleep with me then it's okay to cruise me first and ask questions later.

Danny in my book you are just a sweetheart. And I mean that.

[abostonboy]

I do agree with Boston Boy however that being 'gay' is just a sexual behaviour, but I don't think of myself as 'a gay.' I am a person and should be judged as a person first, unless you want to sleep with me then it's okay to cruise me first and ask questions later.

Actually there is another term that may apply to you. As far as the sleeping part, I wish I was Asian. There are some lucky boys in Thailand....

[desslock]

Steve - I guess you got it -except I was not just sexually attracted to that very person... but I cam to the "screw him" conclusion. Actually I felt better yesterday after ventilating my feelings.
DEVELISH

I'm glad to hear that! Here's something else I've frequently observed:

Before the point in time your prospect rejects you:
He's Mr. Wonderful

After the point in time your prospect rejects you:
He's the Wicked Witch of the West.

Oh what a world.... what a world....
Steve

[Squirt]

Yes, many people are insincere. But also people are simply just "people" and do not necessarily handle human communications according to a strict protocol.

Communications is a two way street. If I am seeking to get serious with someone, and they aren't interested, should I press my case until they adamently and firmly articulate a verbal rejection? Why not just read the tea leaves? If you can tell that you aren't getting buying signals, then the fish aren't biting.

That was the point of my previous post.

Straight or Gay you will be just as miserable because men and women give the brush off for many different reasons. There is a LONG list of good reasons why someone would want to keep you on hand without burning a bridge.

Take it as a compliment they aren't giving you a solid no. Taking rejection personally leads to self-doubt and insecurity, a path where you run around in circles trying to change aspects of yourself to avoid future rejection by others.

If you don't find yourself surrounded by quality people then volunteer or go to a Gay center and join some groups that match your interest or volunteer at a local Gay center. Surround yourself with people you have something in common with OTHER then just your sexuality. Enriching your life is difficult and never ending but once you start to do it you feel better and better about the world around you :vanish:

[DonMike]

One thing that goes for both gay and straight people is that meeting people on the internet sucks. If I respond to someone's profile and get back a one or two word answer and no responding question, I take it as they are not interested in move on. And if someone sends me a message and I'm not interested I'll simply say "thank you" and leave it at that. If they pester me, I'll go so far as to say I'm not interested.

I recently got this message from a guy in KY who keeps telling me how beautiful I am and how he can't wait for us to be together. I keep telling him, "you don't even know me". It's a big ego boost for someone to keep telling me that, but it's also kind of creepy. There's a sort of false intimacy on the net where people see a pic they like and they build up in their minds what this other person is about. I'd be lying if I said I've never done that before.

[XXXWriterDude]

Gee, let's see... which of the MYRIAD of problems I have with the gay community should I start with?

I've spent a LOT of time thinking about these things (I am, after all, a writer who covers social topics and issues that are important and relevant to the gay community), and these are some of the conclusions I've made.

1) MENTALLY UNBALANCED FREAKS -- MaxPower said it dead-on when he said that gay men are unstable. There is a HUGE percentage of gay men who simply are not evolved enough. Unfortunately, b/cuz so much of our early development is spent denying who we are to our friends and family, we learn to build far too many walls to self-protect, and many of us carry that baggage around with us into adulthood. This can be expressed in a number of ways.

2) SHAME ABOUT SEX -- One thing this community has is a very obvious love/hate relationship with is sex. I think so many of us have internalized shame from homophobia that we have yet to develop a truly healthy relationship with our sexuality. Sex is JUST sex, and if anyone should be able to understand that, it should be the gay community. But there is so much guilt surrounding our sexuality, it leads us to do stupid things. For instance, many gay guys say they would never have a relationship with someone they met for a one-nighter from the Internet, or if they picked the guy up in a bathhouse--as if there is something "wrong" with that person (or more, accurately, yourself) for being there. This is stupid. First of all, there's no reason to discriminate against anyone you met in one of those places--especially b'cuz you're there yourself.

