The first part of my early 20s all I wanted was a boyfriend. I was love sick for love. I saw all of my straight friends go through their first relationship milestones in high school, and felt deprived of that experience and wanted to make up for it. I wanted to experience puppy love and romance and intimacy with a significant other. I had a love interest or two, albeit very difficult to find and often spread out with a lot of single time in-between. But after having a few boyfriends come and go and learning more about myself and my sexuality, I eventually hit a sexual awakening like most gay men I know do. I then fully embraced sex positivity as I hit my mid-20s. I had learned that it was more important to focus on developing a solid career identity before taking on a more serious partnership. I also had several gay mentors that I looked up to in successful relationships and careers that advised me not to take that period of my life to seriously, to just have fun and experiment a little more with my sexuality while I was still a gay bachelor in a young and formative time of my life. After working through a lot of internalized shame with my sexuality I did take their advice. I am glad I did and don’t regret it in the least. I had many friends with benefits, casual lovers, and a handful of one-night stands that were all mutually enriching encounters, and I am grateful for all of them for sharing everything they shared with me. Yet I find myself going back to my more innocent desires for a sweetheart now that I finally am solidifying in my career life, but with a matured perspective I wouldn’t have had it not been for my sex positive lifestyle I had embraced in the latter half of my 20s.
Anyone that’s been around me long enough to know me well, knows my passions for deconstructing all the negative things gay men are taught to believe about themselves and each other. This most definitely includes our sexuality. The fact that our identity is rooted in our sexual desires and feelings that we wish to share with other men that reciprocate. That can include emotional intimacy, but that can look like and mean a lot of different things. I would say I definitely share a casual and more “light” emotional intimacy with friends with benefits. We don’t “love” each other like some toxic idea given to us by Romantic Comedies and Tragedies. But we know intimate things about each other, and even to a certain extend care about each other’s well being. The sexual intimacy helps create a bond of sharing rooted in the sex, but yet grows beyond that. Both before and after the actual sexual interaction there is sharing about our lives, things we do, things we like, things that are going on in our lives, bouncing ideas off of each other about things. Some gay men I’ve met have never matured enough to share a connection like that with other gay men because they are too insecure in their sexuality and/or define their self-esteem based off how well they match a monogamous heteronormative image.
In saying that I am returning to a more innocent desire for a “sweetheart” is not say I’ve “seen the light” and all of a sudden am reject all the values I’ve cultivated living a sex positive lifestyle. To think that would be a complete misunderstanding of what sex positivity is, and what my reasons are for saying that. I’ve learned in fully embracing a gay male lifestyle how to fully deconstruct everything I’ve been told about what is and isn’t healthy in sex, love, friendships, and relationships in general. Sex isn’t legitimated by reproduction and the institution of marriage that is rooted in that reproductive thinking. Nor is love limited to sexual partners. There are infinitely diverse ways to share a connection to someone and it’s the individuals that negotiate and build those connections organically that define what that means, not some ideal that they do or do not match.
These are all things I’ve written about before and have been discussing for a decade now. I still stand by these values and concepts. I also find myself exploring emotional intimacy as a priority now, irrespective of rather it includes or doesn’t include sexual intimacy. There are plenty of gay friends I have that I’ve never seen naked and have no desire to share that with them, yet I love them like the brother I never had. Being in a monastery I met a dear friend who took vows to become a monk, which included a vow of celibacy, and he was also a gay man. He and I were “cut from the same cloth” as he would often say. He didn’t take a vow of celibacy out of a moral judgement against sex. In Buddhism lay practitioners only take a vow of “no sexual misconduct” which really boils down to “don’t rape people, and don’t be a home wrecker” to be put in simplistic terms. It says nothing about sex in and of itself being bad, even when shared in a consensually casual way between multiple partners. It really just comes down to the same values I have and attest to being sex positive, being open and ethical about what your doing. Being mindful of doing your best not to hurt someone else with your actions, which takes honesty, open communication, and authenticity.
The only reason a monk chooses to be celibate is because they renounce all of Samsara (in this context meaning: the inevitable suffering of our attachments to material life). Sexuality is a very material thing, saying that doesn’t make it inherently bad. It’s similar to how a career is material, it’s not inherently good or bad that it is in essence a material and practical thing. Yet when one overly identifies with it, it can also create suffering because of the nature of this material realm…its impermanent. Much of Buddhism is about learning how to live life and gracefully letting go of changes. Renunciation (becoming a formal monk in this case) helps bring a unique perspective to this, because you learn the true nature of mind in a much easier way when you reduce external distractions in your life. He would talk about how being celibate for 7 years brought him a new perspective about sharing intimacy with others…one that I appreciated listening to him talk about.
Take out any assumptions about sex being good or bad, that simply isn’t what this is about. Instead think about emotional intimacy independent of sex. Have you ever had a friend that you loved so much you would do anything for them? A friend that you shared a deep love and affection for…but there was no sexual feelings between you at all? The thing is, I have. And that continues to grow in my life. I’ve met some gay men that get confused when I start getting emotionally intimate with them, yet I don’t want to have sex with them. Its almost like they have some belief system that if another gay man says the word “love” to them that must be validated through a sexual interaction. Yet I don’t feel that way at all. There are many people I love at a deep level and I do not require nor desire anything from them sexually. I’ve always felt that intimacy between gay men can sometimes be stunted by a lack understanding our self-worth isn’t defined by getting someone to be sexually attracted to us.
Again, I can’t stress enough that learning how to appreciate platonic intimacy and love more doesn’t preclude nor diminish sex positive values. I still very much believe if you want to get laid with hundreds of smart, beautiful, attractive men…you should do that without shame. So long as its ethical and consensual, do it as much and as often as you want with no shame. I also think that if you can’t appreciate platonic love and intimacy, you’re missing out on something potentially even more valuable to your spiritual, emotional, and existential well being.
