More Sex, Please

From AlterNet, an essay on how the gay marriage movement is affecting the overall gay rights movement:

We differ in one important way: We have sex with people of the same gender, at least a portion of the time. And that's the part that freaks most straight people out.

Rather than confront this cultural barrier, we try to cover it up like a blemish on otherwise perfect skin. We chose our language carefully: We have an "orientation" that is by no means a choice. We build "committed" relationships. We urge "tolerance" and "acceptance" rather than provoke cultural change.

Legal equality is a worthy goal, all the more so for those at the lower end of the economic ladder who can't afford to tell the boss to fuck off when he demands they dress like ladies or gents. But it's also a goal that will remain elusive as long as we opt out of the sex wars. We must convince America to celebrate rather than hide from the fact that we all have sex, of all different sorts—to champion the idea that hetero or homo, missionary or doggy-style, it's all good. For until the country stops dividing sex by what's natural or perverted, we'll never get our rights—civil or otherwise.

Click here for the rest.

I, too, am all for equality, but am also somewhat troubled by the enormous emphasis that the gay community has placed on gaining the right to marry.

Long ago I decided that gay rights are, in reality, sexual rights, rights for everybody. When culture, business, or the government, whatever, tells gay people that they can be punished for having sex with one another, it is clearly giving itself the authority to police everyone's sexual practices, gay and straight alike. It just so happens that, at the moment, straights are given much more societal freedom with their sexuality than gays: however, as long as it is deemed acceptable to punish one group for their sexuality it is likely that whenever the cultural tide turns other groups could be punished, too. If that sounds silly, bear in mind that adultery is still illegal for people in the military. Illegal, not simply against the rules or policy, and servicemen are still prosecuted for it. It's also clear in post 9/11 America that culture and values can change overnight. Consequently, today's persecuted gay could be tomorrow's persecuted swinger or even serial monogamist. Gay rights are the same as straight rights; they're sexual rights.

With this in mind, I've looked to the gay community for many years as the vanguard for the protection and extension of sexual freedoms--since the rise of AIDS, the gay community has also been on the cutting edge of sex education and sexual health. Understand that I fully support the right for gays to marry: however, this movement also represents the gay community's shift away from extending and protecting sexual rights and toward the concept of inclusion and assimilation, which, I must admit is not a bad thing in and of itself. But the long and the short of this is that the drive for social acceptance has come at the expense of the drive to change society for the better. Indeed, this shift has been coming for a long time. The first evidence of the gay community's abandonment of an agenda of social change was during the 80s when a movement began to keep the drag queens and leather men away from gay pride celebrations--the idea behind this was that the big flamers alienate mainstream society, which was (and still is) believed by many to be counterproductive.

So my question is, if the gay community is no longer interested in protecting and extending sexual rights, who is? Certainly not the pornography industry. Their mission is profit oriented, and therefore exploitative--they don't care as long as they're making a buck. Obviously not the churches, who want to completely control human sexuality. Clearly not the government. My fear is that it is the gay marriage movement, rather than the drag queens and leather men, that is counterproductive.

It's also something of a bummer to feel like I've lost my gay sex heroes. Real heroes are in short supply these days.

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