This same shame also leads many gay men to judge anyone else who does not conform to their same values and ethics--especially (as was pointed out earlier in another post) when it comes to the idea of open relationships, which can be very fulfilling, very "committed," very healthy relationships. Monogamy is a social construction INVENTED by the church to instill shame in anyone who does not conform to the idea that you're supposed to participate in a sexually exclusive relationship. Where you stick your dick has NOTHING to do with how you feel about your partner. True love is defined by far more important things than sex. Jealousy and insecurity are two feelings that are brought on by shame and guilt. If you want to be in an exclusive relationship because it makes YOU feel closer to your partner, that's fine, but there's no reason to pass judment on others who are are more in touch with their liberated sides.

3) SHAME ABOUT OURSELVES/INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA -- Too many gay men are still in the closet today, and it's such a sad fact of life. It's just so hard to have respect for anybody who doesn't have enough respect for themselves to be honest with those in their lives about who they are. There are certainly exceptions to this--I can see why some would choose not to disclose their sexuality in certain work environments, for instance--but if you're 45 and you still haven't told your friends and your family that you are gay, I'm sorry, but it's time to develop a backbone and seek some professional help. I can't imagine my parents dying without ever having known who their son really was. Any relationship build upon secrets such as this one is, in the end, built upon a lie. And if you tell yourself that "my sexuality is not who I am," then you're simply in denial and basically ashamed of who you are. That's not judgment. I'm not saying anyone is "bad" or "evil" for being this way, but it definitely triggers a red flag in my book that you have some kind of issues with who you are.

I'm also annoyed by the guys who go around saying things like "I would never date a guy who liked 'gay' things like Judy Garland, Madonna and Barbra Streisand, or show tunes." Please, get the fuck over yourselves. You're not that butch, and obviously, you have major problems with being gay.

4) UNHEALTHY BODY IMAGE/OBSESSION WITH SUPERFICIALITY -- Yes, it's true: Gay men are known for their love of beauty and superficiality. This is no more prevalant than in our gym culture, which has more than anything, become a manifestation of our shame and embarrassment at having been picked on in school by the jocks and athletes. Now WE'VE turned into those very bullies by becoming body facsists who look down at anyone who doesn't spend at least 4 days in the gym. (How many times have you seen phrases like "I work hard on my body to look good; you should too" in online profiles?) (I'm also annoyed by gay guys' obsession with BIG -- big dicks, big pecs, big shoulders, big feet -- to the point of excluding all other types of guys.)

The other side of this coin is that so many of us fantasized about sleeping with those STRAIGHT jocks and athletes who bullied us that we think by pumping up and being muscular that we will finally be as good as they were--even though they were mostly pricks. This leads me to my other major problem with the gay community...

5) UNHEALTHY FIXATION ON STRAIGHT GUYS & OTHER EMOTIONALLY UNAVAILABLE MEN -- What's up with so many of us wanting the "bad boys" and the hetero dudes? No, seriously, what's up with this? How many times has a flirtation died just b/cuz you suddenly expressed some kind of excitement about the other person? Suddenly, you're deemed to be "needy" and "clingy" or (the worst) "too nice" when you just thought you were being in the moment. But it's not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong. It was the other freak who can't handle the fact that you're not ignoring him that has the problem. I just see far too many guys going after other guys who express NO interest in them--as if THAT is the turn-on. ("He has contempt for me, or wants nothing to do with me; THAT's hot!") To me, it just announces that you feel so unworthy of ever finding happiness that you chase after guys who will never give you anything but fleeting moments of sexual euphoria.

Trust me, I could go on forever... but these are issues that are specific to our community, that come out of homophobia and our culture's idea of what gay is, and I think they are very pressing issues that need to be addressed.

Just my $.02 worth.

[XXXWriterDude]

abostonboy, I totally respect where you are coming from and you have made a well placed argument for why you do not want to be given a label.

There are many guys out there who have never really dealt with being gay who often use that same argument, but where abostonboy has very good reasons for feeling the way he does, I have heard people use that same phrase "do not label me" as a way to hide thier homosexuality and that makes me really sad.

