Sex as Protest?

I will admit that I subscribe to Out magazine. Yes its trite and insipid but I like to masturbate mentally with all media types: audio, visual, and print. In this month's issue there is an article by Stephanie Fairyington that addresses the mounting pressure to couple within the queer community, whether it be for a night or for the long haul. As usual for Out the article brings some interesting points to the table but doesn't quite follow through enough to really make a dent in your head. So naturally I took it upon myself to expound on something that was quoted in the article.

Testimonials for raging against the pressure to couple are given halfway through the article. Typical blurbs from men confessing that they hooked up for the sake of feeling attractive, needed, or wanted. This is all familiar to us and was not any kind of new insight. In fact many of these stories could have just as easily been ripped from an E! True Hollywood Story about a famous female porn star. However, when it came time for Fairyington to give pro-promoscuity views on the subject she quoted the noted David Halperin, an English/queer studies professor at the University of Michigan.

Halperin says "heterosexual culture in the West has produced a culture of erotic impoverishment, in which sex is supposed to be rare, and then has turned rarity into a virtue. Gay male culture has the sense to challenge that destructive notion."

GIve. Me. A. Fucking. Break!

By and large, but not in every case, I think queer studies is bullshit. Most of the time, as demonstrated by Halperin, its just intellectual dribble from the mouths of english professors turned metaphysicians rationalizing being a slut. I'm not advocating promiscuity or monogamy, live your life the way you want as long as you're not hurting others around you. I could care less. But to say that gay male culture is consciously (he said "Gay male culture has THE SENSE to challenge...") tearing down the oppressive heterosexual moires via promiscuity is utterly absurd.

Biologically males have one purpose. Deliver the sperm to as many eggs as possible. Females are genetically programmed to be selective about who's sperm they will accept. The number of eggs a female can produce is finite and they are therefore precious and not to be wasted. As a result females are selective so as not to propagate undesirable genetic traits to future generations with the few opportunities that they have to reproduce. Therefore, females should want to test the males and see which one is willing to endure her selective process before allowing him to couple with her. That means playing hard to get, which should not be confused with "erotic impoverishment." The consequence of two males getting together is no more than a loss of sperm which is produced throughout the entire course of the male's life. Biologically males have no hang-ups about sex because they can afford, and are programmed, to have as much of it as possible. One could argue that the advent of birth control has made this argument moot and invalid; that straight people are at liberty to be sluts without having to worry about making frankenbabies. My answer to that is that condoms and birth control pills do not alter our genetic code and are incidental blips in the grand context of nature.

Additionally what is so wrong with a little bit of restraint when it comes to sex? I find that its the anticipation of the sex, the chase, that is the true allure of the act itself. Nothing is more off putting, to me anyway, than seeing profiles on gay.com that feature a photo of a splayed ass with a caption that says "My door is unlocked, come use me now." I prefer my sex to be more dimensional than a basic bodily function.

In conclusion, Halperin needs to come out of the closet as a slut and stop trying to rationalize his overactive libido. If you're a slut then you're a slut. We've all been there, some of us are still there and there is nothing wrong with that. But please, please don't tell me that the reason why you like five or six dicks clambering to get into your mouth at one time is because you want to tear down oppressive heterosexual moires. When gay men go out on a saturday night and take a waft from their little amber vial before entering a sea of sweaty shirtless men the last thing on their minds is making a social statement. Its far more primal than that. They want to cum.

If you want to read something that gives insight into how gays and gay culture shape and direct our society check out Herbert Muschamp's article from the New York Times last week, Architecture; The Secret History.