The grim tth of beg gay prison | Sadhbh Walshe | The Guardian

Contents:

• CAN A STRAIGHT GUY ETHILLY ACCEPT ORAL SEX OM HIS GAY BUDDY?
• WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?
• A HANDY GUI TO ALL GAY MEN
• PHYSIL, BEHAVRAL, AND PSYCHOLOGIL TRAS OF GAY MEN INTIFYG AS BEARS
• THE GRIM TTH OF BEG GAY PRISON
• FOR GAY MEN, AN ATTRACTNTO A DIFFERENT KD OF SCENT
• PENIS SIZE AND PREFERRED SEXUAL ROL AMONG GAY MEN

CAN A STRAIGHT GUY ETHILLY ACCEPT ORAL SEX OM HIS GAY BUDDY?

My last post scribed a populatn of mal who nsir themselv heterosexual, do not label themselv gay or bisexual, chew volvement wh the LGBT muny, are often married or romantilly volved wh an oppose-sex partner, and who engage sex wh mal or exprs the sire to do so. Due large part to the popularizatn of the topic the btsellg 2005 book On the Down Low: A Journey to the Liv of 'Straight' Black Men Who Sleep wh Men, [i] Lato and Ain-Amerin men are the primary subjects rearch wh non-gay intified MSM.

One of the earlit studi, "The Bisexual and Non-Gay Attached Rearch Project" om the early 1990s, found that participants engagg same-sex sexual behavr but not intifyg as gay or bisexual scribed themselv as “kky, ” “normal, ” or “jt a guy. [iii] Daryl Hood, Garrett Prtage, June Crawford, Tania Sorrell, and Chris O’Reilly, "Report on the BANGAR Project: Bisexual Activy/non Gay Attachment Rearch Targetg Strategi Intifitn Project. Ramamurthi, Cleo Manago, Serg Ava, and Marv Jon, “Sexual Behavr, Sexual Inty, and Substance Abe Among Low-Ine Bisexual and Non-Gay-Intifyg Ain Amerin Men Who Have Sex wh Men, ” Archiv of Sexual Behavr 37, no.

WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?

Coprophilia is sexual stimulatn om fec, and while the general populatn’s rponse to is bound to be pretty strong, this fetish is more mon than you might spect, particularly among gay pig players, fistg enthiasts, and kky leather men. Proment gay clothg brands like Nasty Pig and Cellblock 13 draw their sign spiratn om tried-and-te sports wear, and standard gay circu attire will always feature a pair of football pants wh the ont lacg beckongly open. But nsirg that the tra disurag the type of sex that leads to procreatn — that is, sex wh women — and would therefore seem to thwart s own chanc of beg geilly passed on to the next generatn, why are there gay men at all?

A HANDY GUI TO ALL GAY MEN

For several years, studi led by Andrea Camper Ciani at the Universy of Padova Italy and others have found that mothers and maternal nts of gay men tend to have signifintly more offsprg than the maternal relativ of straight men. The rults show strong support for the "balancg selectn hypothis, " which is fast beg the accepted theory of the geic basis of male theory holds that the same geic factors that duce gayns mal also promote fecundy (high reproductive succs) those mal' female maternal relativ.

Through this tra-off, the maternal relativ' "gay man gen, " though they aren't exprsed as such, tend to get passed to future generatns spe of their tenncy to make their male herors no one knows which gen, exactly, the might be, at least one of them appears to be loted on the X chromosome, acrdg to geic molg by Camper Ciani and his lleagu.

Mal her only one X chromosome — the one om their mother — and if clus the gene that promot gayns mal and fecundy femal, he is likely to be gay while his mom and her female relativ are likely to have lots of kids. Prevly, the Italian rearchers suggted that the "gay man gene" might simply crease androphilia, or attractn to men, thereby makg the mal who posss the gene homosexual and the femal who posss more promiscuo.

PHYSIL, BEHAVRAL, AND PSYCHOLOGIL TRAS OF GAY MEN INTIFYG AS BEARS

The androphilic pattern that we found is about femal who crease their reproductive value to attract the bt mal, " Camper Ciani told Life's Ltle out, the moms and nts of gay men have an advantage over the moms and nts of straight men for several reasons: They are more fertile, displayg fewer gynelogil disorrs or plitns durg pregnancy; they are more extroverted, as well as funnier, happier and more relaxed; and they have fewer fay problems and social anxieti. After more than three s of safer sex msag agast the backdrop of gay men sickeng horribly and then dyg, new medil treatments have stemmed the ti of the panmic and offered real hope for longer-term survival to people wh HIV. Queer theorist Tim Dean (2000) wr: "In view of statistics on new seronversns, some AIDS tors have begun to acknowledge that, unlikely though may seem, remag HIV-negative fact pos signifint psychologil challeng to gay men" (p.

To those who have not been workg the gay men's muny for the past 25 years, this statement might seem absurd, but is te that HIV-negative gay men face unique challeng that make seem almost easier to seronvert. San Francis Bay area psychologist Walt Ots (1995) was one of the first mental health profsnals to qutn why gay men who had th far ped beg fected wh HIV were placg themselv at risk for beg so. New York social worker Steve Ball (1998) scrib how durg the height of the AIDS epimic HIV-negative gay men often found themselv the role of regiver, mourner/widower, or outsir, due to their not beg fected wh HIV.

