It's my gift, not yours.

I’m sex positive.

I first heard the term Sex-Positive (Sex Affirmative) when I was a young activist, only 18 or 19, working with a local Gay Rights Organization.  I saw two different groups of people among the activists I worked with, and learned a great deal from, but didn’t know there was a terminology or categorical definitions and separations for them all.  I knew this, though.  I knew that while I was with one particular group of them, the activists, I was made to feel dirty, or unfocused, or young and navies, or worst of all highly irresponsible, for be sexually active, or even dating.  There was a lesbian couple, (the kind that-sadly-epitomizes all of those lesbian couple stereotypes….) who really worked to take me under their wings while I was working in the activists’ field. They allowed me to stay with them in Santa Fe for multiple nights at a time so I wouldn’t have to drive back and forth, and they always made sure I was eating and what not.  Very kind people, in many ways.  But the first time I told them I wasn’t’ staying with them because I had a date and would either drive back to ABQ after, or stay at his place I got a 45 minutes lecture about the evils of sex.  (Maybe they just did it wrong)

Shortly after that particular event, I began spending more time with another group of activists, men. Gay men, who were open and honest about sexuality. They encouraged me to explore, stuffed condoms in my pockets (I didn’t need them, I always had my own) and pushed me out the door with a kiss on the cheek and a “go get it girl!”  They weren’t pimping me out, and they never encouraged me to have sex with someone I didn’t want to have sex with, or date, or what not.  They just had a different attitude. The embodied the attitude that “sexuality is a gift from god, and it is up to us to share that gift as we see fit.” 

I liked this viewpoint.  When it became a little more clear to the one group, why I was spending my time with the other, it got even worse.  And then came the lectures and conversations that I still see today, that really shaped my view of sexuality.

“They are void of love, and they didn’t get enough affection from their parents, so instead of turning to drugs or alcohol (though some of these folks did drink, on both sides) they use meaningless emotionless dirty sex to fill the void, and they will never fill it.  They don’t have enough love and respect for themselves to be whole without fucking another person and leaving them, every night.”

This is a paraphrasing of essentially what I’ve heard.  We’ve all heard it.  “She sleeps around to feel wanted.”  “He is afraid of getting hurt so he just gets in and gets off and gets out before any emotions can be explored.” “He is just a slutty drunk and I bet he cries in the morning when he remembers, once again, who and what he has done…”

I have all the respect for people who don’t have sex. I have tons of respect for people who don’t do so outside of marriage.  I’m happy to help counsel and even encourage my friends who decide, for their own reasons, to pursue celibacy, by keeping them busy or offering company or what not.  But I am happy to be sexually active. I am happy to be healthy.  Sex is good for you, medical study after medical study say so. And damn it, what am I fighting for, if not the right o have sex when I want, with whomever I want (within the limits of consent and age. 

I spent over ten years fighting for “equality.”  Why is it that I am made to feel by some of my peers even, that the equality I’m fighting for is the right to have quiet sexual relations, once a week, with my legally wedded spouse, nothing more?  I am inclined to believe, my parents, who have between them two of the strongest moral compasses I’ve ever experienced, had a different life when they were my age.  Or a little younger (cause when they were my age, I was already there chattering their ears off and never letting them have a moment of peace, so to speak.) 

I read a blog/journal entry this morning (http://www.whospositive.org/journal/index.php/tom/2012/08/19/hook-up-sites-grindr-manhunt-bbrt-and-a4a) That reeks of sex-negativity.  Why spend your time trashing Grindr, Manhunt, BBRT etc.  Are they dangerous? Well yes. So is Facebook. Let’s not get it twisted, in the least. I’ve met men on Facebook just to have sex as quickly and easily as I have Grindr, and Craigslist, and A4A and the list goes on.  The only difference is the other people on FB aren’t all necessarily looking for the same thing. That makes it more moral? It makes it more acceptable?  I reject this notion, wholeheartedly. Sex is sex. It is either consensual or not. Plain and simple.

It is no business of yours if my sex occurs standing up, in the kitchen while cooking eggs (ouch) or lying quietly in my bed, after having had a perfect day of breakfast, church, dinner with the family, and hoping for pregnancy to be the end result (good luck in my situation, btw).  Why do you care?

And why, single gay man, do you need so desperately to compare your sexual experiences on such social networks, with mine? Why do my sexual experiences bother you so?

This may all sound like just a bunch of anger and contempt, well it is in large part, but there is a larger picture here.

Sex is a beautiful thing.  Sex can be so many things for so many people.  If I had a piece of abstract-ish art on my wall in my living room, would you walk in and tell me that its only beautiful if its hung at a 45 degree angle and on a white wall, otherwise is disgusting and appalling?  (if you would, well you probably wouldn’t be coming into my house anyway) Then why is sex like this?

I believe in Many Gods and the One True God.  I believe in treating my body as a temple, and I decorate it with tattoos and piercings, while worshiping within it and trying to keep it clean and healthy.  I believe in morality of the truest kind, be good to others and give them what you have to share, show Love Mercy and compassion-they will help us achieve justice.  And I believe that Sexuality is my gift from the Divine.  It is mine to share as I please.  I have met men at the bar, social outings, and others, who swore they wanted a relationship, and as soon as we finally had sex, they disappeared.  And I have met men with only the purpose of having sex, one time hopefully, and fallen completely in love with them.  Don’t blame Adam4Adam, or Grindr for your own issues of love and sexuality.  And certainly don’t’ blame me.