When you write "However, that doesn't address the fact that there are a lot of people my age running around who were so repressed as children that they attach themselves to a social group which is almost defined by it's sexual behavior without any interest in commitment or healthy affection," I'm not sure how to draw the connection between sexual repression as adolescents and later sexual behavior. After all, I grew up among Baptist fundamentalists, was about as severely sexually repressed as you can be, and, nonetheless, have always been pretty much straight-up monogamous - in some ways, I would say that sexual repression acted, in my case, to make me less sexually outgoing than many of my peers.
As I said, I think there are aspects of not being able to act out on one's sexuality as an adolescent that do have significant effects on one's later sexual maturity - I think many older gay men are attracted to younger ones because they were frustrated in their attraction to their peers when they were younger, and so when they come out, their sexual maturity is "re-set," if you will, to being fourteen. However, I think that there are many, many factors that influence one's individual relation to others to whom one feels a sexual attraction, some biological, some social, and some individual.
That said, there are things about the way in which the gay community itself views sexuality that are troubling in this regard - I can point to numerous events here in SF, for example, that champion the idea of promiscuous, pre-AIDS sexual activity as being integral to a concept of authentic gay identity. I think this may indeed be part of a backlash against sexual repression experienced by those growing up gay, but I also think that trying to draw a direct causal relationship between growing up in a sexually repressive environment, and later sexual promiscuity, is too simplistic. In the end, there are too many counter-examples and anamolies that have to be taken into account.
well, for one. the time of the post reflects much of it's actual weight in my mind. there were a couple paragraphs that just clicked with me in the night, so I ended up just linking the whole thing.
I started out in the camp of selectively hand picking relationships through the shield of the internet. Now every day I have a bigger desire to meet people in a real manner, without all the pretense of the interweb. I've never been on a 'date' and it's always been too easy to just jump to sex.
I want to prove that I have some self control. I'm also in heat.
It's easy to jump into sex everywhere, dear. The intarweb just happens to be full of people that have even less self-control/social consciousness/self-esteem than even the most chi-chi Castro queen. While we're all desperate for touch and connection, there are certain places where we're so desperate we've forgotten how to play the other games (if we even learned at all).
Don't be too hard on yourself. Yer still a youngin': you've got a long time to learn, and as those lovely producers of smokey-tokes said: You've come a long way, baby.
As I said, I think there are aspects of not being able to act out on one's sexuality as an adolescent that do have significant effects on one's later sexual maturity - I think many older gay men are attracted to younger ones because they were frustrated in their attraction to their peers when they were younger, and so when they come out, their sexual maturity is "re-set," if you will, to being fourteen. However, I think that there are many, many factors that influence one's individual relation to others to whom one feels a sexual attraction, some biological, some social, and some individual.
That said, there are things about the way in which the gay community itself views sexuality that are troubling in this regard - I can point to numerous events here in SF, for example, that champion the idea of promiscuous, pre-AIDS sexual activity as being integral to a concept of authentic gay identity. I think this may indeed be part of a backlash against sexual repression experienced by those growing up gay, but I also think that trying to draw a direct causal relationship between growing up in a sexually repressive environment, and later sexual promiscuity, is too simplistic. In the end, there are too many counter-examples and anamolies that have to be taken into account.
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I started out in the camp of selectively hand picking relationships through the shield of the internet. Now every day I have a bigger desire to meet people in a real manner, without all the pretense of the interweb. I've never been on a 'date' and it's always been too easy to just jump to sex.
I want to prove that I have some self control.
I'm also in heat.
these ideas clash daily. news at 11.
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Don't be too hard on yourself. Yer still a youngin': you've got a long time to learn, and as those lovely producers of smokey-tokes said: You've come a long way, baby.
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