From: MShernoff@aol.com
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 10:06:16 -0400
Subject: article on gay men & sex

attached is a recent article I authored that is in ASCII generic word
processing that I'd like to submit to the QRD.

Thanks  

mshernoff


We're Having Great Sex, But Are We Happy?
By Michael Shernoff , MSW
Published in the October Issue of In The Family magazine.
=0D
     Mark has been a patient of mine for the past seven years. He was 35 =
when he began
treatment,  an attractive, successful, white gay man with a supportive fr=
iendship network. He had
just broken up with a lover after 10 years of an open relationship, and t=
hey remained on amicable
terms. He told me his now-single life included working out regularly and =
going out to the bars
once or twice a month, where he had no problem finding willing sexual par=
tners  with whom he
practiced safe sex. His pursuit of other hot men to have sex with was the=
 major recreational
aspect of his life. He rarely drank and avoided drugs, but he worried tha=
t it might be unhealthy
that he was still a "circuit queen" (going to bars and picking up men), a=
nd although he knew he
was intelligent, he felt his life was shallow.  "Although I'm sleeping wi=
th some of the most
attractive men in the city, often I'm left feeling a little sad and empty=
 afterward," he explained. On
the average, he had sex twice a week with different partners. He generall=
y liked the men he had
sex with and thought of them as nice, if not always interesting or sensit=
ive. The sex was always
exciting and physically satisfying, so why, he asked me, wasn't he happy?=

     My generation of post-Stonewall gay men came out in a gay culture th=
at encouraged us to
have sex with a stranger as casually as we might shake hands with a new a=
cquaintance. Because
sexual freedom was synonymous with gay liberation, a steady supply of  se=
x with unknown
partners was a rite of passage for "liberated" urban gay men. It was not =
uncommon to find men
who prided themselves on their long list of sexual encounters and variety=
 of sexual acrobatics. In
this sexual free-for-all before AIDS, for most of us, being gay was about=
 sex. No more repression,
no more guilt and shame, no more hiding: being out and proud meant gettin=
g off as often as
possible. I embraced this gay frat party ethos, as did nearly all my frie=
nds. It was practically
unheard of for gay men to say anything openly negative about the gay sex =
scene. Those who felt
alienated and intimidated by the hypersexual climate were afraid of being=
 branded a traitor,
uncool, homophobic or erotophobic. Until recently, there was little, if a=
ny, exploration of the
psychological fall-out of fast-food, anonymous, "hit and run" sex, and fe=
w, if any voices from
within the community offered a counterpoint to the paramount position sex=
 held in the gay
culture. =

      Much of the contemporary gay male value system around sex was forge=
d in the free-love
'60s and '70s, but did all that erotic energy actually make gay men happy=
 back then? Does it bring
us happiness now? Before AIDS, cruising and the search for sex gave so ma=
ny gay men's lives
meaning and focus. This is still true for a large segment of the gay popu=
lation today, men of all
generations--my client Mark, for example--although less so for some becau=
se of the health risks
that are now inherent in high-risk sexual encounters. Some say AIDS chang=
ed gay men's
relationship to sex, and certainly gay men have had to change their behav=
iors to avoid contracting
and spreading the disease. Of course, there have always been gay men in l=
ong-term, committed,
monogamous or nonmonogamous (or semi-monogamous) relationships, and I don=
't mean to erase
them with my characterization of gay life as one big singles scene, but g=
ay culture--what is
reflected in our books, magazines, films--is all about sex between body-b=
eautiful strangers. I
know that some gay men enjoy their sex lives and feel quite happy in gene=
ral, and I am careful not
to pathologize their sexual style. Having been there myself, I know the a=
ppeal. Sex is fun! I
wouldn't want our community to create a norm where coupling is the only s=
tate to which a gay
man should aspire. But I have increasingly been hearing from gay clients =
about their discomfort
with the sexual standards and mythologies surrounding gay erotic life..
     In his recent book, Sex Between Men, author and therapist-trainee Do=
ug Sadownick
describes gay men who had been connoisseurs of the gay sexual supermarket=
 lifestyle and, even
before the threat of AIDS, began to move away from the sexual fast lane b=
ecause its pleasures
were fading. Without disavowing their former sexual proclivities--we're a=
ll jumpy about fueling
homophobic prejudice against gay sexuality--Sadownick's subjects confess =
that recreational sex
had stopped satisfying the deeper cravings they had for emotional connect=
ion. Like my client
Mark, and others I have worked with, some of the men in Sadownick's book =
felt a growing
confusion about their relationship to sex as they went through the motion=
s but felt an alarming
inner emptiness even while experiencing physical pleasure. Gay men are in=
 the paradoxical
position of being defined by our sexual desire for other men--and threate=
ned with violence and
hatred on that sole basis--and at the same time we have enjoyed the most =
sexually promiscuous
era of modern life. Gay men have been so occupied with sex that it's the =
one, unifying ray of light
in our often politically divided community. I have resented the backlash =
rhetoric that AIDS was a
blessing in disguise for the gay community because it "made" us learn how=
 to be more to each
other than sex partners. That is an insult to all of us who have lost so =
much and continue to lose
our lives every day to this horrible illness, and an outrageously misguid=
ed take on the pre-AIDS
gay sex scene. Gay men have always had deep friendships and loyalties--we=
 don't just screw each
other.    All of us yearn for tenderness from other men--more and more, w=
hen I hear clients and
friends describe their ideal mate, it is a man who would be their best fr=
iend, a hot sexual partner
and also a sensitive, emotionally expressive and tender person.  Their id=
eal is not a sexual stud,
but a caring, and atypically masculine, man. =

