#and a severe need to avoid being perceived as gay (and sometimes homophobic) at the same time

[fvckw4d]

The concept of queerbaiting annoys me. I was told that it refers to a work of fiction pretending to cater to a queer audience but then pulling back from it to avoid alienating homophobes, which is an incredibly specific thing. But a lot of people seem to think that it instead means "any time there's any gay subtex, metaphor, or ambiguity" or "whenever something from 1995-2012 was being a normal amount of homophobic for the era."

[scripturehomosexuality]

Fruits of the “Straight”-”Gay” Dichotomy: A Guy’s Guilt Over What’s Natural

For the past few weeks and months, this blog has studied how modern sexual concepts are affecting our society. It has studied how the “Straight”-”Gay” dichotomy is instituting a form of human sexuality that has never been seen before. This website has also studied how that dichotomy - and the ideas it pushes - causes certain modern trends, like the stigmatization of everyday nudity and briefs.

However, in saying all of that, it’s one thing to read about overall trends and how they affect larger society. It’s quite another to see how it affects individual lives, especially those you know.

That is the purpose of this post: to study the real emotional toll that modern sexual concepts cause, as seen in regular people. This is part of a new series called “Fruits of the ‘Straight’-’Gay’ Dichotomy”. This series will analyze how that dichotomy manifests itself in complex, subtle ways we don’t think about. This will be done by analyzing certain mundane phenomena (like forum posts), and seeing how the dichotomy influences attitudes displayed therein. It will point out how much the dichotomy (and its ideas) rule our lives, how much damage it causes, and exactly why this system must be destroyed at once.

For this post, we will analyze a forum post from Virtual Teen, entitled “Feel regretful or bad after I do stuff with guys”. In looking through this page, it might provide a case study into how modern ideas are affecting teens and young adults.

Since replies are continuously being added, please note that the content here applies to the page as it appeared on February 17th, 2017.

Concerning the Original Poster

The opening post from user “Nicm15�� starts off quite simply. Basically, he expresses that he feels guilty after he erotically interacts with other guys. What’s interesting is that he says he’s “only done a bit with other guys”, which means he’s had relatively little experience. Nevertheless, even that is too much for him, because after such experiences, he “felt really bad, and like regretted it kinda [sic]”. He then asks if others feel the same way.

He soon gets two replies from sympathetic posters. One of them is a reply from user “john1999”, who has likewise engaged in same-sex activity. To be specific, he has masturbated with his male friend on several occasions. However, this is not an activity that ends in satisfaction. Instead, he says that every time he and his friend finish masturbating, he always thinks the following: "Why did I do this...this was a bad idea". He then swears each time to never do it again. However, that guilt apparently isn’t a very strong deterrent, because every time he says he’ll never do it again, “I end up doing it again anyway”.

Another reply comes from user “DocMcLovins”, who has significantly less experience than the first two. In fact, he’s never sexually interacted with guys.  Instead, guys are merely the focus of his erotic fantasies: he feels compelled to masturbate after watching well-endowed guys showering at school. However, even this small manifestation of homoeroticism is too much. He says that he “sorta felt bad about that”. Thus, he limited himself to masturbate only to girls.

Now, before going any further, there’s a point I want to stress. Through many blog posts and links, this blog has repeatedly said that general same-sex activity is natural and normal, and had been viewed as such until very recently. Indeed, it becomes very clear that same-sex attraction and behavior is a universal trait of humans. It’s only certain forms of it - like anal play - that have been consistently taboo, and thus minority practices. As a result, these boys are doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing. There is nothing they are doing that is widely unprecedented. Indeed, it is a reality that’s inescapable, as evidenced by the reply of “john1999”: even with immense guilt, he can’t help but do what he’s made to do.

However, it’s here that the tragedy of this comes into clear focus. The message of the domineering “Straight”-”Gay” dichotomy is the very opposite - that same-sex activity is abnormal and “queer”. It is that message that is enforcing itself on these posters, and thus affecting their thinking. Thus, because of the environment they are living in, these boys are being made to feel guilty over what is natural. They are feeling shame about something that merits none. They are being forced into conflict with something that should be embraced and enjoyed, as it was in Ancient Greece, where boys freely and constantly gave each other hours of pleasure.

What’s interesting is that religion is never mentioned in the entire thread. Thus, this is mainly a societal conflict, which by extension means conflict with the socially constructed “Straight”-”Gay” dichotomy.

However, the influence of the dichotomy doesn’t end there.

Regarding the posts of other users

When looking at the posts of other users, we see that the influence of the dichotomy is extremely strong. However, its power is enforced in more subtle ways than what we’ve just seen.

Within the “Straight”-”Gay” dichotomy, sexual contact is viewed as something inherently dirty and base. This might have to do with the highly capitalistic way it views sex - as a business transaction between buyer and seller, and not an equal exchange of love. Thus, a theme reverberating through the posts is that it’s perfectly normal to feel guilty after sex, because apparently it’s a base activity humans can’t avoid.

This is shown in a reply from “Straya”, who agrees with the original poster that feeling guilty is a “pretty standard after sex feeling.” A reply from “Ska8er” agrees: “When we masturbate it is like a high and then after we orgaz [sic] it becomes a downer. That is y [sic] some of us feel bad after doing it-experimenting or by ourselves.” Meanwhile, “jordand” says simply, “I felt depressed aftee [sic] doing stuff with a guy.”

