Particular stereotypes in the gay world interest me a great deal. For instance, overt promiscuity. 

Straight people can be promiscuous—and many of them are. 

In a heterosexual setting, men tend to be ready to fuck at a moment's notice.

But do gay folk take it farther?

The Testosterone Theory
I don't hear much about promiscuous stereotypes plaguing the lesbian population, so this idea applies only to gay men. 

In a heterosexual setting, men tend to be ready to fuck at a moment's notice. But a woman's more emotional disposition prevents men from getting it just whenever. This isn't true for ALL women, of course, but certainly for the vast majority.

In a homosexual male setting, however, the woman is absent. Two men (or more) can go at it whenever they want! Could this lead to gay men being, on average, more promiscuous than their straight brothers and sisters? 

The Closet Theory
I'm no behavioral scientist or expert in human sexuality, but I believe gay men are conditioned by society to consider themselves taboo. This is changing with the times, thankfully, but when you grow up living a lie—telling Mom and Dad, friends and coworkers, that you're straight—you are suppressing some serious urges to find happiness. 

Not just sexual gratification, but someone to love. Please note that I'm not talking about everyone in the gay community. Like in the straight community, there are gay men who solely crave sexual satisfaction. My contention here is that this is an individual trait, not a trait denoted by your sexual preference.

So we have lots of gay guys suppressing the urge that straight men feel freely for women and straight women feel freely for men. Some of us want to feel protected in the arms of a man. Some of us want to take care of the man we love. 

But in smothering these desires, we are also trying to ignore the most primitive desire of all:

Sex.

And eventually, barring the notion you're asexual, this desire will become so overwhelming and dominative of your thoughts something gives.

He fucks a girl pretending she's a man.

More frequently, he secretly fucks men sans commitment.

My Opinion
Like many stereotypes, I think this one's wrong.

I think both of the above theories are true, but these theories represent such a small proportion of the gay community that it's just stupid to judge everyone based on them.

Unfortunately, the two groups represented by those theories are the faces of the gay community. They are the most public. Look at shows like Queer as Folk for theory #1, or movies like Brokeback Mountain for #2. Where are the insanely popular stories about the "regular" gay guy?

They're out there, but they aren't interesting to viewers or readers. If readers wanted to read about someone normal, they'd pick up a heterosexual book or movie—that's just what everyone's used to.

Look, I'm not saying that it's bad to be indiscriminate in the bedroom. I used to quite the "trollop" myself! But the implications for thinking this way about an entire community are disastrous.

And one of those implications: "they shouldn't be allowed to marry."

So goes the never-ending battle.

-justin

Tags: gay, promiscuous