     At the same time that many men are articulating a desire to find a m=
ore emotionally
expressive and sensitive partner, the gay ideal is a sexual superstar, a =
pumped-up icon. =

Sadownick describes him as "this buff dude one sees on every porn magazin=
e and every gay
advertisement that confuses gay men who naturally feel they could never m=
easure up to those
standards," and yet find themselves attracted to aspects of that look--ha=
rd, lean body, young, a bit
aloof. "There have always been paradigms in the gay world," Michelangelo =
Signorile says in Sex
Between Men.  "But it seemed in the past that there were more choices, mo=
re leeway about what
was considered a gay stud." Signorile believes that "the already existing=
 inferiority gays inherit for
being gay contributes to their vulnerability to the current cult of  body=
 fascism.' As a
compensation for this inner worthlessness, a man becomes a great beauty, =
and/or finds himself
attracted only to Adonises." Sadownick adds that "In addition, racism fue=
led the imagery.  The
premium placed on young white boys is really high.  This situation burden=
ed many gay men of
color. . . To make matters more complex, the rigid roles of gay looks enc=
ourage straight-acting
behavior. On one hand, it reinforces feelings of internalized homophobia =
by valorizing
straight-acting over gay acting." =

     Many men who are powerfully  attracted to a virile and butch looking=
 man may be
confused that, in their fantasies, this mythologized man is capable of nu=
rturing and emotional
vulnerability--behaving in ways that are completely at odds with the ster=
eotype. Sadownick notes
that "rather than develop a healthy lack of attachment to the body, gay m=
en, shamed and abused
during AIDS, find themselves more hungry for bodily perfection than ever.=
"  He quotes one man
as saying, "Think, for a moment, of the images of gay men in the '90s.  W=
hat comes to mind? Big,
buff, young, white. So perfect that their sexiness . . . becomes muted. T=
his image had
predominated over the human: The image of a gay man was overtly sexual: t=
he Village People, in
all their assorted sexual stereotypes; the Castro clone, with his over-em=
phasized basket and buns;
the phallic superman of Tom of Finland. It was a radical revolution from =
the limp-wristed pansies
of the '50s and the androgynous flower children of the '60s." None of the=
se images glorified an
emotionally available, sensitive and expressive man who was softer than t=
raditional American
images of what it means to be a man. Perpetuated by the slick and glossy =
gay pornography
industry, which is a socially acceptable and normal part of a gay man's l=
ife, the gay sex stud image
is now synonymous with our image of the "true" gay man. Romance or any ex=
pression of  love is
never depicted in gay pornography. Younger gay men, who often seek out vi=
deo pornography as
the only source of gay sex education available to them, learn that their =
gay sexuality requires them
to split off sex from emotions. So many gay men spend so much of their ti=
me participating in the
cult of the body that many are genuinely afraid of the normal process of =
aging because they dread
discovering that no one will want them if they are not body-beautiful wit=
h all their hair and an
ever-ready attitude about sex. =

