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Oversexualization; The Gay Community

Caleb Stumbaugh
Engilsh 161
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In this essay I will be discussing how the younger generation of men in the Gay

community have become so caught up in sexual desires that they forget what romantic love looks

like, though they still have that desire of romance and love. To elaborate on the idea I will also

be discussing how gender identity comes into play within the gay community and its over-

sexualization. When people think of younger gay males in the community one of the first things

that comes to their mind is well they must have slept around, all gay men do now most of the

time I would create an argument against such a stereotype, but in this case- the stereotype is

relatively factual. Gay males have become so caught up in their own sexual desires, that they

have lost sight of the desire for romantic love.

The gay community has suffered greatly throughout time, we have suffered religious

prosecution, governmental threats, and death. From my viewpoint in this community in addition

to my own experiences, I believe that younger gay males use sex as an escape. We have suffered

so much, so a one night stand full of promiscuousness and pleaser is a sweet relief. Thomas

Moors poem depicts this very well:

When midst the gay I meet

That gentle smile of thine,

Though still on me it turns most sweet,

I scarce can call it mine:

But when to me alone

Your secret tears you show,

Oh, then I feel those tears my own,

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And claim them while they flow.

Then still with bright looks bless

The gay, the cold, the free;

Give smiles to those who love you less,

But keep your tears for me. (Quote in When Midst the Gay I Meet, Moore, Lines 1-12)

I feel this quote is a powerful example of how the gay community uses sex as an escape,

for instance one lines 5-8 I feel the tears that he is releasing are those of pain that he has

experienced from being gay. When the world tells you that everything you are and everything

that you desire is wrong, taboo, and sinful (in many cases punishable by death) then someone

needs to have a way to forget that. Just to my disappointment at some point gays decided to turn

to sex.

Now due to the promiscuousness of the community, and practice of unsafe sex there has

been a huge growth of STDs within the community- which is why when in my case like many

others, when I came out my family didnt care about my sexuality, but rather the risk I have of

getting various STDs especially aids. In the Journal Interpersonal and social network influences

on gay men's communication about unprotected sex Smith wrote:

We know little about the type of person who discusses sexual matters and the ways in

which the nature of the relationship between two people could facilitate or constrain the

possibility of such a discussion. To the extent that such discussions provide opportunities for the

transmission of health promotion (messages or are supportive of the maintenance of safe sex

cultures, an improved understanding of them is essential in continued efforts to maintain safe sex
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cultures and reduce the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmissible infections.(Smith,

Page 267)

What I believe the author is trying to say is that due to the lack of talk about safe sex

between gay members in the community there is a correlation between that and unsafe sex. If it

was advocated for more within the gay community and seen less as wow you dont trust me or

it doesnt feel as good then there wouldnt been nearly as much danger.

Continuing on I would like to focus on the human sexuality as a whole. One of my main

points within this essay is that people dont treat LGBT people with respect because they are

seen as taboo. In the video Human Sexuality is Complicated Hank Green basically goes over a

lot of points such how gender, sex, and sexuality are both extremely intertwined in who we are

and also how they are in no ways connected. He ends his video by telling the audience that we

dont have to fit inside any boxes or have to conform to what society has us believe is the norm,

but that we should instead love ourselves for how beautiful we are.

In this next paragraph I will be discussing Teresa of Avilas poem I Live Without Living

In Me for this I cannot accurately describe it without quoting the whole thing, because of how

deep and powerful the poem is.

I live without living in me,

and I expect a life so high,
that I die because I do not die.

I live already beside myself

since I am dying of love;
because I live in Him,
who wanted me for Himself:
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when I gave my heart to Him

He placed this sign in it,
that I die because I do not die.

This divine prison,

the love in which I'm living,
has made God my captive,
and my heart free;
causing in me such passion,
to see God, my prisoner,
That I die because I do not die.

Oh, how long is this life!

How hard this exile,
this prison, these chains
which my soul has entered!
Just waiting to get free
causes me so much fierce pain,
that I die because I do not die.

Ah! so much bitterness in this life

without God as my lover!
Because if to be in love is sweet,
to wait so long is not:
take this burden God,
heavier than steel,
that I die because I do not die.
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Trusting in You alone, I only live

because I know I'll die
because in death I know
that I will live;
death, where I'll find life
do not be slow, it is you I wait for,
that I die because I do not die.

You see how strong love is;

life, do not hinder me,
you see, all I need do to gain you
is to lose you.
Come on already sweet death
come quickly death
that I die because I do not die.

