TIL about 'Side B' LGBTQ Christians

[afleitch]

Well not just today...repackaged and marketed shame for Christians who think God made them queer but also denied them the physical expression of love, the thought of love or even partnership. Some of it is quite heartbreaking, some of it saccharine, some of it borderline homoerotic towards a 'relationship' with Jesus, some of it seeking appropriation of affirming LGBTQ spaces, especially during Pride month. Some of it is blatant rebranding of the 'ex-gay' sh!t. Deeply depressing (closes Twitter)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I’d almost literally rather die than have a conversation about this topic with other frequenters of the Atlas Forum Religion & Philosophy board (ETA: other than to observe that "Side B" is a stupid, stupid phrase, as is its affirming equivalent, "Side A"), but I’m going to take the opportunity to share this fascinating semi-relevant article about the midcentury gay Catholic poet Dunstan Thompson.

[afleitch]

I’d almost literally rather die than have a conversation about this topic with other frequenters of the Atlas Forum Religion & Philosophy board (other than to observe that "Side B" is a stupid, stupid phrase), but I’m going to take the opportunity to share this fascinating semi-relevant article about the midcentury gay Catholic poet Dunstan Thompson.

It's a good article. I know Catholic guilt. Art forged through inner conflict or turmoil is often the most praised, the most beautiful, critically dissected and at times the most commercial. But I've never felt comfortable with that. It's not a place a person should find themselves; perhaps it's why there's nothing quite like what 'was', because what's 'now' is created in less conflicted times. Some would argue that real 'art' can't exist without conflict. But resolving conflict, living life without it and being direct produces art I connect with;

Frank O'Hara;

'I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick

which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together for the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism

just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me.'

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I’d almost literally rather die than have a conversation about this topic with other frequenters of the Atlas Forum Religion & Philosophy board (other than to observe that "Side B" is a stupid, stupid phrase), but I’m going to take the opportunity to share this fascinating semi-relevant article about the midcentury gay Catholic poet Dunstan Thompson.

It's a good article. I know Catholic guilt. Art forged through inner conflict or turmoil is often the most praised, the most beautiful, critically dissected and at times the most commercial. But I've never felt comfortable with that. It's not a place a person should find themselves; perhaps it's why there's nothing quite like what 'was', because what's 'now' is created in less conflicted times. Some would argue that real 'art' can't exist without conflict. But resolving conflict, living life without it and being direct produces art I connect with;

Frank O'Hara;

'I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick

which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together for the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism

just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me.'

I couldn't agree more; I love O'Hara, and while I think guilt and inner conflict are great subjects for art I don't think they're the only ones. Resolution and deciding to put one's demons to rest (or try to) are wonderful subjects too; there's a reason why some of Van Gogh's best paintings are portraits of psychiatrists who were treating him. I remember from a conversation you and I had years and years ago that you strongly dislike Tolkien, but I hope you'll see the appeal in "At the End of the Quest, Victory", the title of W.H. Auden's NYT review of The Return of the King. The response to psychic conflict should involve at least an attempt at genuine resolution (of which, oddly, the actual ending of The Return of the King is not a good example).

I don't mean to monopolize this thread if you and others want to discuss the topic of the "Side B" phenomenon on its merits, though, so I'll set this conversation aside for now.

[Some of My Best Friends Are Gay]

It's deeply sad to me that so many people are torturing themselves and will never be able to experience love or sex as all humans should be able to.


If God exists and made you queer or trans, (s)he must be pretty queer and/or trans him/herself.

[afleitch]

I’d almost literally rather die than have a conversation about this topic with other frequenters of the Atlas Forum Religion & Philosophy board (other than to observe that "Side B" is a stupid, stupid phrase), but I’m going to take the opportunity to share this fascinating semi-relevant article about the midcentury gay Catholic poet Dunstan Thompson.