Gay men who were recently surveyed about their failure to e ndoms durg anal sex repeatedly told rearchers that current AIDS preventn msag do not feel relevant to them and do not nvey an urgency about why ndom e is important (Halkis, Parsons, & Wilton, 2003; Carballo-Dieguez & L, 2003; Mor et al., 2003).

THE GRIM TTH OF BEG GAY PRISON

Crossley suggts that is impossible to evaluate the efficy of safer-sex msag and of themselv sce ncurrent to when they first began appearg, gay men were overwhelmed by the terror that they might be fected by the then-new disease that was rapidly killg their iends and lovers. They reported beg thrilled to be able to participate a procs that helped them reclaim the joy and fun of gay sex amidst all of the sex-negativy and sex-equalg-ath msag that were undatg them.

As psychologist and former rearcher at the CDC Ron Stall was quoted as sayg an article the Manhattan gay newspaper Gay Cy News, "There are studi that monstrate a variety of psychosocial health issu, cludg prsn, antigay vlence, childhood sexual abe, or substance abe, n lead gay men to have unsafe sex" (Stall, quoted Osborne, 2002, p.

In my own practice, I have intified several factors that appear to lead to sexual risk-takg: lonels, beg HIV-posive, havg unmet timacy needs, feelg alienated om the gay muny, beg love, and a cravg for eper timacy and tst. Even when gay men posss a sophistited unrstandg of how HIV is transmted and accurate perceptns of how dangero risky sex n be, many gay men unrtimate their vulnerabily to HIV fectn (McKick, Horstman, & Coat, 1985; Bman & Siegel, 1987; Richard et al., 1988).

FOR GAY MEN, AN ATTRACTNTO A DIFFERENT KD OF SCENT

Suarez and Miller (2001) feel that many gay youth who bareback fall to the tegory of irratnal risk takers sce they may have never known anyone wh HIV and hold psimistic attus about the future largely related to their beg gay. As evince, they pot to the plethora of personal ads on Web s voted exclively to barebackg as well as on Web s where gay men cise for sex where men state their own HIV stat and the sired stat of potential partners. The many levels of meang and special signifince that givg and receivg of semen has for gay men nnot be unrtimated as a ntributg factor to the rise barebackg -- pecially romantic upl, as will be examed Sectn 2 of this book.

In ntrast to the rearchers above who have shown that for some gay men barebackg is a ratnal activy, there are social scientists who have tried to terme whether men who bareback have a documented higher level of mental disorrs than do men who do not take sexual risks. Rearch by Halkis and Wilton (2005) on the meangs of sex for HIV-posive gay and bisexual men found that of the 250 men terviewed, most discsed the role of sex as a mood stabilizer, strs rcer, and facilator of timacy. Even though a rrelatn has been shown to exist between high sensatn-seekers and impulsivy, this alone do not necsarily mean that all gay men who are high sexual sensatn-seekers exhib characteristics that would em them diagnosable as havg a personaly disorr, though obvly some do.

Wh the mental health profsns' long history of diagnosg gay men as psychologilly abnormal and disturbed bee of their homosexualy, is important that the simple fact that a man has high-risk sex do not bee the sole crern for him to be diagnosed as exhibg psychopathology.

PENIS SIZE AND PREFERRED SEXUAL ROL AMONG GAY MEN

Do an dividual's sire to behave ways that may be labeled as eher impulsive or sensatn-seekg now place him at risk for receivg yet another diagnosis that reflects society's tense negativy toward gay male sexualy?

This is where astute diagnostic skills and cultural sensivy to particular reali the liv of gay men are required orr to not appropriately pathologize men who are behavg a manner that the society or clician is unfortable wh or se as appropriate, whout nyg the possibily that for some gay men their sexual risk-takg may be part of a nstellatn of symptoms that jtifi a psychiatric diagnosis. In discsg the multiple meangs and implitns of sex, Frost (1994) expands upon Carballo-Dieguez's fdgs, statg, "For many gay men, sexual behavr is a statement of their sense of beg gay, an affirmatn of their right to be gay, an exprsn of love, a vehicle through which to achieve timacy, and a repudiatn of the felt prohibn by the greater society. Speakg specifilly about gay men, Yep, Lovaas, and Pagonis (2002) suggt that for many gay men the ternnectn between the sexual and emotnal or psychologil aspects of their psych speaks not only to the realy that some gay men e sex as an attempted "panacea" for their problems but also ntribut to active ristance to changg risky sexual behavr.

One study nducted durg the height of the epimic found that a majory of men surveyed agreed wh the statement, "It is hard to change my sexual behavr bee beg gay means dog what I want sexually" (Aspwall, Kemeny, Taylor, Schneir, & Dudley, 1991, p. 433) All therapists workg wh gay men who bareback mt spend nsirable time explorg the numero and layered meangs that sex has for each dividual and how sex wh and whout ndoms affects the abily of var sexual opportuni and suatns to meet the needs.