Features
International Conference on GLBT Rights
American Hedonist
Visibly Female, Invisibly Male
First Person:
American Hedonist
by
E. J. Haley
There
is an aspect to the oft unspoken, but intrinsic gay-male pursuit of pleasure
as the highest and chief good in life that is uniquely American, I think
- our capacity to craft a moral justification out of sheer denial of the
truth of our nature.
While
assigning this quality to the virtue of being American is a complete generalization
based only on opinion, it is fair to say that gay people, men more especially,
in nations neighboring and abroad are on the whole more honest about this
pursuit than the people I tend to meet in the gay community here at home.
The LGBT community in this country exists
within a population whose apparent, increasing willingness to socially
accept homosexuality is juxtaposed with a moral objection which, like
the ocean tide, ebbs and flows with the political undercurrent of the
time.
The long-term result of this paradox is
a social conditioning that leaves many of us, myself included, with an
inherent need to think of ourselves as better than we are. Ergo, being
gay is acceptable as long as we confine ourselves to certain mainstream
moral principles - never mind that homosexuality, arguably by its nature,
defies the blanketing mythos from which those principles are drawn.
In exploring this subject with contemporaries
in Canada, the U.K. and northern Europe, the picture that emerges in my
mind of the community outside of this American paradox is one that is
motivated by a more open and liberal acceptance of human sexuality as
a biologically driven condition, absent of - or at least less constricted
by - moral imposition.
"So, you're saying monogamy is
over-rated," you might be asking?
Columnist Wayne Besen, author of Anything
But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth,
wrote in a recent column for Advocate magazine, "Just as straight
men go to strip joints because they like the artistic mastery of erotic
dancing and gay men go to bathhouses because they enjoy the music…
if we can't be honest with ourselves, how can we be truthful with others?"
There is simply no tallying how many
times have I seen, "not into hookups, bars or clubs," written
into gay personal profiles. Heck, I've probably written the same thing
in my own personal ads a few times - and yes, I too have become part of
that information-age revolution seeking a broader base of networking through
Internet personals. Well what do you expect? I've been single for going
on seven years! Come to think of it, the subject of this column is probably
not going to help that situation any.
There are those who value and
accept the intrinsic hedonism of the gay community. And then there
are others who, like myself at various points in my life, often driven
by some relationship or hookup experience that leaves us jaded, decide
all of sudden that we're above shallow pursuits. And yet if the moment
and opportunity presents itself, we find ourselves given right back over
to our lust for attention.
The only separation here is that those
of us who find ourselves in the latter situation attempt, often with blazing
hypocrisy, to deny that we are overall driven by our basest desires when
it comes to sexuality, and not by moral principle. While not exclusively
so, I have come to believe that such denial is a greatly American virtue.
As I watch the years of my "gay
youth" pass wearily into memory, I have come to accept my own hedonistic
nature, in spite of my genuine but sometimes misplaced desire to be above
moral reproach. Because after all, the question of such reproach relies
on whose moral definition we accept for ourselves.
As for me, I accept that my sexuality
is driven neither by emotion nor morality - it is biological. And where
my search for a meaningful relationship is concerned, I can only hope
to temper that acceptance with a wholesome embrace of the emotions that
might, for me, eventually lead to a desire to be faithful to one partner.
Let love - and not moral explication
- be the inspiration for fidelity, I say. Temper your sexuality with the
virtue of being a caring but altogether honest person.
My sexuality does not define
who I am as a person, but its motivations are something I have come to
accept about myself. That may not make me the most morally upright person
in others' regard, but then how many of those people are truly adhering
to the moral principles they would seek to impose on me?
E.J. Haley is an artist and a writer living just over the border from
Wells, Vermont in nearby Granville, New York. To send comments and feedback
on this column to the author, write to
ej@mountainpridemedia.org