Once, Shannon and I went at it right in front of her boyfriend. I'm not saying I rallied crowds to watch the gay get the girl, but being in the vicinity of others not only didn't make me hesitate, it encouraged me. Yes, he may be gay, but I'll be damned if he can't get a beautiful female to find him so attractive that she'll overlook his sexual predilection and stick her tongue in his mouth.Īs the slip into the third person betrays, for me the spectacle was nothing without the audience. One way to display it was to hit traditional heterosexual markers. In the broader world, however, outside the cocoon of my closest confidants, I remained worried about being stripped of my masculinity. I was anxious for everyone to know that I was the same old Seth, except for one little thing-and it turned out they knew it before I did. It's not that I thought my crew would write me off out of bigotry, but that they'd see me as this gay dude who'd only done boy stuff because he had to-that I'd be relegated to the cheerleading squad. So far, those male friendships remain largely unmatched, and when I was on the brink of coming out, perhaps my biggest fear was losing them. Growing up in the South, there were activities in which I partook because they're what Southern boys do: fishing, hunting, camping, riding four-wheelers, watching football, and drinking beer-all with a very close cadre of guys (and no, I didn't lust after them). So, again, why bother? Why not just find a guy and optimize my pleasure? If only it were that simple. (Kidding-I'm not one of those gay men who's disgusted by female anatomy.) Yet no matter how sexy the kiss, I just don't get turned on. But did kissing a girl ever make me want more? Did it arouse me? No. I appreciate physicality for its own sake, relish close contact with other bodies. Kissing is a sensual experience, and I fancy myself as somewhat of a hedonist who'll take his pleasures where he can get them.
#Gay men kissing gay men license
All of which is to say that when I did come out, I didn't throw on a mesh tank top and hot pants and take my new status as license to become sexually reckless with anyone, male or female.Īt the most surface level, I kissed girls because, hey, it's a good time. I perceived sex as more healthy (and possibly transcendent) than raunchy I was more inquisitive about it than intimidated. But I had a worldly, sex-positive mother who, from as early as I can remember, looked me and my brothers calmly in the eye and said, "Sex is a wonderful and beautiful thing." Then she'd break out the Where Did I Come From? book, and we'd go through it page by page as she explained the hows and whys of that wonderful, beautiful thing.
#Gay men kissing gay men series
Given my upbringing in a small, conservative Arkansas town, you might think I'd be one of those stereotypical farm boys who, after coming to terms with his sexuality, embarks on a series of meaningless hookups. I got my first boyfriend as a 21-year-old senior at New York University, but only after I'd been in the relationship for a while did I gain the confidence to slow-roll my coming out to family and friends and by 23-after falling deeply in love postcollege-I was a proud gay man to most everyone I knew. My lady-kissing started (or continued, I guess, but more on that later) after I came out. I'm an out gay man, and I'm ferociously necking with a woman. So why are we engaged in the most overt sexual act a person can perform in public? I don't want to have sex with her, and she doesn't want to have sex with me.
![gay men kissing gay men gay men kissing gay men](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2007/06/24/nyregion/24yearbook.600.jpg)
After all, the idea of two people with very different sexual identities and attractions ending up tongue-tied is tinged with the absurd, even the pathetic. In both groups you'll find more who never would. That's not to say that all gay men and straight women-however liberal-do it. I'd feel more self-conscious copping to this habit of mine if I thought I were the only homosexual male in my set-educated, liberal, sexually exploratory-who indulged. And then we're kissing-no, we're making out. We shoot it to each other, almost simultaneously, knowing that the moment is coming.
![gay men kissing gay men gay men kissing gay men](http://cdn.images.dailystar.co.uk/dynamic/1/photos/952000/936x622/182952.jpg)
I throw back the rest of my beer and slide the glass toward the bartender. We're however many drinks in-that's inconsequential, really, but alcohol is always motivating-and leaning into each another with droopy lids and grinning mouths. I'm in the early hours of the morning, ponied up to a bar with a few friends, among them a strikingly beautiful, model-tall female we'll call Shannon.