In-Queer-Y: So You’re Opposed to Homosexuality?

When people say they are opposed to homosexuality, what are they talking about? What is different about the homosexual lifestyle? Really, the only distinguishing factor of the homosexual lifestyle is the sex, and when people say they’re opposed to homosexuality or even just uncomfortable, really they mean they are opposed to gay sex.

Now I’m not saying we should all just obsess over gay sex and how amazing it is (although it most definitely can be). But it is worth unpacking what it means to say you have a problem with homosexuality.

Typically, when people think about homosexuality, they think about male homosexuality. And when people think about male homosexuality, they think about anal sex and then everyone is uncomfortable and being gay is wrong and unnatural. However, aside from the erasure of lesbian sex lives, it still isn’t appropriate to say that gay sex is anal sex.

Firstly, there are lots of straight men and women who engage in either role of anal sex with their partners. Trust me. Either role. Lots. Considering that, it’s odd that most anti-sodomy laws legislation against anal sex are aimed at gay men, and often in less tolerant countries it’s only gay men who are prosecuted for breaking those laws.

Then, there’s the argument that okay, there are some heterosexual deviants, but they have the option of engaging in normal sex. Gay men can only have anal sex, and that’s why it’s unnatural. Anal sex doesn’t lead to procreation so we aren’t meant to have it. The vagina is meant to take the penis.

And this is where a lot of people really are just missing the point of sex. Firstly, the purpose of vaginas is not to ‘take’ a penis. Vaginas are capable of a lot, and they have a different use for everyone who has them. This doesn’t go to say that there aren’t people for whom sex is only to create children and chose not to have it otherwise. There are and that’s awesome.

But the reality of the vast majority of people is that we have children for a multitude of reasons, such as pleasure and forming intimate bonds with our partners.

There are many different kinds of people who can’t have children from having sex: older people, people who’ve had ovarian cancer, people who are naturally sterile, people who aren’t ready for kids, people don’t ever want kids. The list goes on and if you’re going to say the natural thing to do is make babies, then you’re saying the vast majority of people aren’t doing it right.

Sex isn’t just about having children, and in having sex people are going to do a wide variety of things outside of vaginal penetrative sex, like blowjobs. Oral sex is everywhere in our society. It’s referenced in songs and television. People, especially college students, joke about it in their casual conversations. And while it’s not something everyone is into, it’s definitely culturally accepted. So if blowjobs are fine, why is it that two men having anal sex so weird. Thus, the problem isn’t gay sex, because straight sex has all the same things.

The truth is, sex is weird. Like, all sex. Objectively, who thought it was a good idea to say, let’s get naked, rub up on each other, rub tongues, and put our body fluids into each other? It’s funny -looking and gross. But as we get older, we try things and many of us think it’s great, so we do it. The problem is when you hear about something different. Often, we equate things being different to things being unnatural, and we equate things being different to things being wrong. And when we say being queer is having gay sex and that makes you wrong, it’s stressing and destructive to a person. But gay sex is just sex with gay people and being gay isn’t just having gay anal sex. In fact, many gay men choose to not engage in anal sex at all.

Gay people can hold hands, maybe drink some soda, sing along to the radio, have a bowel movement. There’s no gay lifestyle. Gay people are just people who are gay and when a person says they are against homosexuality, you aren’t really saying anything except that you don’t really know what homosexuality is.