     Not everything about our gay sexual culture is problematic, of cours=
e. I have always
maintained that gay men claiming the right to be sexual in any way we cho=
ose and defying all
social convention to be fully sexual beings has been a strength and joy f=
or us, and a sign of mental
health. Gay men, as a group, are probably the most accepting of diverse s=
exual practices and most
articulate about our likes and dislikes of any other group in society. As=
 a sex therapist, I regard
this facility as a good sign--satisfying sex has to start with knowing wh=
at you like and being able
to express it. But more and more, I am seeing the psychological fall-out =
of having accepted a
hypersexual definition of ourselves as gay men. The cost has been explori=
ng our emotions and
capacity for intimacy. Even putting together the words "sex" and "emotion=
s" will seem, to some
gay men, a paradox. In splitting off our emotions from our libido, we may=
 have done ourselves a
disservice. =

*****
     For the past decade, my gay clients have been shyly revealing their =
discomfort with what
they perceived to be the pressure on them, as gay men, to be sexual super=
stars, who complain that
there is almost a sexual fascism in the gay culture--some have felt press=
ured to have sex with
multiple partners to prove to themselves and their friends that they are =
"normal" gay men.  "I felt
like the sex police would give me a summons if I didn't immediately go ho=
me with a man I found
attractive, have some form of esoteric sex with him, and then only if the=
 sex was great, decide
whether we would see each other again," described one of my clients.  "I =
always wanted to date a
man I found interesting and attractive before I decided whether or not he=
 was someone I wanted
to have sex with." On more than one occasion, men have told me that all t=
hey really wanted was a
steady supply of good-old-fashioned vanilla sex, preferably with the same=
 man.  With the onset of
AIDS, some of my clients shared their secret relief that they no longer h=
ad to feel pressured to
participate in penetrative sexual acts, since their preferred form of sex=
 had always been mutual
masturbation and watching other men do the same. My gay therapist colleag=
ues tell me that they,
too, are seeing many gay men in their communities who describe an intangi=
ble quality they feel is
missing from their sexual and emotional lives. For the most part, these a=
re high-functioning,
openly gay men of all ages who have rich friendships and family relations=
hips. Rarely do they
come in complaining about recreational sex gone stale, but that is often =
what the conversation
turns to. They are confused about what this means. This was, after all, n=
ever something that gay
men used to question, or admit to having a problem with.
     Unfortunately, many gay men have been looking for answers in what ma=
y be the wrong
place. Before Mark had come to see me, he had heard the term "sex addicti=
on" and wondered if it
applied to him. He found a local meeting of Sexual Compulsives Anonymous,=
 (SCA) and began
attending, listening with fascination as others described themselves as s=
exually out of control.
After three SCA meetings, he evaluated himself based on the SCA's criteri=
a and decided that since
he never had unsafe sex, never placed himself in dangerous situations in =
his pursuit of sex, and
honestly did not feel that his drive to have sex was out of control,  he =
must not be  a sex addict.
That's when he decided to try therapy. Since first hearing one of my clie=
nts describe himself as a
"sexual compulsive," I have been uncomfortable with this gray-area 12-Ste=
p program as well as
the diagnosis of  "sexual addict" or  "sexual compulsive." Certainly, the=
re are men who have
allowed their pursuit of sex to get so out of control that it creates rea=
l problems for them, and for
some of these men the self-help offered in the SCA rooms have helped them=
 tremendously. But
the problem I have with the labels "addict" and "compulsive" is that they=
 have the potential to
pathologize our sexuality. Many gay men flock to SCA meetings, worried an=