I am a gay man. I'm happy to be a gay man. I am a man who enjoys sex with men. I've never had a sexual thought about a woman, but if the opportunity arose and I was given the chance to bed a woman I found attractive I would. I would allow a woman to tie me up and flog me and all those other fun kinky things if we had the right connection and energy. But that does not make me straight any more than a straight guy giving or getting a blowjob from a gay friend suddenly becomes gay.

I embrace every aspect of gay society. I have a great love for the femme guys and sissies, the butch dykes, the drag queens, the leather men who are hypermasculine and the leathermen who are more femme than the drag queens, the twinks that are genuinely sweet and the twinks who are full of themselves because they have youth and beauty on their side, the great elders of our community who have a lot to teach us and the bitter old queens who despise the world they no longer feel a part of, the nice people and the jerks, we all have something to contribute to this world. I think it is a great tragedy when I hear someone say "I hate femmy guys" or "drag queens shouldn't be allowed to march in the parade because they make us look bad" and other things like that. The reason the rainbow flag is our symbol because it is there to celebrate diversity. Each of us is a different color and combination of colors. Without the others there is no flag. Without the drag queens we would not have the civil rights we do today. Without the gay republicans we might be a lot worse off in the current administration than we are now. Each of us has something to offer, don't forget that.

BRAVO, Don! This is the point I was trying to make in my other post. It's really time for us to say things like "Not all gay men do hair or flowers; some of us are more butch than straight men." You know what? The world knows that by now. It does. There have been enough representations of butch gay guys in the movies and on TV that those stereotypes have basically been shattered. In fact, I hear gay men saying things like this far more often than I do straight people, which points to our own struggles with internalized homophobia more than it does to the hetero community's perception of who we are.

[XXXWriterDude]

Just have to add:

The notion that we distance ourselves from labels like "gay" and "straight" comes from what we perceive to be society's perception of what those labels imply.

"Gay" really only means that you sleep with a member of the same sex. "Bi" means you sleep with both. "Straight" means you sleep with members of the opposite sex. It's really as simple as that. There can be crossover; everyone can have moments where they experiment, but claiming a sense of sexual identity is a very positive thing for most people, ESPECIALLY for the gay community.

It's up to you however, to define what being "gay" means to you. You just have to be proud of who you are and not let anybody else's ideas of who you are matter to you. It's about having the courage to live your life without the fear of being judged. It's about confidence. It's also about pride.

Have enough pride to be honest about who you are, but don't let anybody else box you into a corner. Be gay, but be your own kind of gay.

I don't give a shit what my str8 friends think being gay means. I know what it means to me, and THAT'S all that matters.

That applies to all areas of life, by the way. Live by your own rules, not the rules of others.

[Bec]

Once I figured out I wanted to be with other women - it was like someone took off the blinders and all the missing puzzle pieces fell into place. I can't say being a lesbian has things about me or my lifestyle that I hate.

What I hate is being a "second class citizen", without most of the basic human rights the straight side of the population takes for granted.

[basschick]

Gee, let's see... which of the MYRIAD of problems I have with the gay community should I start with?

I've spent a LOT of time thinking about these things (I am, after all, a writer who covers social topics and issues that are important and relevant to the gay community), and these are some of the conclusions I've made.

1) MENTALLY UNBALANCED FREAKS

if you want to see mentally unbalanced freaks, try gfy. and most of the people there aren't gay. mentally unbalanced freaks are not by ANY means exclusive to being gay.

2) SHAME ABOUT SEX

shame about sex? try being a woman. a sexually assertive woman is considered by a surprisingly high number of younger men as well as most older men as a slut - on a good day. society for hundreds of years says if you are a good woman, that means you are non-sexual.

and plenty of str8 men i know have horrible issues with sex and guilt.

it's so easy for any group to decide that problems are because of one thing about them, like being gay. reality is that most humans in the same culture share some problems - look at our current government. shame is a BIG part of sex in the u.s.

