Ricky wrote:There is no such thing as "the gay lifestyle".
In one sense, that's true. But the term has been used for community activities in areas where gay people participated, as in San Francisco in the 1970s or Berlin in the 1920s or Paris in the century before that.
It was the freedom to act without the legal and cultural restraints that prevented such activity elsewhere.
The "gay lifestyle" in San Francisco included bath houses and drag shows and parades and such.
When such constraints disappear, so does the lifestyle, except that some gay people prefer to socialize with other gay people, particularly in situations where sex is likely to happen. I don't know if you could call it a "lifestyle," though.
"Gay Lifestyle" is a rather freighted political term, brought into circulation by gay rights opponents to argue against the idea of homosexuality as something intrinsic to the person. This is generally recognized in the gay community - consider the tag line: "It's not a lifestyle, it's a life."
This from GLAAD, who have retreated into an acronym for what used to be something like Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation:
Lifestyle
(see Terms to Avoid) Inaccurate term used by anti-LGBTQ activists to denigrate LGBTQ people and inaccurately imply that being LGBTQ is a voluntary or a choice. As there is no one straight lifestyle, there is no one LGBTQ lifestyle.
This from GLAAD, who have retreated into an acronym for what used to be something like Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation:Lifestyle(see Terms to Avoid) Inaccurate term used by anti-LGBTQ activists to denigrate LGBTQ people and inaccurately imply that being LGBTQ is a voluntary or a choice. As there is no one straight lifestyle, there is no one LGBTQ lifestyle.
Thanks this is worth a review to stay informed at https://www.glaad.org/reference/terms. Here's a new one for me: SOGIESC; acronym for sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, and sex
Question: is the term "gay culture" acceptable? Example: In my old neighborhood, the gay culture helped local theatres and independently owned restaurants to flourish.
A helpful quote - thank you Steve.
My life experience has shifted in recent years and now my sweetie and I live full time in a nude community, where there tends to be a large percentage of folks who do not conform to many of the commonly-quoted societal rules, and specifically concerning sexuality, since that is the topic at hand. The perception that homosexuals having a greater variety of sexual partners probably comes from leftover stigma attached to what used to be considered aberrant behavior, as opposed to what it is -- the following of one's innate desires. Being openly bi or gay in some areas of the world is still illegal and can bring the death penalty in some countries. I feel as thought modern thinkers now (thankfully) ignore the perception of promiscuity inside the LGBTQ+ community, and I'll venture this school of thought is even more prevalent inside the 'counter-culture' at nudist and naturist locales.
Behind closed doors (and on the internet), I'm know some backward thinkers still titter away about the loose morals of 'them homos', but then I live in circles where that's not going to be tolerated in open conversation and has no place in private ones. Some of the religiously-devout search their sacred texts for words which in translation support these out-of-touch beliefs. Some may even suggest a gay/bi person can be re-programmed to be straight! Good fucking riddance to that ridiculous falsehood - if I live to see its end.
To give a stir to the cauldron of discussion (mostly put to rest in the majority of minds here) that there is 'choice' involved in homosexuality and its brothers & sisters of sexual identity: If one uses the letter Q when describing one's self, I've read it can stand for Questioning or Queer somewhat interchangeably. Correction requested if I'm not up-to-date on these facts, but with some of my tentative research saying that Q was begun to be used in this salad of letters concerning identifiers by the alternative sexuality community around 1996, either word does work.
'Questioning' can reference a person who is in flux about this utterly personal point of view, meaning that at the root of using the letter Q for themselves, there is choice, this fact regardless of whether they will ever make it. And there's not a damned thing wrong with that lack of choosing - it is theirs to make - or to not make. Nevertheless, it is by definition something being internally- (and sometimes eternally-) questioned by the individual, and as such, there is preference involved.
Further, it is everyone's choice whether they care to share their life's direction with regard to their sexuality and how it may interact with other people. There's where I think many get confused on the use of the word 'choice'. No one need know who you find sexually-appealing, and not knowing that aspect of a person's psyche when a conversation is struck up can keep that discussion quite edgy and entertaining (and possibly confusing as well). Who the heck cares if you are looking for a partner until you decide to bring it up? It could be that you never talk to anyone who you don't have the intention of trying to bed. Know that some of us are not interested in your pursuit of a life full of lovemaking or orgasms for pleasure, or whether you even find any pleasure in using your sexual organs for anything other than the expulsion of urine. Try to look inside the body and mind instead of only seeing the viewable parts; you might be surprised at what can come from deeper than that external view.
Question: is the term "gay culture" acceptable? Example: In my old neighborhood, the gay culture helped local theatres and independently owned restaurants to flourish.
Yes, it is (says he who is for the moment pretending to speak for All Gay-dom). Even though it's a near-synonym, these things do carry their history with them, and "gay culture" came out of the gay movement itself, as part of an effort to reclaim / recreate a collective identity and history. It can fairly be said that there isn't one monolithic "gay culture" either, but culture is a very broad thing, gathering bits and pieces as it goes, and can serve as a resource and backdrop for many very different sorts of lives.
But when you are fully bi male and you share your weekly conquests of men as a man, and you call that bi sex, that's ridiculous. There is no woman there. No matter how many women you slept with before the man, the mansex is still gay sex. .
If I were ever going to "kiss and tell", I just call it sex. I can clarify if necessary by adding "with a man" if the person I was talking to didn't already know who I was with.
I always thought that the sexuality identifiers, (gay, bi, queer, straight) only described the person's sexuality, not the sex act. Generally you'd assume a straight person would have sex with someone of the opposite. But not always. A gay with another of the same sex, but not always. And a bisexual to have sex with either or both. Isn't a blow job always a blow job?
I've seen this a staggering number of times now, so I am writing a little post about it. When you are bisexual, it means that you are attracted on some level to both men and women. When you are in a relationship of any kind that is heterogeneous, that is a heterosexual relationship in which one person is str8 or bi, and the other is bi. If you are in a homogenous relationship of any kind, that is a homosexual relationship. One Gay man and one bi man are not having bi sex. It's gay sex. It may seem piddling, but we already have bi-curious, thinking about bi-curious, in the condo next to the train to I can't believe it's not bi-curious, all of which seek to help the user avoid the stigma of dude on dude sex. That's a luxury and one that I don't begrudge folks.But when you are fully bi male and you share your weekly conquests of men as a man, and you call that bi sex, that's ridiculous. There is no woman there. No matter how many women you slept with before the man, the mansex is still gay sex. Have the cojones to support the dudes you had sex with by calling what it is.
I identify as bisexual because it is the least inaccurate description available on these social media sites. At one time, I identified as gay because I was having sex exclusively with men. Over the years, I have come to realize that I am also attracted to women, so I changed my "label" on these websites.
Labeling one's own sexual orientation can serve multiple purposes - to explain to others your sexual orientation; to further the social awareness of rights due to a group; or to help one feel as though they "belong" to a particular group.
However, I think it is problematic to label the sexual orientation of others - or to tell them that the label they have chosen is wrong. For one thing, one person cannot possibly know another's sexual orientation with any degree of certainty (as far as I know, Vulcan mind melds are fictional). For another, it is simply rude to force a label on others or tell them that they label they have chosen is wrong.
Instead of forcing labels upon others or judging them for the labels they have chosen to describe themselves, I suggest we might encourage people to explore their own sexuality, and to be honest with themselves. It's not necessary that they disclose those contemplations to the rest of us, but it is important that they discover who they are and what they like.
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