Let's have a calm, polite and substantial discussion about gender and sex

[afleitch]

I tend to think the forums, obsession (perhaps too strong a word) with feminism rests on the fact that we have virtually no non-trans women on this board. So ultimately discussions on such matters basically make this place an echo chamber.

My input is this. I am a 29 year old homosexual male. I have a husband now so I am strictly monogamous, but I've been sexually active since I was a teenager. I have had sex just for thrills and had random encounters with people I didn't know. That was then. I don't regret it or consider it anything to be ashamed of, I've had full sexual health clinic check ups every few months and have befallen less 'problems' than my straight male friends have. The thing is, carnally, masculinity for me is everything in the bedroom. There has to be physicality in sex; a man getting f-cked by another man is incredibly masculine if he takes it and enjoys it as a man should enjoy it. Anyone who thinks it's somehow emasculating, that gay sex is emasculating is so far from the truth (feminist discussions of gay sex are fascinating by the way) but homosexual masculinity in all it's forms violates the hetero normative views of being a man is. Of course a man actually being a chauvinistic douche bag is a complete turn off but that's part of the dichotomy.

I've been groped by women on probably more unwanted occasions than by men. Being gay means I'm a non threatening and some women take liberties with that. Again that may violate peoples preconceived notions of women, but if women are in an environment where you, dear reader, as the heterosexual male are not present women are extraordinarily different sexual creatures.

[afleitch]

Female friends of mine find this thread hilarious for the record.

[afleitch]

I think this has taken an interesting turn. The problem is that appeals to ‘personal autonomy’ (which as a classical liberal I strongly support; the idea that it’s some exclusive quasi-libertarian thing makes me think you’ve all spent too much time on the internets ) is what has driven the move towards ‘permissiveness’, not the reappraisal of sexual acts within a moral framework. By permissiveness I mean a move away from the patriarchal and heteronormative view of morality (which granted the heterosexual male free reign in sexual acts; being able to define what is morally ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ concerning them and also being able to roundly ignore them). What I don’t mean by ‘permissiveness’ is over sexualisation. That has always manifested itself regardless of what moral and social norms are in place.

It is of no coincidence that the LGBT rights movement has manifested and sadly at times in the 20th Century, ebbed, with successive waves of feminism. Women have not attained the advances that they have on the basis of people determining they are ‘morally right’ as women, but on the basis of personal autonomy; in part being granted literal control over their own bodies with their own abilities as women being determined by their contributions rather than the limitations placed upon them a priori by men. Gays have not achieved the position in some parts of society that they currently hold because people have determined at first that being gay and committing the sexual acts associated with it is either moral or amoral (because a close examination may lead the heterosexual to find it difficult to disassociate heterosexual sexual norms, potential revulsion of the scatological etc from the homosexual physical and emotional experience) but because of the fact that someone being gay doesn’t affect them or doesn’t threaten them. That comes first (and I know from personal experience with people’s reactions to me) and then any moral re-appraisal comes second. I cannot consider that ‘cowardly’ but merely a stage in acceptance.