march. 6 1
Hunters or husbands?
An Amsterdam adventure raises
more questions than desires...
“In terms of monogamy, I think that’s absurd.
People who are ranting that way are going to lose
all credibility with younger people. To say to some
20-year-old gay man ‘You should become monoga­
mous is crazy, since what they really want is a lot
of sex.” — Edmund White to the Advocate,
Sept. 16, 1997
t was last year at this time, in Amsterdam,
worried about missing some key element of
my post-Stonewall gay male identity, that I
decided it was high time to go to a bath­
house for some of that radical sex I’d heard so
much about.
A s a veteran of the queer youth movement,
a longtime gay student activist, and now a
fledgling professional homo, I had never had
random, spontaneous, anonymous
sex. I felt like something was
wrong. What was missing from my
(not-so) queer DN A? Were the
powers that be going to demand
that I turn in my homo ID card?
My collections of musical theater
CDs? Oh no, not the hair-care
products!
“I’m as queer as they come,” I
shouted, fending off the spirits of
sexual liberation who questioned
my queemess. I’ve just never had
sex without knowing my partner—
I guess I’ve never really wanted to.
Or have I?
______ I
Determined to challenge my
I I
most
obvious heterosexist social­
J
ization, I promised myself that
once I was in Amsterdam (the city
of sex and drugs) I would take the
plunge and give it a try.
Two days later I paced in front
of the Thermos sauna, freezing my
ass off, and finally opened the door
and entered.
“I must do this,” I kept saying
to myself. “I’m going to liberate
BY
GEOFHKEY myself if it kills me.” Obviously,
this wasn’t going to be easy. The
BAUMAN butterflies in my stomach
increased in size, flying faster,
frenzied.
The guy behind the counter smiled at me, a
bit knowingly. He could tell I was a bathhouse
virgin and thankfully made my “check in” as
easy as possible. 1 handed over my wallet and
other valuables to be locked up for the
evening; he handed me a key and a towel, and
I was on my way.
Three hours later I sat on a couch in the
porno room, frustrated, cranky and confused.
Nothing had happened. I had walked around
almost all evening, seeing men in various
poses, some naked, some wrapped in towels;
short men, tall men, hung men, fat men, beau­
tiful men, all types of men engaged in a silent
dance, a ritual of courtship completely unfa­
miliar to me. Perplexed, I was at a loss as to
how to approach, how to make my interests
clear, how to communicate at all. N o one had
said a word, yet somehow these men commu­
nicated, speaking a language foreign to me
(and I don’t mean Dutch). Somehow they
understood each other and were hooking up all
around me.
A s I sat watching three hairless gym bun­
nies fuck on video, I felt certain I was the only
fag in Amsterdam on New Year’s Eve who
couldn’t get laid— and in a bathhouse, no less.
A s a 23-year-old gay male, I figured I ought
to be in the middle of my sexual prime, fuck-
ing numerous partners and perfecting my sexu­
al repertoire. That is, if you believe Edmund
White’s assertion about young gay men and
monogamy.
Sure, I’m as homy as the next queer boy,
and yes, since my disastrous attempt at bath­
house sex— my mission impossible— I’ve had a
number of sexual partners (seven to be exact),
but I refuse to be defined entirely by my sex
life. And for good reason: It isn’t the sex I’m
really after. It’s the connection, the sense of
beauty, both physical and intellectual, that
arouses me, the communication with another
man that stimulates my mind as well as my
dick. I want to know my partner, to talk with
him, even if he is the shortest-lived of infatua­
tions, the most transient of lovers.
Now, with all the controversy surrounding
BEAUTIFUL HOM E DECOR
AROMATHERAPY
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) E W E i R Y
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what gay men should be doing sexually in the
late ’90s, I don’t want to prescribe a code of
sexual behavior that all gay men must follow.
Many men find anonymous sex exciting and
liberating, while others find traditional
monogamy an exquisite expression of love.
Self-appointed cultural “experts” have
forcefully articulated both extremes in recent
months. From Sex Panic’s radical defense of
our sexual freedoms to the kinder, gentler
homos’ desire for a place at the table and their
demands that we all sit with them, these
“experts” are forgetting the vital importance of
the individual’s need to experiment, to identify
his own sexual needs and boundaries, and to
feel good about whatever it is that turns him
on.
The extremist tactics of these “community”
spokespersons seem to do little to help the
majority of gay men— out or closeted, liberal
or conservative, monogamous or not— to
understand and explore their own individual
sexuality. Why is it so hard to understand that
gay men comprise myriad sexualities? A multi­
tude of approaches to fucking, sucking, licking,
touching?
As educators, community leaders and peers,
we should encourage every gay man to discov­
er for himself what he should be doing sexual­
ly, not mandate sexual behavior. Our sexual
differences don’t strike me as that important.
A s my father said to me shortly after I came
out, “An orgasm’s an orgasm. You do what you
gotta do. Sex is just a biological urge.”
Maybe good ol’ Dad knew something after
all.
■ G eoffrey B ateman is a member of Portland
Gay Men Writing. He is also an HIV prevention
specialist at Cascade AIDS Project, an aspiring
queer theorist and a practicing homosexual.
^
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