First published at 365gay.com on April 8, 2011
This column is about anal sex. So if you don’t like reading about such things, stop reading now.
Many years ago I lived next door to a young born-again-Christian rock singer. (He probably would dislike reading about anal sex. Glad you’re still here, though.) While Jason strongly disapproved of my gayness, he was also fascinated by it, and he constantly asked me questions.
One day I revealed to him that I had never had anal sex. His face brightened. “That’s awesome!” he shouted.
“Why, pray tell, is it awesome?” I asked.
“Because maybe you’ll try it, and then realize you don’t like it, and then you won’t be gay.”
For Jason, being gay meant liking anal sex. He found it odd that the equation had never occurred to me.
For me, being gay means that I like GUYS. It means that I LIKE guys—I have crushes on them, I fall in love with them, I want to “get physical” with them. It doesn’t specify how I should do this.
I might not find Jason’s view so troubling if its prevalence were limited to born-again-Christian rock singers, or others with presumably “sheltered” backgrounds. But over the years I’ve met plenty of gay men who insist that anal sex is the only “real” gay sex, and that preference for other kinds betrays prudishness or neurosis or worse.
This insistence is just dumb. Either that, or it’s an obnoxious way of pressuring sexual partners into acts they don’t want. (“But baby, if you liked me, you’d be willing to do the real thing.”) Here’s a familiar conversation from my younger single days:
Interested Guy: “Are you a top or a bottom?”
Me: “No.”
Interested Guy: “What do you mean, ‘No’?”
Me: “I mean I’m neither a top nor a bottom.”
Somewhat Less Interested Guy: “That means you’re a bottom.”
What—so “bottom” is the default setting now? As one friend told me: “If he says he’s a top, he’s versatile. If he says he’s versatile, he’s a bottom. If he says he’s a bottom, he’s honest.”
Let me be clear: I’m not trying to discourage people from trying new things—quite the opposite. And I don’t doubt that some people have hang-ups about anal sex as a result of heterosexist brainwashing.
But surely it’s possible for a gay man simply not to like anal sex—either topping or bottoming—as a matter of personal preference, without thereby being “less gay” as a result.
Indeed, if anything smacks of heterosexist brainwashing, it’s the view that anal sex is the only “real” gay sex. For that view is premised on the idea that in order for sex to be “real,” a man needs to be putting his penis in some orifice below the waist.
On this view, oral sex—or mutual masturbation or frottage (look it up)—become “mere foreplay,” the sort of thing one might do with a teenaged girlfriend or a White House intern without overly threatening anyone’s sense of chastity.
Calling such practices “foreplay” suggests that they have to lead to something else—“real” sex—rather than being satisfactory in themselves for some people. It also implies, oddly, that most (all?) lesbian sex isn’t “real.”
I’ll say it again: this is just dumb.
If you want to make a baby sexually, then it’s important to put a penis into some orifice below the waist—specifically, a vagina.
But if you’re not having sex to make babies, then you should do what’s mutually satisfying to you and your partner (within safe guidelines).
If that’s anal sex, great. If that’s oral sex, great. If it’s dressing in furry costumes and chasing each other around the bedroom, awesome. Knock yourselves out.
Or maybe you just want to kiss and cuddle and “spoon.” That’s fine too.
Just make your preferences clear, be attentive to your partner’s preferences, and be safe.
Opponents of gay equality do more than enough to denigrate our sexual practices. The last thing we need is to impose hierarchies amongst ourselves about which sex acts count as “real.”