It's a good article. I know Catholic guilt. Art forged through inner conflict or turmoil is often the most praised, the most beautiful, critically dissected and at times the most commercial. But I've never felt comfortable with that. It's not a place a person should find themselves; perhaps it's why there's nothing quite like what 'was', because what's 'now' is created in less conflicted times. Some would argue that real 'art' can't exist without conflict. But resolving conflict, living life without it and being direct produces art I connect with;

Frank O'Hara;

'I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick

which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together for the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism

just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me.'

I couldn't agree more; I love O'Hara, and while I think guilt and inner conflict are great subjects for art I don't think they're the only ones. Resolution and deciding to put one's demons to rest (or try to) are wonderful subjects too; there's a reason why some of Van Gogh's best paintings are portraits of psychiatrists who were treating him. I remember from a conversation you and I had years and years ago that you strongly dislike Tolkien, but I hope you'll see the appeal in "At the End of the Quest, Victory", the title of W.H. Auden's NYT review of The Return of the King. The response to psychic conflict should involve at least an attempt at genuine resolution (of which, oddly, the actual ending of The Return of the King is not a good example).

I don't mean to monopolize this thread if you and others want to discuss the topic of the "Side B" phenomenon on its merits, though, so I'll set this conversation aside for now.

All conversation is good conversation

I'm not a fan of Tolkien on reflection I think not because of his writings which are fine, but the archetypes he created which overwhelmed the fantasy genre for decades, and even overwhelmed his own (I like Tom Bombadil for the reasons people tend not to; it's more rooted in classic English fantasy) But I'm a Gaiman fan so I'm biased. I can almost forgive his imperialism for the same reason I can forgive Herge who I adore (though Herge made greater, revisionary moves to atone for it.), and for all the criticisms of women in his writings, you'd struggle to see much advance from that in fiction today tbh. I'm looking forward to the adaptation of His Dark Materials which I think is probably the finest, popular inversion of the trope.

On reading Auden's review, he is correct in saying that wars are won by the strong not the just and that good cannot impose itself by force or else it ceases to be good and overall I think he is fair in his assessment in how to resolve that 'black and white' straightjacket that these sorts of hero's journey's find themselves in. I do think that conflict has to be resolved and I think that art is only at it's most complete reflection of the self when it does. The conclusion must always be, in some way, anticlimactic. Even if it's death before resolution or death to evade it.

Michael Moorcock, who you probably know of, was to science fiction as I suppose Tolkien is to fantasy (making it less pew pew go rocket go and more desolate) and he's still kicking around. I agree when he says that Tolkien, like other orthodox writers is someone who 'substituted faith for artistic vigour' seeing the working class as a 'bulwark against chaos'...as long as everything goes back the way it was. Which of course, when Tolkien was writing LoTR, it hadn't. Tolkien, Lewis etc are, as he puts it rightly 'High Tories.' I often find it uncomfortable that in latter years, there's a glut (usually your side of the pond) of both apologists and detractors trying to read J E S U S too much into Tolkien and Lewis. I think it's the wrong lens. They were Jordan Petersoning to the young men in their bedrooms and common rooms.

The best summation of my discomfort with LoTR comes from Moorcock;

'The Lord of the Rings is a pernicious confirmation of the values of   a declining   nation with a morally bankrupt class whose cowardly self-protection is primarily responsible for the problems England answered with the ruthless logic of Thatcherism. Humanity was derided and marginalised.'

Though he saves his venom, somewhat rightly, for Lewis

[John Dule]

Given the levels of promiscuity in the gay community, it doesn't surprise me that some homosexual people have rejected gay culture by swinging all the way to the most radical opposite side of the spectrum.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I’d almost literally rather die than have a conversation about this topic with other frequenters of the Atlas Forum Religion & Philosophy board (other than to observe that "Side B" is a stupid, stupid phrase), but I’m going to take the opportunity to share this fascinating semi-relevant article about the midcentury gay Catholic poet Dunstan Thompson.

It's a good article. I know Catholic guilt. Art forged through inner conflict or turmoil is often the most praised, the most beautiful, critically dissected and at times the most commercial. But I've never felt comfortable with that. It's not a place a person should find themselves; perhaps it's why there's nothing quite like what 'was', because what's 'now' is created in less conflicted times. Some would argue that real 'art' can't exist without conflict. But resolving conflict, living life without it and being direct produces art I connect with;

Frank O'Hara;

'I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick

which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together for the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism

just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me.'

