The Guide to Getting It On (159 page)

Different Takes on Male Cruising

In case you grew up under a shrub and never heard about cruising, it’s where men who enjoy having sex with other men hook up on the spur of the moment to have anonymous sex. Words or names are seldom exchanged. You give or get a quick glance of approval, and one guy’s dick is out and the other is on his knees or is grabbing his ankles faster than either man can say, “Thank you, Grindr!” The Internet has replaced the trailhead, with meeting locations decided online.

A lot of straight people shake their heads and say, “Gay thing.” But what percent of straight males would suddenly cruise for sex if straight women started dropping their panties for all comers? It would be just as high as the percent of gay guys who do it now. In fact, during the 1800s when the brothel was an extension of the American bedroom, the only thing that kept most single men from having sex with different women each night was how much money they could afford to spend.

“Ah,” you say, “that’s just proof that all males are pigs, straight or gay.”

Well hold your horses.

In our totally unscientific sex survey for the website of this book, we have been asking women a big “what if” question—what if they never had to worry about being pregnant, catching an STI, or being called a slut? Would they be doing sex differently than they are today?

Of the women under age 24 who are in exciting new relationships, the answer is pretty much, “No—well, maybe a little, but I’m pretty satisfied.” That’s to be expected at the start of anything new that is sexual. But half of the women who have taken the survey say they would be having more sex with more men if they didn’t need to worry about the things that women need to worry about.

So if you take away the danger of pregnancy, STIs needing to parent kids, and we stop calling women whores for having the same amount of sex that men have, we would not continue to see a big difference between the sexual habits of gay men who cruise and straight men and women.

With the coming of birth control for men and vaccines against STIs in the next two decades, all bets are off.

There are plenty of people who hold the heterosexual model of marriage as an ideal, and the gay model of cruising as an aberration. However, with a divorce rate approaching 50%, and with a large percentage of married couples staying together just for the kids, some people wonder whether the straight model of monogamy is all it’s cracked up to be. And some experts, such as college professor Ralph Bolton, say that while plenty of gay men are monogamous, others find it rewarding and fulfilling to cruise and have multiple partners. He believes that cruising can have as much intimacy and closeness for some gay men as sex in monogamous relationships does for straights.

Straight Male Friends Can Be Important

Contrary to what some heterosexuals fear, the last thing most gay men want is to have sex with a straight guy. While there are exceptions, most gay men would be bored by the concept. And if you are a straight guy who gets hit up by other men for sex, it’s quite easy to say, “Sorry, but I’m one of those boring straights.” If the person is really thick and persists, you might say, “Again, no thanks, but let me describe for you how much I love licking a woman’s pussy, and what it looks and feels like.” If that doesn’t gag the guy on the spot, be careful. He’s probably an undercover cop.

Also keep in mind that there are lots of reasons why some gay men value their friendships with straight men. With straight men they are only friends and not potential sex partners, and they can have conversations about things like baseball scores and new car tires without the added postscript of who got the plague or who went home with whom after working out at the gym. Their straight male friends aren’t invested in the sometimes vicious politics of the local gay scene. And the stereotype that all gay guys are fems is destructive. There are plenty of gay men who are every bit as masculine as straight men and who desire their company.

As for which sexual orientation is of concern, the vast majority of serious crimes in this country—from violent attacks, rape and child molestation to bank fraud and illegal drug importation—are committed by heterosexual males. People who are homophobic ought to think about that one.

Life As a Lesbian, As If We Had a Clue...

Gay men and women are often grouped together because they are both homosexual. This is like assuming Germans and French are alike because they share a common border. The real question that should be asked about gay men and lesbians is if there are any two groups on the planet who are more dissimilar—aside from the homophobia they receive from straights?

Even their statistics are dissimilar: while the majority of gay males in this country will have sex with dozens of different partners in a lifetime, the average gay woman has sex with a lifetime total of two to ten partners. And while less than 20% of gay males have had sex with a woman, more than 80% of gay women have slept with a man. Setting a stereotype for gay women is not possible, says sex researcher Ira Reiss. While common personality traits have been found among gay males, Reiss has found few among gay women.

