Do you dream about finding Mr. Right and living happily ever after? So do I. But sometimes I wonder if mainstream American gay male culture is actually working against us in that department. Much of our culture seems designed to fan the flames of desire and encourage us to have as much sex as we possibly can, especially while we're young. Thoughts of exclusive monogamy, for those who want that, are filed away for a later date, perhaps once we've crossed an imaginary threshold of age 30, or 40, or beyond.
At times it feels like wishing for that before advanced middle age is naively idealistic at best and prudish at worst. There is nothing unethical about consensual sex between adults; it's natural and fun.
So there's no reason to feel ashamed about hooking up. But for the subset of young gay men who desire traditional long-term commitment, is our culture's emphasis on the pursuit of sexual novelty and variety in any way harmful? Is our community willing to withhold the usual defensiveness about casual sex and examine this issue more closely? I don't ask this strictly as a moral question, though it is certainly informed by my upbringing.
I grew up in a socially conservative Pakistani-American community in which traditional monogamy remains the norm. It was ingrained in us as children that sex is a sacred act of love between two people, and that crude sexual desire is never to be expressed openly. When I was 10, my grandparents came home to find my friends and me ooh ing and aah ing over a kissing scene in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
I was thoroughly chastised for neglecting to change the channel. As an out gay man, I've spent years shedding the influence of these puritanical mores, but I still yearn for an exclusive long-term relationship. Is it any wronger to want traditional monogamy than it is to want casual sex? I've met plenty of urban gay men who confess that their experimentation with casual sex leaves them feeling empty. For them, there is something degrading about constantly trying to disconnect their feelings -- that desire to be close and special to somebody -- from sex.