I couldn't agree more; I love O'Hara, and while I think guilt and inner conflict are great subjects for art I don't think they're the only ones. Resolution and deciding to put one's demons to rest (or try to) are wonderful subjects too; there's a reason why some of Van Gogh's best paintings are portraits of psychiatrists who were treating him. I remember from a conversation you and I had years and years ago that you strongly dislike Tolkien, but I hope you'll see the appeal in "At the End of the Quest, Victory", the title of W.H. Auden's NYT review of The Return of the King. The response to psychic conflict should involve at least an attempt at genuine resolution (of which, oddly, the actual ending of The Return of the King is not a good example).

I don't mean to monopolize this thread if you and others want to discuss the topic of the "Side B" phenomenon on its merits, though, so I'll set this conversation aside for now.

All conversation is good conversation

I'm not a fan of Tolkien on reflection I think not because of his writings which are fine, but the archetypes he created which overwhelmed the fantasy genre for decades, and even overwhelmed his own (I like Tom Bombadil for the reasons people tend not to; it's more rooted in classic English fantasy) But I'm a Gaiman fan so I'm biased. I can almost forgive his imperialism for the same reason I can forgive Herge who I adore (though Herge made greater, revisionary moves to atone for it.), and for all the criticisms of women in his writings, you'd struggle to see much advance from that in fiction today tbh. I'm looking forward to the adaptation of His Dark Materials which I think is probably the finest, popular inversion of the trope.

On reading Auden's review, he is correct in saying that wars are won by the strong not the just and that good cannot impose itself by force or else it ceases to be good and overall I think he is fair in his assessment in how to resolve that 'black and white' straightjacket that these sorts of hero's journey's find themselves in. I do think that conflict has to be resolved and I think that art is only at it's most complete reflection of the self when it does. The conclusion must always be, in some way, anticlimactic. Even if it's death before resolution or death to evade it.

Michael Moorcock, who you probably know of, was to science fiction as I suppose Tolkien is to fantasy (making it less pew pew go rocket go and more desolate) and he's still kicking around. I agree when he says that Tolkien, like other orthodox writers is someone who 'substituted faith for artistic vigour' seeing the working class as a 'bulwark against chaos'...as long as everything goes back the way it was. Which of course, when Tolkien was writing LoTR, it hadn't. Tolkien, Lewis etc are, as he puts it rightly 'High Tories.' I often find it uncomfortable that in latter years, there's a glut (usually your side of the pond) of both apologists and detractors trying to read J E S U S too much into Tolkien and Lewis. I think it's the wrong lens. They were Jordan Petersoning to the young men in their bedrooms and common rooms.

The best summation of my discomfort with LoTR comes from Moorcock;

'The Lord of the Rings is a pernicious confirmation of the values of   a declining   nation with a morally bankrupt class whose cowardly self-protection is primarily responsible for the problems England answered with the ruthless logic of Thatcherism. Humanity was derided and marginalised.'

Though he saves his venom, somewhat rightly, for Lewis

These are all good observations and I'd almost go so far as to say that I think they're the "correct" reasons to dislike Tolkien if one is to dislike him; attacks on Tolkien's writing qua writing more often than not come from places of surprisingly intense elitism and genre-ghettoization, whereas what he's using that writing to advocate is much easier to fairly criticize. Personally I don't think the racial undertones in Tolkien's writing can quite be described as "imperialism" exactly but I might feel differently about that if I were British and had grown up with the legacy of the British Empire.

My own reasons for liking Tolkien are largely down to 1. a history of personal engagement with his writing going back to my childhood, 2. agreement with many, but not all, of his spiritual focuses (expressed more in his letters than in his fiction imo), and 3. appreciation for a lot of what he does with, again, the externalization and dramatization of some of the forces within his psyche and the collective psyche of his social environment that Empire, the Great War, and the Industrial Revolution had unleashed. I don't necessarily love the fact that almost all later Western fantasy literature has either appropriated or reacted against this series of actually very spatially and temporally particular hobbyhorses, but I think a lot of what Tolkien himself does with this is artistically interesting despite its moral lapses.