Lipstick Lesbians & Dykes

People sometimes think that all lesbians ride on Harleys. This Guide is willing to bet its left foot that there were almost as many lesbians entered in beauty pageants last year as were on the women’s professional-golf tour. A number of hot-looking actresses and models are lesbians.

Equally off-base is the notion that gay women make love in a delicate or particularly poetic way. Women who love women get it on with as much passion (or lack of it) as women who have sex with men.

Beyond Brown & Yale

In the past, women who preferred women still dated and married men. Women who had lousy experiences with their fathers often replaced them with equally difficult boyfriends or husbands. It was usually expected that women remain in heterosexual relationships even if they preferred being with women. There are at least five reasons why this is not necessarily the case anymore:

1. Mothers used to teach their daughters that it was hugely important to marry a man and have his children. This is not as true as it used to be. 2. Appealing lesbian role models used to be few and far between. There now exists a group of very appealing, successful, high-profile lesbian role models in sports, business, rock ‘n’ roll, and entertainment. 3. It is now acceptable for lesbian couples to have children by artificial insemination, spawning a whole new market for turkey basters and adoption in most states. 4. College women have sex with women at schools other than just Brown and Yale. 5. Straight women get no respect at WPGA golf tournaments.

Mistaken Identity?

Women in our society can hug, hold hands or dance together, and it is not considered a sign of same-sex attraction. As a result, they can have sexual feelings for women without acknowledging them as that. The following statements from two different women help describe how this lack of labeling can impact the ways that women think about their same-sex attraction:

“I never thought of homosexual as relating to women, only to men....” and “Our sexual relationship we kept to ourselves, and I was more excited about it than anything else. I thought it was just a delicious secret. And at the same time I had a mad crush on a guy.” —From Women’s Sexual Development, edited by Martha Kirkpatrick, (New York: International Universities Press)

Superb Resource:
No one in America who is exploring romantic attraction between women should be without Lillian Faderman’s
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers : A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America,
Penguin. This gem provides a historical background that people today have little sense of. Anyone, gay, straight or lesbian, will learn from this book.

Dear Paul,

I am 17 and am on my high-school football team. I’m also gay. Nobody knows about it. It feels like I’m living a lie. I know that my dad would explode if I came out, and when someone isn’t giving 100% on the football field, Coach calls him a fag. What do I do? —Mark in Atlanta

Dear Mark,

One of the books that is most often stolen from libraries is Dan Woog’s
Jocks.
Jocks
contains real stories from young athletes who struggled with exactly the same questions you are. Plenty of guys your age want to read it, but are afraid of being found out if they officially check it out.

Let’s break your question down into two parts—the dad part, and the coach part. A lot of the street kids who I used to work with had been kicked out of their homes for being gay. Trust me, you don’t want to ever live on the streets. So the first thing I encourage you to do is to stop worrying about “living a lie.” There’s plenty of time to come out later and to do so on your own terms. For now, consider where you would live if your dad kicked you out. If you don’t have a safe place to go, forget any coming out for the time being.

Then there are your coach and teammates. Yes, there are stories of gay high school athletes who are supported by their team. But here’s my guess—there aren’t many and they aren’t in football unless they are all-league quarterbacks or they are their team’s only chance of making it to the finals. When it comes to protecting star athletes, coaches and teammates have an amazing way of convincing themselves of just about anything—the operative words being “star athletes.”

On the other hand, I recently heard from a university sex-ed teacher that one of the assignments he gave his class of mostly straight students was to write a coming-out letter to their family and friends. This was just an exercise that they were supposed to hand in to him. A few months later, one of the students who was an athlete called him to tell him that his computer had a virus, and that random files had been sent to people in his address book. The “coming out” letter he had written for the class was one of the files that had been sent out.

He found out when he started receiving phone calls from his family members and friends telling him that they loved him and that they were there to support him. What surprised him the most was how supportive and loving they all were! So it could be that if you don’t come out, you will be cheating your family, coaches and fellow players from the chance of rising above it all. You will also be cheating them of the opportunity to defend you as opposing players try to “spear the queer.” So if you absolutely must come out while still in high school, why not wait until track season?

I hope that this is changing, and there are plenty of indications that it is. But I’m also aware that many guys, especially those your age, still define their masculinity by how un-queer they think they are.