In social contexts in which dominates the moralism and where sex is the more widespread and deeply rooted educational taboo, there isn’t any concrete form of sex education not even at the minimum level, therefore guys looking for information about the issues related to sexuality, particularly after the uptake of the Internet, end up inevitably to get in contact with the only available source, i.e. pornography. Since pornography was given in fact a so delicate educational task, we must ask whether pornography itself is really able to fulfill that task, representing sexuality as it is really lived, and in particular, if gay pornography portrays gay sexuality properly and how can influence that sexuality.
HETERO-GAY MODEL
To search for an answer to these questions it is necessary to take into account that, in the past, the distinction between straight and gay was much less marked than it is today and many heterosexual men had sometimes, and not infrequently, relationships with gay guys who, finding no possibility of creating a gay-gay relationship, contented themselves with a relationship with straight man. These relationships (hetero-gay) were totally modeled on heterosexual sexuality and allowed only that the masculine role was prerogative of the dominant male, that is the straight male. The masculine role refers to the role of one who is active in anal sex and gives his sex to the attentions of the other guy in oral sex. Obviously gay guys were entitled only to the complementary “feminine” roles. In hetero-gay relationships, which were a common occurrence until the 60s of the last century and beyond, the roles are fixed. The straight male is active and the gay is passive. But I add another observation, in this conception of sexuality, sexual intercourse is finalized at anal penetration which appears as the most important and final element, everything else is only considered as a preparation. Often the dominant male in a hetero-gay relationship was not only dominant from the sexual point of view but also from the social point of view, emphasizing the fundamental asymmetry of the relationship, often experienced by both sides as a relationship of domination/submission. These aspects (of power) could even more legitimize in the eyes of the dominant heterosexual male the sexual intercourse with a gay guy. We have to keep in mind that often the high social class male married only for reasons of capital or caste with women that he had not chosen, lived his matrimonial life in a way sexually frustrating. For this reason, prostitution was a widespread phenomenon and prostitutes, usually lower class people, allowed middle or high-class male to vent his desire to dominate, rather than his sexuality. Mechanisms of this kind can also be found in the hetero-gay relationships in which usually the dominant male compensated the gay guy for his passive role with money or other gifts, noting this way the role of subordination of the gay guy.
THE AUDIENCE OF PORNOGRAPHY
In the past, at least until the 50s of the last century, the pornographic publications were expensive and not easy to find, and were primarily directed to middle-class heterosexuals who lived hetero-gay relationships with lower class young men at the level of transgression. In fact, this kind of “gay” pornography was actually aimed at heterosexual males and tended to emphasize the patterns of sexual behavior of the hetero-gay relationship. In this way, between the years 30 and 40 of the XX century was credited the typical model hetero-gay as a model of homosexual relationships. That model, the only one sponsored by pornography because it was required by the high-class people who had money and identified themselves with the dominant male of the hetero-gay relationship, came to prevail and to be considered by gays themselves as their model of sexual behavior.
GAY-GAY SEXUALITY
Only since the late 60s of last century gays began to have some visibility and, in some cases at least, had the opportunity to experience not only of the hetero-gay relationships in which they were inevitably destined to the passive role, but for the first time, also the gay-gay relationships. In the first phase, which is currently not fully completed, the hetero-gay model imposed by the pornography has continued to dominate importing in the gay-gay relationships the active-passive binomial. In this case, however, also the active role is played by a gay, but in gay-gay relationships began to appear a novelty that marked a strong difference with respect to the hetero-gay relationship. In gay-gay relationships, while there are still the categories of active and passive, roles were no more fixed, or at least were not so definitely fixed, although anal penetration continued to be considered the true purpose of the intercourse.