Agreed on Tom Bombadil, btw.

[afleitch]

Given the levels of promiscuity in the gay community, it doesn't surprise me that some homosexual people have rejected gay culture by swinging all the way to the most radical opposite side of the spectrum.

I would argue in most cases they haven't 'swung to' more 'remained in'. There's nothing more or less hedonistic in being queer and the rejection of even married same sex sexual partnerships is indicative of internalised shame. It's a rejection of affirming monogamous LGBT and Christian frameworks too in favour of remaining conflicted which to me, is indulging in a spiritual hedonism.

Pride isn't for that.

There's also in some circles a fetishising of queer 'fragmentation' or 'brokenness' as a vessel for the gospel or the answer to sexuality even though the vessel is only broken because the same gatekeepers of the gospel slammed it into the ground.

[DavidB.]

What does 'side B' mean?

[bore]

This (very interesting) conversation inspired me to re-read Epic Pooh, and to be honest it's just as much of a mess as I remembered it being (There is a bizarre paragraph where he argues that we need not worry about rural degradation, because we can travel past these places on trains). On a purely stylistic level the block quoting and the flitting between the two different arguments "Tolkien, Lewis et al are bad writers" and "Tolkien, Lewis et al are tories" make it a confusing read, Moorcock could probably have done with an editor.

I read the Narnia books when I was probably about 10 and I remember them being entertaining, but I doubt I'll ever read them again. They are kids books, after all, so I don't really want to talk about Lewis. Interestingly I read His Dark Materials 3 or 4 years after that and I enjoyed them a lot, they had a lot of unusual and intriguing ideas. I know that a lot of play is made, by Pullman and the press about the conflict between the two, but while that's true of the author's intent, as a child, even one who was no doubt more religiously literate than most, I didn't really notice, it was a case of them being two good stories set in weird and strange universes.

I also don't really want to talk about the writing aspect of the argument, partially because it's a matter of taste and partially because I (and most of his fans?) think Tolkein's prose is serviceable, occasionally deviating to either good or poor, his strengths lie in other areas.

It's his ideological argument that is bad, and to be honest very bad indeed, at least to the extent that it's not just "I disagree with these people". For instance:

There is no happy ending to the Romance of Robin Hood, however, whereas Tolkien, going against the grain of his subject matter, forces one on us - as a matter of policy

Which is just obviously wrong. Frodo gets PTSD, the elves have to leave Middle earth, the age of magic passes away. Similarly:

Moderation was the rule and it is moderation which ruins Tolkien's fantasy and causes it to fail as a genuine romance, let alone an epic. The little hills and woods of that Surrey of the mind, the Shire, are "safe", but the wild landscapes everywhere beyond the Shire are "dangerous". Experience of life itself is dangerous

You can only say the Shire is safe if you ignore (as is so often the case) the most straightforwardly political chapter of LOTR, the scouring of the shire. But even then you're missing out on that the hobbit heroes, Bilbo and Frodo, Sam and Merry and Pippin, aren't the ones who stayed at home, they're the ones who went out to experience the big scary worlds. This is clearest cut with the Hobbit, where it isn't really a case of going out reluctantly to save the shire, it's for the adventure that he does it, and is roundly (and, in the books eyes, wrongly) criticised by the others.

Where I do agree with Moorcock, is the last paragraph, derivatives of Tolkien, which is good because of his deep knowledge of myths and languages, are bad even by the standards of derivatives, because its done by authors who think its good because it has a map, elves and dwarves.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Given the levels of promiscuity in the gay community, it doesn't surprise me that some homosexual people have rejected gay culture by swinging all the way to the most radical opposite side of the spectrum.

It is almost certainly shame driving the rejection of gay culture on that level.  I, for example, do not subscribe or take part in many aspects of gay culture and feel comfortable being in a long term, committed, monogamous relationship.  This arises from a desire for emotional stability and security and my preference in doing things for others rather than for myself.  Many of those things do arise from shame...though not from shame about my sexuality.

