Do Gay Guys Have a Problem with Consent and Sex?
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A recent tweet about a gay sex party reached heterosexual eyes and has sparked a contentious online debate that has shocked some people.
Is it unethical to attend a “no loads refused” pimped-out cumdump event if the bottom has blocked you on Twitter even though you’ve never talked to them and have no idea why?
— UncutOtterSF 🦦 (@beech_XxX) September 23, 2022
Twitter freaked out: “What exactly is a ‘pimped-out cumdump event’?” “How strict is this ‘no loads refused’ policy?” “Is an anonymous block really an undumpable load offense?”
While this dude’s attempt to grapple with the social niceties of the orgy might seem a particularly extreme example, the online furore it attracted does seem to reflect a cultural misunderstanding of gay male sexuality. It is deemed problematic — an attitude that is often accompanied by a desire to do something about it.
Soon after the MeToo movement kicked off in 2017, there were calls to look beyond the violence of men against women, to include the (perceived) toxic sexual norms among gay men. Camila Martinez-Granata wrote in VICE about “pervasive” sexual harassment in gay bars, where getting groped and squeezed without warning is practically a rite of passage. She called for the fostering of “truly safe spaces in queer nightlife” — ones that rejected the “normalisation of sexual harassment”. A year later, Michael Segalov wrote in the Guardian that “the conversation around consent for gay men has been stifled.”
Some of the statistics cited in these articles depict an epidemic of sexual assault within gay spaces. Half of gay men in both the UK and the US say they have experienced sexual touching without their consent. Researchers have also noted the normalization of “sexual coercion” among gay men — defined broadly as “a range of ways in which men may be forced or pressured to have unwanted sex”. Examples include pressure to accept undesired “top” or “bottom” positions, for the satisfaction of one’s sexual partner.
MeToo has seen some prominent gay men called out for their predatory behaviour: Kevin Spacey was rightly shunned from Hollywood for assaulting the underage Anthony Rapp, while Terry Crews and other straight male actors have called out the culture of unwanted groping by prominent gay producers. However, there has been a notable lack of reckonings for gay male culture more broadly, despite claims that “toxic” norms are rife in our sexual lives.
Sexual assault researchers appear particularly incredulous that gay men aren’t fighting back. After finding that 70% of a sample of gay men had experienced “unwanted sexual touching”, researchers at the University of Georgia decried the norms of “sexually aggressive” behavior among gay men, before lamenting that they “do not perceive what happened to them as sexual violence”. In a similar vein, researchers within The Journal of Sex Research complained, with the necessary proviso that “the authors are sex positive”, that problematic sexual scripts were exhibited by gay men — from “hyper-sexual male identity” to a “lack of emotional responsibility”, particularly for casual partners.
Gay men are known for being “sexually adventurous” — a polite way of saying that we’ve got so many notches in our belt, our trousers can barely stay up. While most gay men ultimately wish for (and find) emotionally committed “monagamish” relationships, based around romantic love, it’s also very common to have a period of sowing one’s wild oats, actively seeking out novel sexual encounters with strangers. Gay fantasies often revolve around dangerous liaisons, with non-verbal anonymous sexual encounters as well the eroticizing of thuggish “rough trade” personas.
This has been true since the origins of gay male identity. The novels of early 20th-century gay French author Jean Genet — described by Richard Howard as “the first and perhaps the only texts to set forth for the Western imagination an explicit realization of homosexual eros” — are rife with sadomasochistic gay fantasy. Take this expression of desire from Genet’s novel, Quarelle of Brest:
He could get away with anything. Spit me in the face, call me by my first name.
“You’re getting overly familiar!” I’d say to “Him”.
The blow he would strike me with his fist, right in the mouth,
Would make my ears ring with this oboe murmur: “My vulgarity
is regal, and it accords me every right.”
Gay bars and clubs are known for their “seedy” undercurrent because their primary function — much more so than heterosexual spaces — is to enable sexual conquest. This is why the presence of women in gay bars is seen as so ruinous and why the rise of hook-up apps like Grindr threaten the long term viability of these (supposed) “safe spaces”. The perennial art of “cruising” — seeking out strange men in sex clubs, saunas and public toilets — once rationalised as a form of “self-hatred”, is now clearly understood as simply what many gay men like to do.
The high prevalence of non-consensual groping in these environments is part of the ritual gay men have signed up to in order to embrace their sadomasochistic fantasies. It’s also why applying norms of “affirmative consent” — designed to reflect the needs of vulnerable women — can be problematic when applied to gay men.
Feminist Sheila Jefferys, in her influential work Anticlimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution, could barely conceal her disgust at gay desires, which “eroticized power difference” and were reflective of the “worship of masculinity”. However, this is a classic case of applying feminist norms, designed by and for women, to a group which may not share the same wants and needs.
Recently, an Australian politician was asked to explain how newly-imposed affirmative consent laws would work within the context of a gay sauna. In relation to the physical tête-à-tête which occurs while cruising, she noted: “if the person is consenting, they might lean their body into the other person or engage in reciprocal touching.” As for sex, her response was that consent must be given within a “reasonable time” and “might include verbal or non-verbal interactions about consent and the parameters of the sexual act to occur before entering the dark room, provided they continue negotiating consent through ongoing and mutual negotiation.”
Still, one can criticize the application of MeToo’s new frameworks to gay spaces without supporting sexual anarchy. There is no doubt that many gay men have experienced sexual violence, and moral norms should be developed to encourage restraint. While pervy saunas and “no loads refused” parties may give off the aesthetic of Dionysian excess, respect for bodily autonomy and awareness of potential harm should always be paramount.
But defining the boundaries of assault should be left to gay men — we should be able to generate a response free from the feminist assumptions generated by the fraught conflicts of heterosexuality. Do gay men need a MeToo moment? No, but we should be having our own conversations about setting the appropriate limits on desire, to ensure sadomasochistic gay fantasy doesn’t turn into outright brutalization.
Photos by Majestic Lukas on Unsplash