THE EVOLUTION OF GAY-GAY SESSAULITY
In recent years, starting from the 90s and beginning of the XXI century, after the advent of the internet, for many gay men the opportunity to get in contact with other gays has become a reality and this has fostered dialogue and discussion between gays and has slowly but surely eroded the strength of the model of sexuality among gays inherited from the old hetero-gay model. Talking in chat with gay guys of different ages I feel that as we move towards the younger age classes gay-gay sexuality is seen and lived less and less according to the old models. I add one more observation: sexuality according to the hetero-gay model resists especially among young people who have been heavily influenced by pornography and who have not had the opportunity to compare their own sexuality with that of other gay guys, on the contrary among guys who have had a freer sex education and have been able to talk about their sexuality with other gay guys, real sex life is in fact almost entirely detached from the hetero-gay model and is geared basically towards a gay-gay model of sexuality based on the “principle of equality”.
EQUALITY IN GAY-GAY RELATIONSHIP
I will try to outline how many young gay guys see the sexuality, I refer to guys under the age of thirty, with the caveat that over the age of thirty exceptions are not rare, and on the contrary exceptions are almost rare among the very young guys, 20 year old and less.
A straight guy sees the development of his sexuality as an essential element to be considered socially adult, the development of his sexuality is realized within a climate of strong sharing with peers and is strongly linked to the assimilation of the most common and accepted patterns of behavior, in other words the development of hetero sexuality occurs predominantly “through imitation”. On the contrary, a gay guy sees his being gay as a cause of exclusion especially with respect to peers and, beyond pornography, he totally lacks in models of sexual reference, this means that “spontaneous” gay sexuality grows in a way completely independent, starting from the masturbation and without any reference to the models of hetero sexuality. I note in passing that in the masturbatory fantasies of all gay guys there is always the idea of masturbating a mate and practicing oral sex on him while, fantasies about the penetration are much less common. The “spontaneous” sexuality of gay young people, especially guys not openly gay and unrelated to gay social life and to gay pornography, and therefore not influenced by models of gay sexual behavior, tends to be a sexuality that is independent of the penetration, which is perceived indeed, in the vast majority of cases, as something imported from the straight world and not originally gay. This fact, coupled with the fact that anal penetration is by far the most at-risk sexual behavior for HIV transmission, encourages young gay people not to consider the penetration as a desirable sexual behavior.
And where penetration is practiced, however, the roles are not fixed or they are not fixed in an absolute way, what, in spite of the permanence of the penetration, is a sign of the equality or of the tendency to equality within the couple.
That said, and with all the necessary caveats, I try to summarize the sense of equality within a gay-gay relationship.
A straight couple is characterized by complementarity of gender roles that are anatomically and biologically defined, roles that characterize substantially that kind of relationship. Heterosexuality is to love the “other than himself/herself.”
A gay couple is characterized by the identity of the roles of the two partners. A gay guy falls in love with another guy certainly not because he considers him a substitute for a woman, but just because he is a guy, that is, for his male identity. The interest of a gay guy in the penis of his partner is particularly strong and the sense of identity and almost of reciprocal melting you feel during the sexual contact is related to the fact that each of the partners knows exactly the physiological responses of the other, just because they are two guys.
In these circumstances it is easy to understand that a relationship based on the concept of equality is difficult to reconcile with the assumption of gender roles into a gay-gay intercourse and absolutely incompatible with the idea of fixed gender roles.
The sexuality of young gay couples tends not to be an imitation of pornography but to realize the “independent” masturbatory fantasies of the guys and is realized through sexual behaviors diluted consisting of several elements mainly related to physical intimacy not immediately sexual and so-called “pampering “.
1) Get used to mutual nudity, being naked together, hugging bare naked and remain embraced for several minutes.
2) Fondling, kissing, exchanging tenderness.
3) Touching each other intimately, without immediate sexual purposes.
4) Postpone the orgasm phase.
5) Speak a lot while embracing.
6) Extend affectionate behavior even in the post-orgasmic phase, falling asleep in each other’s arms.
As we understand, this model of gay-gay sexuality has nothing to do with the models inherited from pornography. In the most recent times pornography is trying to adapt to new models of emerging sexuality, but these models are not compatible with the classical standard of porn. Despite these attempts to conform, the pornography in the classic sense of the term is slowly losing ground among gays for the benefit of the spontaneity in sexual behavior.
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If you like, you can join the discussion on this post on Gay Project Forum: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=59
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