I would suggest taking some time to learn about these things and reflect on them...from why you almost certainly mean only gay men when you refer to promiscuity and why some gay men turn to promiscuity (hint:  it is often a rebellion against their own internalized shame, that sense of liberation coupled with inexperience at the proper age and societies rejection and devaluation of long term gay relationships leading to one unfulfilling hookup after another...  or because they have been sexually manipulated or abused and they try to make what happened to them seem okay by engaging in risky or impulsive behavior...or simply because they prefer to snack rather than sit down for a full meal).

Afleitch is right.  These are people who grew up in Christian environments that have been convinced that God made them gay but condemns homosexual relations as a sort of test.

[afleitch]

Moorcock could probably have done with an editor.

He's revised it several times. I think it reads well and it was and still is quite an even handed shot across the bow. What people perhaps find unfair is that British fantasy fiction didn't generate proto-Tolkiens; we got Pratchett, Le Guin, Gaiman etc in the decades that followed who have faced 'well it's not exactly Tolkien is it' their entire professional careers. So perhaps people think it's just sour grapes when faced with a critique of an almost deified Tolkien and Lewis (which we also seem keen do for anyone elses literary output we deem as codified Great War angst) And as I said this doesn't come from within the genre; just the consumers of it, imitators of it and the screenwriters wanting EPIC SAGAS to make bank on.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Moorcock could probably have done with an editor.

He's revised it several times. I think it reads well and it was and still is quite an even handed shot across the bow. What people perhaps find unfair is that British fantasy fiction didn't generate proto-Tolkiens; we got Pratchett, Le Guin, Gaiman etc in the decades that followed who have faced 'well it's not exactly Tolkien is it' their entire professional careers. So perhaps people think it's just sour grapes when faced with a critique of an almost deified Tolkien and Lewis (which we also seem keen do for anyone elses literary output we deem as codified Great War angst) And as I said this doesn't come from within the genre; just the consumers of it, imitators of it and the screenwriters wanting EPIC SAGAS to make bank on.

Point of order: Le Guin was American; her parents were the Berkeley anthropologists A.L. and Theodora Kroeber.

[afleitch]

Moorcock could probably have done with an editor.

He's revised it several times. I think it reads well and it was and still is quite an even handed shot across the bow. What people perhaps find unfair is that British fantasy fiction didn't generate proto-Tolkiens; we got Pratchett, Le Guin, Gaiman etc in the decades that followed who have faced 'well it's not exactly Tolkien is it' their entire professional careers. So perhaps people think it's just sour grapes when faced with a critique of an almost deified Tolkien and Lewis (which we also seem keen do for anyone elses literary output we deem as codified Great War angst) And as I said this doesn't come from within the genre; just the consumers of it, imitators of it and the screenwriters wanting EPIC SAGAS to make bank on.

Point of order: Le Guin was American; her parents were the Berkeley anthropologists A.L. and Theodora Kroeber.

Accepted. I stopped at the wrong point in my mental rolodex

[Farmlands]

It's the same type of mentality that sees any hardships in life as a test from God. Except in this case, much more harmful, since it leads to the repression of sexuality, which nearly always results in mental health issues.

Given the levels of promiscuity in the gay community, it doesn't surprise me that some homosexual people have rejected gay culture by swinging all the way to the most radical opposite side of the spectrum.

Ridiculous, the more promiscuous members of the gay community are simply more visible than it's heterosexual counterparts due to more public exposure, it's not an exclusive aspect to it.

[afleitch]

It's the same type of mentality that sees any hardships in life as a test from God. Except in this case, much more harmful, since it leads to the repression of sexuality, which nearly always results in mental health issues.

Given the levels of promiscuity in the gay community, it doesn't surprise me that some homosexual people have rejected gay culture by swinging all the way to the most radical opposite side of the spectrum.

Ridiculous, the more promiscuous members of the gay community are simply more visible than it's heterosexual counterparts due to more public exposure, it's not an exclusive aspect to it.

