Even ‘GQ’ Is Stepping Up to Help Rid the World of These Gay Sex Myths
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Believe it or not, some straight people still view gay sex as a wondrous mystery, like something aliens do when trying to swap protein strands. We’re not sure if gay sex is really that complicated or if some straight people just lack imagination. Either way, we’re happy that GQ — Gentlemen’s Quarterly (though it actually comes out monthly) — is helping de-mystify gay sex for its heterosexual readership in a recent article entitled “The Biggest Myth About Gay Sex.” Let’s take a peek at the gay sex myths they help bust.
Gay sex isn’t like baseball.
GQ writer Alim Kheraj says that gay sex isn’t all about “bases” — y’know, that hetero baseball metaphor where kissing is first base, bare-chested is second, below the belt is third and sex is home. Kheraj says gay sex is more of an “open world” where anal isn’t always the goal.
He’s right, but some of us still use the base system. I refer to fisting as “81st base,” though for some people it’s “third.” Party on.
No, not all gay people are into anal.
This is one of the most pervasive gay sex myths, but a 2011 study showed that only 35% of gay men did anal during their most recent hookups, suggesting that anal sex is much less popular amongst gay men than porn suggests.
And some guys who identify as neither top nor bottom call themselves a “side” (as in laying to someone’s side), preferring kissing, stroking, oral, frottage or other moves and sex toys that don’t involve penis-in-anus sex.
Kheraj also says that preparing for anal can be such a “pain in the ass” (see what he did there?) that some men don’t bother. If you’re unsure how to properly douche, here’s an infographic.
Otherwise, as Monet X Change, a competitor in RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 10, once said, “After, like, a long night at the gig, the last thing you wanna do is, like, sit on your toilet for like an hour trying to make sure the water runs clean. You know what I mean?”
Nobody is “the woman.”
Though Kheraj didn’t cover this among the other gay sex myths, sometimes straight people are curious about how gay men decide who’ll be the receptive partner in anal or oral.
The easy answer should be, “We talk to each other and negotiate it, just like in all adult sexual encounters,” except it turns out all heterosexual encounters aren’t always like that because sometimes it’s assumed that the ultimate goal is the guy penetrating the woman, hence the hetero inquiry, “Who’s the woman?”
Nobody is “the woman.” If there was “a woman,” it wouldn’t be gay sex. Personally, we wish more straight men would try receptive anal sex or just rimming (and some straight women feel the same). Your butt is an undiscovered country filled with pleasures. So stop thinking so genitally, go douche, wash your bum and get to exploring. You’ll thank us queers in the morning.
