I’m going to skip over the pleasantries and get right down to business here. Amongst all the post-Prop 8 discussion, we’ve talked about community outreach, minority outreach, showing our faces, our families, getting interfaith dialogue going. One thing I haven’t heard anyone talk about is gay sex.
Wait, what? “Gay sex”? Did someone really just say that? *gasp, pearl clutching*
Yes, I did. In all of this discussion about families and rights and outreach, this entire year I have not heard ANYONE talk about the elephant in the room. Namely, that one of the reasons straight people hate us is because they are grossed out by the idea of gay sex.
But, but, we can’t TALK about gay sex! It’s just not polite! We have to focus on the positive things like our families, our children, our jobs, our civil rights!
Bullshit. I say that we HAVE to talk about gay sex, for the simple reason that a lot of opposition to us comes from that knee-jerk “icky gay sex” factor and gendernormative expectations. It’s not always some Christian Dominionist spouting off verses from Leviticus. Sometimes the opposition isn’t even outwardly religious. Sometimes it’s just plain old misogyny and cultural conditioning about what sex acts and gender roles are acceptable and what aren't. This is yet another societal issue we need to tackle at a personal level. We are struggling against a cultural expectation of how plumbing should define us as people. Like it or not, Christianity’s views of men, women, and gender norms have colored American expectations of gender and sexual behavior. Something so ingrained into a cultural consciousness needs to be confronted before it can be exorcised. So yes, I think we need to talk about “gay sex.” We need a “Get Over the Ick Factor” effort. During the campaign and right after the election, I heard a lot of “Ew, gross, how can two women lick each other and call it sex?” and “Ew, one guy f***ing another in the ass is so nasty!” Let’s face it, these people aren’t upset by civil rights or some abstract concept of equality under the law. They’re freaked out about sex. They obsess over it. (I blame the patriarchy.) These people are weirded out by the myriad ways in which people achieve orgasm. Their issues and the subsequent lies they tell about us are all rooted in a cultural expectation of how sex and gender roles should play out.
Thus, I propose that we all get down to talking about gay sex and gender norms. People are afraid of what they don’t understand, and they shy away from anything that isn’t part of their bubble. We won’t change hearts and minds until we permeate those bubbles and make gay sex acts relative to hetero sex acts. Make it not so scary, so taboo, so icky! It’s just sex! I challenge everyone here to make a point of talking about sex and gender roles, to confront cultural norms. Expose the hypocrisy. Blow people’s minds.
This can be really fun. If you’re like me and enjoy shocking people out of their complacency, it becomes not only an educational experience for your target, but an amusing pastime for you.
I had a discussion a short while ago with a friend who was regaling me with the tale of how she let her boyfriend penetrate her anally for the first time. Rather than get squeamish, I let her finish, and then commented, “So it wasn't so bad then.”
“No, it was okay.” “You'd do it again?” “Sure, why not?” “You know, a lot of gay men do the same thing you just did last night.” “Oh, EWWWWWW!!” “Hold on. You just spent ten minutes telling me all about your boyfriend and anal and how great it was, and now you're saying ‘ew’ when talking about THE EXACT SAME THING?”
The deer in the headlights stare was priceless. I plowed ahead.
“You do realize that we're talking about the exact same sex act, right? And you thought it was great. So why the EW?” “But…but…it's two MEN!” “So what? We're talking about two people engaging in the same sex act. Why is one great and the other gross?”
I could almost see smoke coming out of her ears as she tried to process this. Clearly, this was a new line of thinking for her.
“No excuses,” I told her. “You just said that anal sex was okay. Why the double standard?” “…I never thought of it like that.”
I could tell she was struggling. Time to lighten this discussion with some humor.
“Okay, your boyfriend goes down on you, right?” *mischievous grin* “Because if he isn’t, you need to kick his ass.” She laughed, nodded, and her tension level dropped visibly. I smiled some more, and pointed out, “Lesbians go down on each other during sex. It’s just another way to orgasm. Gay men give other blow jobs. It’s just oral sex. Really. All of this is just sex. What’s the big deal?” “Well…I don’t know, it’s just gross!” “You just confessed to having anal sex with your boyfriend and liking it. You just told me that he goes down on you. Are you really going to sit there and tell me straightfaced that gay sex is icky? You’re going to claim that the exact same sex acts you engage in are gross just because the two people involved have the same plumbing?” “But it’s different!” I gave her a very pointed look, folded my arms, and asked, “Is it? Is it really?” I got a blank look with an undertone of conditioned response and a hint of defensiveness.
I softened my tone, leaned forward, and said, “It’s all just sex. There is no difference. It’s all just a way to achieve orgasm with the one you love. All the things you two do, gay people do, too. It’s all the same in the end. It’s just an expression of love or lust. It’s just sex.”
I seriously doubt that in one conversation I managed to overthrow 30 years of cultural conditioning about sex and gender norms. However, I am quite certain that she and I will talk about this again in the future. With the exception of the seriously prudish (and we’ll never win them over, anyways) people enjoy talking about sex, whether they’ll admit it or not. The next time we talk about this, I’m going to again challenge the double standard concerning sex acts. I’ll even take it a step further and ask her to think about why lesbians in pornography is acceptable, but lesbians as a monogamous family unit is taboo. If she’s smart, she’ll realize that all of this garbage is rooted in cultural misogyny that dictates how men and women must behave.
These kinds of attitudes can be overcome. They must be overcome in order for lesbians and gay people to be seen as humans and not sick perverted monsters. They really need to be overcome in order to combat transphobia. Those of us who do not follow the standard binary gender and/or sexuality formula need to make an effort to combat this cultural misogyny. We need to be willing to talk about sexual and gender fluidity within our own spheres of influence. Otherwise, we’ll just be protesting against a brick wall.
Help America get over the ick factor. Let’s talk about sex.

Original message from Keori here…

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