Fun fact; there's evidence that men have the same reported participation rates in giving anal sex regardless of whether the couple is gay or straight; 34% to 35% respectively, yet anal is seen as 'gay sex' or a vice.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4949144/
https://www.good.is/articles/gay-sex-is-not-anal-sex

Seeing gays as hedonistic because we're open to discussion about such things is often just projection.

[bore]

Moorcock could probably have done with an editor.

He's revised it several times. I think it reads well and it was and still is quite an even handed shot across the bow. What people perhaps find unfair is that British fantasy fiction didn't generate proto-Tolkiens; we got Pratchett, Le Guin, Gaiman etc in the decades that followed who have faced 'well it's not exactly Tolkien is it' their entire professional careers. So perhaps people think it's just sour grapes when faced with a critique of an almost deified Tolkien and Lewis (which we also seem keen do for anyone elses literary output we deem as codified Great War angst) And as I said this doesn't come from within the genre; just the consumers of it, imitators of it and the screenwriters wanting EPIC SAGAS to make bank on.

Yeah, I read one of the more recent revisions (it cited Rowling positively, which struck me as interesting). Even handed is not what I would describe it as, though I don't have a problem with bias so it didn't really bother me.

I think you can claim that Moorcock's critics have bad motives, maybe some of them do, I'm certainly not a huge fan of the thousands of imitators, literary and film, that Tolkien has. And you can certainly make the point that Pratchett and Le Guin and Gaiman have come up with much more worthwhile stuff than people like GRR Martin. But he critical point is that you don't need to be a fan, you can have serious concerns about the Lord of the Rings, the prose, his politics, and still see that the essay is just an obviously wrong misreading of Tolkien's work.

The other thing I think I'd say is that just because Lewis and Tolkien shared a writing group and a theology, that doesn't mean that you can really combine the two into one influence on fantasy, because the type of books they are and the type of worlds they created are really very different. Narnia is in competition with and influenced children's fantasy books, Tolkien is in competition with and influenced adult fantasy books. And, like with any child/adult divide, those are functionally different genres.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Moorcock could probably have done with an editor.

He's revised it several times. I think it reads well and it was and still is quite an even handed shot across the bow. What people perhaps find unfair is that British fantasy fiction didn't generate proto-Tolkiens; we got Pratchett, Le Guin, Gaiman etc in the decades that followed who have faced 'well it's not exactly Tolkien is it' their entire professional careers. So perhaps people think it's just sour grapes when faced with a critique of an almost deified Tolkien and Lewis (which we also seem keen do for anyone elses literary output we deem as codified Great War angst) And as I said this doesn't come from within the genre; just the consumers of it, imitators of it and the screenwriters wanting EPIC SAGAS to make bank on.

Yeah, I read one of the more recent revisions (it cited Rowling positively, which struck me as interesting).

I've read it in less recent revisions, but this doesn't entirely surprise me to hear. The actual Harry Potter books, independent of Rowling's demonstrated inability to let them stand on their own and move on with her career, do feature treatments of death and oppression that, while neither depressing nor particularly sophisticated, are difficult to dismiss as mere conventional wisdom or as part of an attempt to resuscitate "traditional values".

I agree that the idea that LotR resolves in an entirely pat and affirmational way is a serious misreading of it; the earliest versions of "Epic Pooh" also predate the publication of the Silmarillion, which is a much bleaker and more discomfiting work than LotR (not that this necessarily makes it better).

[John Dule]

It's the same type of mentality that sees any hardships in life as a test from God. Except in this case, much more harmful, since it leads to the repression of sexuality, which nearly always results in mental health issues.

Given the levels of promiscuity in the gay community, it doesn't surprise me that some homosexual people have rejected gay culture by swinging all the way to the most radical opposite side of the spectrum.

Ridiculous, the more promiscuous members of the gay community are simply more visible than it's heterosexual counterparts due to more public exposure, it's not an exclusive aspect to it.