3) SHAME ABOUT OURSELVES/INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA

i know black people who are ashamed of being black, jews who are ashamed of being jews. my father and his brothers were ashamed of being greek. i'd say better than half the women i know are ashamed of being women. most incest victims are ashamed. shame is not exclusive to any one group or a series of downtrodden groups.

4) UNHEALTHY BODY IMAGE/OBSESSION WITH SUPERFICIALITY

beer is mostly sold by women with bodies that are shown to look even better than those models look - and not many people look like those models to begin with. same with cars. take a look at soap opera stars - soaps are aimed at women, yet almost all the actors are as beautiful - and typical - as studios can make them be.

when i was younger, i was a trophy girlfriend. i had sugar daddies and they really didn't care about whether i was a great person or what made me tick - they cared about taking me to dinner to make their friends feel they were lesser men because their girlfriends weren't as attractive.

and honestly, when you first see someone, all you have to judge by IS how they look.

5) 5) UNHEALTHY FIXATION ON STRAIGHT GUYS & OTHER EMOTIONALLY UNAVAILABLE MEN

gee, women aren't famous for choosing married men, are they? at this moment i know three women in LTRs with married men - all over 3 years - who are NEVER going to leave their wives. and i think soap operas have made it clear this is a situation that is frequent enough to be stereotypical.

i know plenty of gay, bi and str8 men AND women who go for the unavailable or really fucked up ones EvERY time. this is NOT a gay-only or even mostly-gay issue. it makes sense in a society so full of shame to deny or punish yourself through your relationships.

and don't forget, a gay man going for a straight man or a woman going for a str8 woman is trying to conquor as much as anything else. it's the challenge that only an unavailable person can bring that satisfies the hunter/gatherer instinct.

Just my $.02 worth.

just by 2 cents - but i think these issues apply to most people i've met.

[abostonboy]

Actually it was a long post and didn't read it, but just reading everything NOT in bold I tend to agree w/ Bass.

That's just the way it is with pretty much everyone.

[desslock]

Gee, let's see... which of the MYRIAD of problems I have with the gay community should I start with?
3) SHAME ABOUT OURSELVES/INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA
4) UNHEALTHY BODY IMAGE/OBSESSION WITH SUPERFICIALITY
5) UNHEALTHY FIXATION ON STRAIGHT GUYS

I really don't understand why you tie yourself up into knots over people. Basschick is correct in that the problems you see in others who happen to be gay are universal issues. It's interesting that just because you are in a gay context, it becomes a "gay issue"

But here is a good example of one of your knots: you front the complaint "shame about ourselves / internalized homophobia" and several points later you claim "obsession with superficiality/body image". How can someone who is "self loathing" simultaneously be constantly projecting a superficial body image? especially if it is regarding hypersexualizing their ass or cock or dressing like an Andy Warhol doll and going out to dance clubs?

You know - you live in L.A. I've got a potentially shocking secret for you.... you may have to look really really hard, but that area of the country has been criticized as being a tad bit superficial. shocking news, right?

(A simple start: How about the 1990s Paul Mazursky movie Scenes from a Mall? They weren't in the Mall of America in Minnesota... they were in Beverly Hills)

It's as if you moved Las Vegas and became outraged at all the gambling.

And if I might ask, who are you to judge that lusting after straight guys is "unhealthy" ? Once again, break yourself out of GayWorld. People *constantly* crave things they cannot have. It makes them want it more. It's not a gay thing. Volumes of classic literature covers this subject: Sometimes this is waged with reckless abandon, as Captain Ahab did in Moby Dick.... while others get a better handle on distinguishing their goals, wants and needs.

I don't mean to make any of this any kind of personal attack. I just wanted to comment on some of these things you just laid right on out. I guess I am very sensitive to seeing Christian religious conservatives list out problems and issues they see with people, often beginning their sentences with words like "unhealthy" or "shame" .....

I guess we have no problem with people moralizing, they just have to happen to arbitrarily agree with our own particular brand.

-Steve