d anxious that they
are "sick." All too often, my clients who go to SCA meetings come back co=
nvinced that sexually
compulsive behaviors are things like daily masturbation and frequent tric=
king, and I don't see
these actions as necessarily problematic. If they are not having high-ris=
k sex or looking for a
relationship, then what's wrong with these behaviors? It seems to me ther=
e is some plain, old
American puritanism at work here--people who feel ambivalent about their =
body's ability to offer
them pleasure through sex start to feel guilty, which leads them to concl=
ude they are sick. Gay
men are already under assault all the time by the mainstream culture, whi=
ch regards same-sex
desire as sick and perverse. How often is a gay man's ambivalence about t=
he way he seeks sexual
satisfaction really a screen for his own unavoidable internalized homopho=
bia?
     I validated Mark's conclusion that he wasn't sexually compulsive and=
 added that being
promiscuous isn't a mental illness. "  Promiscuous' is how many gay men d=
escribe at least a part of
their life, "wrote Jesse Green in a recent New York Times Magazine articl=
e about gay men having
unsafe sex. "Some of them mean a kind of innocent, adolescent freedom, bu=
t what others really
mean is compulsive sex--sex that cannot be credibly taken as political li=
beration or personal
ecstasy because it does not bring joy, cannot be controlled and is used, =
exactly like alcohol or
drugs, to assuage a nonsexual need." Sexual compulsiveness connotes behav=
ior that no longer
brings pleasure and is experienced as being out of control, but I resist =
using the word "addiction."
To me, this turns sex, which is a true gift of being human, into a sort o=
f poison. Obviously, large
numbers of people feel that they are benefitting from the help they find =
in SCA.  No one can
dispute that some gay men act out their compulsions in sexual ways, and a=
s a result endanger their
health, jobs, safety or even lives.  Just like with people whose drinking=
 or drug abuse has made
their lives unmanageable, getting to a 12-Step group is a priority. I hav=
e recommended clients
who I thought might benefit to check out  SCA meetings, but I am cautious=
 and watchful that the
SCA language and framework doesn't recreate for my clients the anti-gay j=
udgments and inner
criticisms that have formed so much of our sexual persona as gay men.
     If entering into 12-Step programs isn't the answer for gay men who h=
ave fast-food sex but
find it less and less enjoyable, then what is? For a while in my life, it=
 certainly was fun to have lots
of sex with many different men; often I became friends with the men I tri=
cked with. But what
eventually came to the surface was an unnamed need for something more, wh=
ich I later learned
was a need for love and intimacy. I was shocked to realize that no amount=
 of sex could ever
satisfy that longing. What a shame, I thought, since I'd gotten so good a=
t satisfying that itch! For
myself and so many other gay men, the search for sex had begun to be disc=
onnected from sexual
desire, but was an unsuccessful method of squelching loneliness, warding =
off boredom, bolstering
self-esteem or looking for love. And yet, I would not label myself a "sex=
ual compulsive." Like
many men in America, I was socialized to privilege my sexual feelings abo=
ve all other emotions,
and I had to learn how to have an emotional life. I didn't have a disease=
, which is the underlying
assumption of 12-Step programs like SCA.
     As we explored the feelings that came up for Mark during and after s=
ex with his
acquaintances and anonymous partners, he began to see that the only time =
in his life when he
experienced loneliness was during, and especially following, sex with a m=
an he did not know and
whom he had no interest in getting to know better--"although, to be perfe=
ctly honest," he told me,
"I might want to fuck with him again." Did this mean he wanted a serious =
boyfriend, he
wondered?  I asked him to tell me about his 10-year relationship, wonderi=
ng if he might not be
using sex to mask his grief at the loss of this important bond. =