I was fine with leaving this as it is, but you're questioning facts that are pretty well-established. Gay men have far more partners than their straight counterparts. I don't want you to think I was just "projecting" here, or making broad assumptions based on non-representative portions of the community, so I thought I'd clear that up for you.

[Ban my account ffs!]

It's the same type of mentality that sees any hardships in life as a test from God. Except in this case, much more harmful, since it leads to the repression of sexuality, which nearly always results in mental health issues.

Given the levels of promiscuity in the gay community, it doesn't surprise me that some homosexual people have rejected gay culture by swinging all the way to the most radical opposite side of the spectrum.

Ridiculous, the more promiscuous members of the gay community are simply more visible than it's heterosexual counterparts due to more public exposure, it's not an exclusive aspect to it.

I was fine with leaving this as it is, but you're questioning facts that are pretty well-established. Gay men have far more partners than their straight counterparts. I don't want you to think I was just "projecting" here, or making broad assumptions based on non-representative portions of the community, so I thought I'd clear that up for you.

So yes, this all comes, once again, down to gay men.  Lesbians and other LGBTQ people are left out of the conversation.  This phenomenon, in and of itself, likely plays a role in the shame that some of the "Side B" men have.  They are constantly scrutinized by the public at large and every part of their relationships and sexual practices are scrutinized and judged.

As for that survey, you are talking a gay men sample size of 252 compared to 11,336 straight men.  These results would only include those gay men who were comfortable enough to reveal their sexuality in the first place... and those gay men that have 4+ partners could very well be more likely to admit or participate in the survey.  A deeply closeted gay man with 0 partners might decline or simply say he is straight.

[John Dule]

It's the same type of mentality that sees any hardships in life as a test from God. Except in this case, much more harmful, since it leads to the repression of sexuality, which nearly always results in mental health issues.

Given the levels of promiscuity in the gay community, it doesn't surprise me that some homosexual people have rejected gay culture by swinging all the way to the most radical opposite side of the spectrum.

Ridiculous, the more promiscuous members of the gay community are simply more visible than it's heterosexual counterparts due to more public exposure, it's not an exclusive aspect to it.

I was fine with leaving this as it is, but you're questioning facts that are pretty well-established. Gay men have far more partners than their straight counterparts. I don't want you to think I was just "projecting" here, or making broad assumptions based on non-representative portions of the community, so I thought I'd clear that up for you.

So yes, this all comes, once again, down to gay men.  Lesbians and other LGBTQ people are left out of the conversation.  This phenomenon, in and of itself, likely plays a role in the shame that some of the "Side B" men have.  They are constantly scrutinized by the public at large and every part of their relationships and sexual practices are scrutinized and judged.

As for that survey, you are talking a gay men sample size of 252 compared to 11,336 straight men.  These results would only include those gay men who were comfortable enough to reveal their sexuality in the first place... and those gay men that have 4+ partners could very well be more likely to admit or participate in the survey.  A deeply closeted gay man with 0 partners might decline or simply say he is straight.

You can question this study or that one, but this is hardly the only data that exists on the subject. I didn't come here to have a debate on the subject; I just wanted to clear things up because it was being implied that my earlier statement did not have factual evidence to back it up.

[afleitch]

But how can you define 'promuscuity' as a trait based on number of sexual partners? I've had between 60 and 80 sexual partners in my adult life (it's very easy for two men to make decisions to just 'hook up') yet I've also been in a 5 year monogamous relationship with one partner and an 8 year monogamous relationship and 7 year marriage with another. So by that definition I'm clearly not promiscuous.

[ilikeverin]

In many LGBT queer circles I'm a part of it seems that Side B inevitably segues to a relationship where suddenly its participants become Side A.  I agree it's an odd position to take, but it does seem to be a gateway for some folks coming from a conservative background to a happier end state.

[Ban my account ffs!]

In many LGBT queer circles I'm a part of it seems that Side B inevitably segues to a relationship where suddenly its participants become Side A.  I agree it's an odd position to take, but it does seem to be a gateway for some folks coming from a conservative background to a happier end state.

Love is a heckuva thing don’tcha know!