That life above,

that is the true life,
until this life dies
nothing can be enjoyed in living
death, don't be coy;
let me live by dying first,
that I die because I do not die.

Life, what can I give

to my God who lives in me?
In losing you,
then I am worthy of gaining Him.
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I want to reach Him by dying,

Since I love my lover so,
that I die because I do not die.
This poem though was written by a nun to the lord can still be connected to the power

that is love. The desire to be touched, loved, and embraced by someone that may or may not

reciprocate the feelings that you have for them. When we look at the love that is experienced it is

alluring and temping- it is something that we feel that we cannot live without. When we

experience this along with rejection or loss we ourselves experience a sense of longing so strong

that we may feel that we should die. I feel that this feeling is lost within the majority of that gay

community. It has been corrupted with lust and pleasure that can only be quenched by sex and

scandal- but in the end we are left as empty shells of who we once were. Then the cycle will

continue of lust, pain, and deceptiveness.

Next I will be analyzing an image painted by Seiji Inagaki a Bisexual artist from japan. Though I

could not find a title to the image I feel it is an amazing depiction of how sexualized the gay man

is. Even in art forms it has been shown, the man in this painting is submissively laying on the

bed accepting whatever happens to him. I feel it is symbolic of how we swallow our pride and

take whomever is giving us attention. We form a fantasy that everything in the world is okay and
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that this one night stand is going to be different, in the end that is definatly not the case. When

morning comes the fantasy is over and the lust is fleeting away as we pack our things and move

on to the next person seeking attention. Knowing that it will happen again we delete their

numbers, forget their names, and try to push down the experience- hoping that next time just

maybe will be different- just maybe itll be the one, someone will come and sweep us off our feet

and tell us that it will be okay. That maybe we are beautiful and have a chance to be in love.

Then the cycle repeats itself and our hopes are proven wrong.

Next I will be using Roger Scrutons Is Sex Necessary? In it he states:

But the question remains: If sex is liberated, what is it liberated from, and what is it liberated

to? The lack of a clear answer soon became obvious in the feminist movement. Do women

liberate themselves by taking multiple partners, defying the conventions enshrined in marriage,

and having children at random by the men whose embraces they enjoy? Or does this not frustrate

a deeper need for a stable family? Have women benefited from a liberation that enables men to

abandon them at will, or are they merely the more completely enslaved by this? Easy divorce has

meant that a woman's power to retain the father of her children and the protector of her home has

been removed from her. Is that a gain in freedom, or a loss? And if liberation is a matter of being

free to have multiple partners, what kind of freedom does this bestow on the unattractive and the

shy? (Page 34)

I wanted to use as an example to raise the question: Is sex for the gay community some

sort of liberation? Its important to wonder if the oversexualization that is within this community

supposed to be some form of movement, or is it just some over popularized and stereotyped. In

some cases I feel like the gay community is trying to prove something with their

provocativeness, maybe were trying to say that well always be marginalized for the way we are
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and that we have to accept it. Or maybe that if the world says that what we do in the bedroom

and behind closed doors is taboo- that well just prove them something by making it a social

norm.

In conclusion the oversexualization of the gay community is something that the world

impost onto the community and then they took the idea into their hands and exploited it.

Throughout everything the gay community has used sex as some form of escape in hopes of

making things better- but all it did was lead to the loss of romantic desire, making it extremely

hard to find long term partners. To end I want to raise the question: Do you think the gay

community will change at all in the near future, or do you think it will be one continuous circle

of destruction?
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Works Cited
Smith, Anthony M. A., et al. "Interpersonal and Social Network Influences on Gay Men's
Communication about Unprotected Sex." International Journal of STD & AIDS 17.4 (2006):
267-70. ProQuest. Web. 27 May 2015.

Moore, Thomas. "When 'Midst the Gay I Meet." Thepoetryfoundation. The Poetry Foundation,
n.d. Web. 24 May 2015.

"The Art of Seiji Inagaki." Feuilleton RSS. N.p., 31 Jan. 2013. Web. 07 June 2015.

Avila, Taresa. "Poetry Chaikhana." Poetry Chaikhana. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 June 2015.

"The Art of Seiji Inagaki." Feuilleton RSS. N.p., 31 Jan. 2013. Web. 07 June 2015.

Scruton, Roger. "IS SEX NECESSARY?" First Things.248 (2014): 33-7. ProQuest. Web. 07
June 2015.