      He and Patrick had met in 1975 at a gay conference.  They had gone =
home and had great
sex the night they first met. They exchanged phone numbers the next morni=
ng and each professed
a desire to see the other again. The next day they returned to the confer=
ence and were friendly
whenever they saw each other, but each went home with someone else.  The =
following night, they
made a date and Patrick cooked Mark dinner. Over dinner on their next dat=
e,  Patrick asked Mark
whether he thought they might try being lovers.  Mark remembers feeling t=
hrilled: no one had ever
proposed to him before. "I immediately accepted, and that's how we began =
our 10-year affair," he
told me. They lived together for 8 years. Mark had been sexually active w=
ith other boys since age
13,  and openly gay from his second year in college, but he considered Pa=
trick the first boyfriend
he ever had.  "We had lots of sex with each other, we both had sex with o=
ther men as well and we
did numerous three ways," he told me. They also hosted a semi-annual orgy=
 that attracted from 20
to 40  men and often lasted for days. He and Patrick would sometimes atte=
nd the same sex clubs
or go to the baths together; other times, they went out cruising alone. D=
espite all the unsafe sex,
and knowing former sexual partners who became sick and died of AIDS, neit=
her man contracted
the HIV virus.
     I focused Mark on the emotional quality of their relationship and he=
re a more complicated
picture emerged. "One year, I decided that I wanted to go to South Americ=
a for a month and just
announced this to Patrick," Mark told me. "He seemed a bit stunned, but n=
ever questioned it.  I
also realize now that I didn't ask him to accompany me on that trip, thou=
gh we often traveled
together. We were really good friends who lived two completely autonomous=
 lives, but who
wound up eating dinner together and sleeping in the same bed most nights.=
" Mark described how
neither one ever talked about his own feelings, or had any deep, emotiona=
l intimacy. They were
housemates and playmates, but neither one demanded more than that from th=
e other. Mark
wondered if he would have even known how to make Patrick's feelings a pri=
ority if his lover had
asked him to. Over time, Mark had a growing feeling that he wanted more f=
rom his  relationship,
but had not been able to define what this might be. One night, he pounded=
 his fist on the bed in
frustration and told Patrick how unhappy he was. But when he asked Patric=
k to consider going to
couple's therapy, Patrick's response was an adamant "No." He said he had =
never been happier in
his life, that he was perfectly content with the way things were and saw =
no reason to put himself
in therapy for Mark's sake. That exchange was a wake-up call for Mark.  "=
I realized that if my
telling my partner that I was miserable wasn't a good enough reason for u=
s to go into counseling
as a couple, then we didn't really have a partnership."
     As therapy progressed, it emerged that Mark's pursuit of sex was his=
 primary response to
most of his feelings.  If he felt happy, sad, bored, depressed, anxious o=
r restless, he would either
call a sexual partner or seek out someone new to have sex with.  I interp=
reted this behavior as an
attempt on his part to medicate himself in response to a variety of uncom=
fortable feelings, and he
agreed that sex had become, primarily, an anesthetic. When he looked back=
 on his life, he
described how he had been mostly ignored in his family. He realized that =
his precocious and
sexually adventuresome youth was a way of receiving some form of attentio=
n and connection for
which he hungered.  In pursuit of a sexual partner and during sex  were t=
he times he felt most
alive, cared about, connected to other people and closest to feeling love=
d. During one session, as
he described his sexual history, he realized that it was only during sex =
that he felt anything at all. =

It was disconcerting to him when sex ceased to work for him in the ways i=
t always had.
     Therapy became a place for Mark to practice recognizing and identify=
ing the variety of his
feelings. During this period of the work, I suggested that, outside of th=
erapy, rather than just
immediately responding to an urge to have sex,  he pause and try to asses=
s whether or not he was
actually turned on. As he tried to distinguish whether or not he actually=
, physically wanted sex, he
soon found that he didn't really know how to recognize whether he was tur=
ned on or not. This
seems surprising for someone so sexually active, but he came to see he ha=
d been seeking out sex
on automatic pilot. Did he want companionship? Did he want a friend? He w=
asn't clear about
what he was feeling, but what he knew was how to be sexual, so he tried t=
o meet all  his needs
that way. Over time, I coached him to differentiate between emotions like=
 loneliness and sexual
feelings like horniness. At times, he struggled to make sense of the work=
, since he had been so cut
off from his emotions for so long.  I asked him if, in the interest of di=
scovering what feeling horny
felt like, he would be willing to forgo either masturbating or having sex=
 with another person for as
long as it took it to experience the feelings of sexual desire. Once he w=
as able to identify feeling
horny, and was certain that it was not related to anything other than a d=
esire to have sex, then by
all means go out and seek sexual gratification. Slowly it began to dawn o=
n him that his urge to
have sex was a response to a variety of different feelings at different t=
imes... sadness, boredom,
anxiety, restlessness. As he became more emotionally self-aware he began =
to describe his feelings
within the therapy and with friends. He called a friend and said, "Let's =
go to dinner. I'm lonely."
 His friend was surprised. "I've never heard you express an emotional nee=
d," he remarked. "Of
course, I'd be happy to keep you company." =