As it turns out, some of the users do perceive that such guilt is socially motivated. User “pjones” says the following: “we are taught by society that it's wrong to be either ‘under age’ or to have any type of same sex experience. so feeling guilty is natural, wish is [sic] wasn't”. User “ilc.69” goes into more detail: “I've had two sexual encounters without actual intercourse with two guys and yeah, after them I kinda feel bad, but I think that's just because of social rules that makes you think it's bad.” Of course, both of these users are completely right. However, they might not realize exactly what is generating that guilt.

This leads to a related trend seen in the comments: the need to explain or excuse same-sex activity as “experimentation” or extreme horniness. This is something that reverberates constantly. An example is a comment by user “Jamie_n”, who says same-sex activity is just “normal puberty related curiosity”. Other comments explain it as just being experimentation, an extreme manifestation of overactive arousal, or just curiosity. In saying this, I’m not trying to castigate them. They are merely living what they learned, and that’s the problem.

These comments might seem benign, but in reality, they are reinforcing the main idea of the dichotomy - that same-sex activity is abnormal. Because of that, there’s a need to explain same-sex activity as a “curiosity”, “experimentation”, or as something unintentional or extreme. Under the ideas of the dichotomy, no one in their right mind should want to engage in same-sex activity, because that’s supposedly a weird thing to do.

There is one more point I’d like to stress. Some of the comments expressing those negative thoughts come from LGBT-identified users. When the LGBT movement purportedly supports the practice of all same-sex activity, it’s noteworthy that some community members still feel so insecure about their everyday actions. However, when one realizes the place the LGBT movement occupies in the dichotomy, it’s not surprising. Indeed, the “gay” side of the dichotomy has internalized homophobia as one of its pillars, because it uses that homophobic central idea to guide its own philosophies on same-sex activity. Thus, the movement and label that’s supposed to boost self-esteem actually undermines it.

It’s here that we consider the especially tragic effects of the dichotomy, as told in personal accounts.

The Effects of The Dichotomy As Told In Personal Stories

Besides giving one’s thoughts on the topic at hand, some users gave stories about their own lives, as it relates to the discussion. As it turns out, the effects of the dichotomy are found even there.

One comes from user “mick01”, who gives a short but disheartening account. He says that he regularly fellates one of his older friends. However, the friend never reciprocates. Because of that inequality, the user sometimes feels guilty about doing such. However, he says that it’s hard to say no, apparently because he enjoys it too much.

This is what makes the situation so sad: it’s quite obvious that the older friend enjoys it too. He wouldn’t ask regularly for fellatio if he didn’t find pleasure in it. He must also realize that it’s a guy who is fellating him. However, he won’t allow himself to reciprocate and give his friend the same pleasure. This might be for several reasons, but in my opinion, a prime one probably relates to the dichotomy. It’s quite possible that the older friend identifies as “straight”, even if he engages in same-sex activity. If he reciprocates, he might reason that it’ll be harder to retain his “straight” status, and the social “freedom of movement” it allows. Thus, even if he enjoys being fellated and wants to do more, he must restrain himself from doing so. Thus, the tragedy and absurdity of the dichotomy is exposed once again.

This tragedy is compounded upon by another story, as told by user “Scott2002”. I will quote his account, since I can’t improve on it: “Last year in 8th grade I was developing a friendship with a guy in my class and I invited him to watch a big game at my house and then sleep over. Once in bed, one thing led to another, then we both admitted we had boners and showed them to each other, we touched each other's boners, and then we jerked ourselves off together and watched each other cum. The next morning he seemed really awkward and hardly even wanted to talk to me. After that, in school he avoided me and would barely even say hi. So, doing this together totally destroyed a budding friendship for me.”

It’s hard to describe how sad I was when I first read that. It really sounds like the user really liked his friend, and still likes him to this day. Once again, there’s a range of reasons as to why the friend distanced himself. Perhaps their activities conflicted with his friend’s religious beliefs, and the messages he was getting from his church. Perhaps he recognized that his activities could have him marked as “gay”, which evokes images he might not like, and stigmas he doesn’t want. As a result, he distanced himself from his friend completely, whose presence constantly reminded him about what happened that night.

We’ll probably never know the exact reason. All that we know is that the dichotomy has something to do with it, and one more friendship is destroyed. Within that dichotomy, activities that would otherwise make a friendship closer do the exact opposite. This is because the dichotomy doesn’t encourage intimacy, but instead encourages isolation and separation.

Conclusion

It has become clear that the tentacles of the dichotomy stretch everywhere. You have just seen how the dichotomy shapes thinking and perceptions concerning same-sex activity. You’ve also just seen the emotional turmoil that the dichotomy can generate in people’s lives.

Thus, with all the current discussion about adolescence being difficult, I think our society makes it much more difficult than it should. That’s the only way that something natural and normal - general same-sex activity - can be the source of so much confusion, angst, and heartbreak.

If you’re a teenager or young adult reading this, I stress to you that you are reading the agonies and turbulence of your generation. Your friends. Your neighbors. Your classmates. This might even be you.

My question to you is this: Are you okay with letting this continue? Is this any way to live?

The truth is the dichotomy, and its associated ideas, only has so much power because people submit themselves to it. It has no power if it can’t get it from the people.

Because of this, I urge you to read “The ‘Straight’-’Gay’ Dichotomy: How It Works”, to fully understand how that system functions. I also urge any who read this to go to “For Straight People (though not exclusively)”, which will point to philosophies and forms of same-sex behavior that don’t hinge on demonstratively false concepts. Don’t be afraid of talking about what you learn to others, because that’s the only way progress will be made.

The dichotomy is socially constructed, and thus can be socially deconstructed. With education, you can help to hasten its deconstruction, and we all will be better for it.