I found myself on a date recently with a total hunk. In many ways, atleast aesthetically, he was “my type.” Hairy, scruffy, a built bear like thickness, taller then me. We even shared a few superficial interests in common. Our first date was great, it went on for hours. He invited me back to his apartment for a night cap. Things were going well, we saw the city sky line from his apartment roof. I was touched emotionally by the moment and wanted to start sharing my feelings about how great it was to make it back to the city after I had left it for the monestary. How I was so grateful that I could share that moment with him. Yet all he could do was try to aggressively make out with me in a sort of foreplay “I want to go to the bedroom with you after this” kind of thing. I found him extremely sexually attractive and he was even a good kisser and definitely seemed to know how to please I guy. At the same time…I felt it was more intimate and meaningful to settle into the moment and share the feeling evoked by the view of the city sky line. I kept trying to redirect the moment to that. Not because the idea of getting naked with him wasn’t appealing to me, because it was…but because I wanted to share an emotional intimacy with him that I felt was more valuable. Had he of done that, the night might of very well ended in the bed room. Yet it seemed like he was so use to rushing into someone’s pants its like he just didn’t have the emotional intelligence to appreciate that moment with me. I suddenly had a thought “do I really want to date a guy who can’t share platonic emotional intimacy with me?” I realized that even though I thought he was one of the sexiest studs I’d ever seen…no I didn’t want to date someone that couldn’t turn off their boner long enough to enjoy a special and sacred moment with me. So I ended up going home by the end of the night and not scheduling a second date. Especially considering he seemed to react to my redirection of his sexual advances as though it was a rejection…which it wasn’t, in fact I was so into him I wanted to share something I thought would be even more intimate then an orgasm.
I’ve shared plenty of orgasms, I’ve seen plenty of dicks, I’ve topped, bottomed, blown, and mutually jacked off plenty of men in my day…I don’t regret that at all and I’m not ashamed of it. I’m glad I’ve had all those experiences and am grateful to all the men that consented to share that with me. I may still occasionally find a guy friend to mess around with casually…but it just doesn’t have the same central focus for me that it use to. I value other things now as a priority. Like my friend I just helped pack up things while he was moving out of his ex’s apartment. I love him and care about him, we’ve never had sex and I don’t feel like we will because I love him in a very platonic way. But I love him and I would gladly give up an orgasm with a hot guy to be there for him if he needed me, which in this case he did. He didn’t even have to ask me for it, I just knew he was in a vulnerable place and needed some one who cared about him to help him pack boxes and talk about his feelings. That is so much more valuable then sexual gratification to me. Having relationships with others where you can rely on them for help and support when you need it, where they will share spiritually and emotionally deep moments with you, that is by far more valuable to me then getting laid.
So while my values are still the same, my priorities are different. I am starting to show up to my dating encounters more with the mind set of “is this guy emotionally intelligent enough for me, is he capable of emotional intimacy?” and less a mind set of “he’s hot, I’m going to try and seduce him and score.” This change isn’t because one way of thinking is better or worse in an objective sense, but more the subjective sense of my personal needs and desires. I’ve had a lot of great gay sex in my life, and I intend to have more. I also intend to focus less on the “chase” and its thrills, and more on cultivating emotional intimacy. I’ve had plenty of emotional intimacy throughout my life with people, but the more living experiences I gain as I mature, the more of a priority it becomes for me.
I’m actively looking for a serious partner now. One who’s got the emotional intelligence to share the things I value. One who’d enjoy sex with me, but ultimately who would see that as small in comparison to our emotional closeness. In the more serious relationships I’ve been in before guys always seem to think sex is the biggest issue. That maybe they are doing something wrong and I’m not pleased. While I am always for talking out issues in our sex life, everyone has them…often I place more value on other things that I prefer to solve first. I often just keep saying…you could develop erectile dysfunction and I wouldn’t care…what I want is for us to be more intimate emotionally. For us to communicate better, for us to have better conflict resolution, for us to share things at a more spiritual level. It always seems to go over their head, almost as though sex is the only thing that signifies intimacy for them. If that’s going well then obviously they’re doing what they are supposed to, never mind the rest of the relationship. Yet for me, sex is just a fun activity to pass the time…what I really want is to know we feel comfortable and content with each other. That we can share depth with each other…that we love each other. Frankly, I’ve got friends I could share that with that I don’t have sex with…I want that with someone I have sex with too. But if I die, I do know I have people in my life that love me, and sex doesn’t have to define that.
I think when you settle into a stressful career like psychotherapy. You deal with stressful situations every day, often that can be life and death decisions. You deal with turbulent and difficult personalities that aren’t mentally healthy. Just having thrilling adventures with hot lovers in your personal life doesn’t give you what you need to feel stable and comfortable when you come home. What does is someone you can talk to about your day, someone who doesn’t expect you to be their therapist and allows you to be yourself, someone who shares your domestic life with you, someone who shares similar values and something spiritual with you. I wanted that a long time ago, I even had something close to it for a brief 2 years of my life. At the same time, I think I needed to give myself permission to be fun and free spirited for a while. 1) because it gave me more life experience that has been valuable in staying down to earth. And 2) because I needed to focus my energy more on career and personal development without the distraction of commitments in relationships. Now that I’ve done both of those things I can bring my focus back to finding a partner that I am serious with. Of course, there’s always the possibility of having fun along the way when the right and healthy circumstances arise for it. But otherwise…I just have different priorities now, and to me I feel it’s a product of maturity.
Searching for Queer Spirit 