     Therapy with Mark was not easy at times. Sex had been a very effecti=
ve distraction for my
client, and he began to get angry at me. He accused me of trying to make =
him straight because of
my suggestion not to have sex while he sorted out his libido from his emo=
tions. He wondered
aloud if I was some sexually conservative reactionary who was imposing my=
 sex-negative morality
on him. I sat with his fury and encouraged him to keep on telling me how =
he was feeling. His
anger built and I was glad to see him broaden his emotional repertoire. H=
e was like a man who
had been blind his entire life, who had just been given the gift of sight=
=2E   His friends responded
gently and with amusement as he would seek them out to share feelings tha=
t were new to him. As
he grew increasingly able to recognize more of his feelings and ask to ha=
ve these nonsexual needs
met by friends, his desire for sex with men he didn't care about beyond a=
 physical attraction began
to wane.  During particularly stressful periods, he would resume his old =
sexual habits, but always
with a diminishing level of enjoyment. Now that his emotions and his sexu=
ality were connected,
his emotions were no longer willing to step aside so readily. On reflecti=
on, he agreed that this was
a good sign.
******
     Mark's journey is typical of many men I treat. So many of us--gay an=
d straight--are
unaware that there is a lot more to intimacy than just having hot sex.  I=
t seems clear that the lack
of emphasis on the connections between feelings and sex is largely  a res=
ult of  having been
socialized as men.  Even as gay men, many of us were never taught to inte=
grate the feeling
component of our lives with our sexual needs and exploration. Of course, =
very often there are
powerful and intense feelings that accompany a sexual liaison.  One man's=
 story has stayed with
me for years--he explained that every time he was giving someone a blow j=
ob and his partner
would caress his head, as much as he liked the sexual activity, what he r=
eally craved were the
affectionate touches. For him, it came to seem that the only way he could=
 receive affection was
through performing sexually.  =

     I don't know if  impersonal sex is really just an acting out of patr=
iarchal ideas of
masculinity and privilege, or an act of personal and sexual liberation in=
trinsic to our natures, an
honest and satisfactory expression of our gay identity.  Every day in my =
therapy room I hear
patients struggle with this question. It is a dilemma I am personally ver=
y familiar with.  Can a man
be consistently in touch with his own feelings, and have sexual play with=
 other men be one form of
emotional connection, even if it is just "recreational?" Does every sexua=
l encounter need to be a
feeling-filled experience, or is there a time and place for shared celebr=
ations of mutual attraction
and sexual freedom, the gay equivalent of what Erica Jong coined "the zip=
less fuck?" I don't think
there are any absolute or correct answers. =

      To separate sex from feelings and from love may be the ultimate hom=
ophobic act, even
while it appears to be quintessentially liberated. This is certainly true=
 if being gay is going to mean
more than simply being sexual, if it will mean loving other men, not just=
 fucking them. "The few
gay men writing today who have undertaken the difficult path of gay indiv=
iduation demonstrate
that to let old attitudes go about sex and identity, one experiences a ki=
nd of death, " writes
Sadownick. "Learning how to feel itself is a kind of death; for at first,=
 the repressed feelings have
the potential to be overwhelming and sad. This leads to the possibility b=
y which psychological
truths can be experienced for the sake of the development of personality,=
" and the whole person,
not just the sexual dimension. It may be the ultimate mark of our maturit=
y as a community that we
can question and challenge our own institutions and customs, even when it=
 is the hallowed subject
of gay sex.
=0D
Michael Shernoff, M.S.W., is a psychotherapist in private practice in Man=
hattan, and is adjunct
faculty at Hunter College Graduate School of Social Work.  He is also a c=
ontributing editor to In
the Family, and can be reached via e-mail at mshernoff@aol.com, or at his=
 home page:
http:\\members.aol.com\therapysvc.
=0D
In The Family is a magazine for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and their relat=
ions.  For information on
subscribing or submitting an article write In The Family, POB 5387, Takom=
a Park, Md. 20913, or
call (301) 270-4771 or e mail inquiries to Lmarkowitz@AOL.com=

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