So there's an elephant in the room. I have been guilty of painting it so that it blends in with the green wall behind it. But everyone knows it's there. Some guests focus only on the elephant, deliberately calling it out every chance they get. Others talk about everything around the elephant, drawing a perfect outline of it with their circuitous conversation. I've told my guests to ignore the elephant. I've told people in docile, placating tones that it's actually a very small elephant, minuscule really, hardly worth anyone's time. I've tried to pull people's attention away from it it, pointing out all the other wonderful things in the room. I've redirected attention in any and every conceivable way.
The elephant's name is Sex. And it's time we talk about it. Openly and honestly and frankly and unabashedly. The elephant is there, and it's not going away, not for you and (hopefully) not for me. I realize that talking about sex, any sex, is highly taboo, especially in the Mormon culture I come from. Sex in the LDS tradition is regarded, as far as what is said to others in public, as this magical, mystical thing, a sacred gift from God that is shared between husband and wife, in the dark, behind closed doors. I've yet to meet a Mormon who is comfortable talking about sex.
Remember in grade school when you and your friends used to joke about how gross the idea of your parents having sex was? We would talk about it and pretend to gag and then laugh at the ridiculousness of the whole concept. We knew our parents had sex. It had to happen: we knew how babies were made. But sex was so remote to us as children, so foreign. We knew it was there, but we didn't want to admit to its reality.
The fight for LGBT equality is moving faster and faster. The LGBT community is making strides and wins in things from housing and employment security to equal marriage rights all over the world. Gay people are more visible, with principal, non-caricatured characters on TV shows and mainstream films. There are musical artists like Macklemore writing songs about equality and sexuality.
But there seems to be a curtain that has been drawn. On one side of the curtain is me as a gay man and all the people with whom I interact, and on the other side is sex. I used to tell people, "Being gay is no more important to me, no more a part of my conscious existence, than what I had for breakfast last Tuesday." I used to go on and on, especially to those who were less comfortable with the idea of my "alternate lifestyle" about how "It's not all about the sex. Sex is actually a very tiny part of what I want out of life, a tiny part of a relationship." I said these things because most straight people, even staunch LGBT allies, do not want to think about what two men do in bed. (Never mind that it's a very different thing, apparently, for a straight man to think about two women going at it. I've never understood that.) Even my biggest supporters do not want to acknowledge that I am a sexual being every bit as much as they are. My biggest detractors, on the other hand, LOVE to talk about what I supposedly do in the bedroom. To them, my existence as a gay man depends almost solely on dark alleys, public restrooms, orgies, S&M, seedy clubs, and bushes in parks at night.
I think what we as an LGBT community have done is tried to move the public eye away from those negative images; after all, the more "mainstream" and "normal" we can appear to The Majority, the more likely we will be to receive their magnanimous acceptance into our pleading upturned hands. And since what we do with our genitals is the BIG difference between us, it is understandable that that is the thing we try hardest to brush under the rug, or hide behind the curtain, as it were. But we've done ourselves a gross disservice in the meantime: We're now trying to appear as sexless automatons in order to be accepted by the masses.
How did this stereotype start, the one where all gay men are promiscuous sex addicts? How about the fact that bonding sexually was all that was available for gay men for, well, at least the past couple thousand years? One rarely saw two men in a committed, monogamous relationship because that simply wasn't an option. Gay men married women and remained firmly in the closet both at home and at work for the rest of their lives. The only outlet they had (as in the film Far From Heaven with Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid) was finding someone on the side, yes, cheating on their wives to have sex with men. Gay men would be beaten and killed if anyone saw or knew what they were doing, so they sought shelter and protection wherever they could: in bathhouses, dark bars, alleys, etc. This became the cultural norm because there was no other visible (or viable) option. These are ugly stereotypes, ones that I can fully understand the LGBT community wanting to distance themselves far from. I have publicly distanced myself from them since before I even came out.
Let's get a couple facts out, though. I've been to college. And if you've been to college (anywhere aside from BYU), you know very well how much sex is going on. Boys and girls alike brag about how many people they sleep with. Straight boys and straight girls. This isn't a new phenomenon, either. There is a whole lot of sex going on with the heteros. Nor does it stop when people leave college. Have you seen an episode of Sex and the City? Sex. Everywhere. To get a bit more graphic, there is a specific sex act that everyone loves to associate with gay men. Its moniker comes from the Bible story that people love to quote when speaking about the apparent sinfulness of homosexuality: sodomy. Here's another newsflash: It ain't just the gays who do that, not by a long shot. Straight men talk about doing it to women constantly. People, gay and straight, have been doing it for time immemorial. It's a fact. Furthermore, not all gay people do it! Some gay people I know abhor it and want nothing at all to do with it. (Granted, at least some of that attitude may come from a certain degree of internalized homophobia.)
And speaking of internalized homophobia, there are an awful lot of gays today, especially Mormon gays, who have decided that it's best for them and their eternal salvation if they remain celibate. I will not even attempt to go too deeply into this--I did that once before and ended up deleting the entire post because I was unable to keep my emotions out of it--but suffice it to say that it is my firm (and genuinely sad) belief that this stems completely from a flawed religion. And any reader of my blog knows that I am a HUGE follower of science and research. The research--historical and cultural fact, mind you--shows that the verses in the Bible that speak against homosexuality are either mistranslated, misinterpreted, or taken completely out of all context. Since that is fact, anyone who has religious reasons for remaining celibate is, frankly, alien to me. I do not get it. I feel bad for them and their misinformed spirituality.
We are humans. We are sexual beings.
I can't wait to find a husband so that I can have sex in the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, the hallway, on the bed, on the floor ... Yes, there are myriad other things I dream about and can't wait to have in my future relationship, cooking dinner together, laughing together and teaching each other new things, holding hands while watching movies, creating and sharing Christmas traditions, camping and holding each other while we stare at the stars, but I think it's time that we are honest about all of who we are, and being intimate with my (future) boyfriend/partner/husband is not an ugly or shameful thing. I am gay. It may be only one part of the Whole Me, but it's a big part. It's a part that I love. I would not want to be straight. If I could choose, I would not choose any differently for myself; if it weren't for all the bigotry and ignorance out there in the world, I don't think anyone would choose to be anything other than what and who he or she is. If it weren't for fear of "hell" or "not getting into the Celestial Kingdom" no one would choose to forego physical and sexual intimacy.
I know it's a huge step for a lot of straight people, but we all have sex. Straight people have sex for power and validation every bit as much as gay people do: selfish sex is not the sovereign domain of the homosexual. The intimacy between a gay couple is just as beautiful as that between a straight couple: selfless sexual bonding is not the sovereign domain of the heterosexual.
So look at my elephant. Admire it for what it is. See it as a part of the big picture. Don't focus on it, but don't ignore it either. Isn't it awesome? Isn't it beautiful? Good. Now, who brought dessert??
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