According to a study of sexually active gay men in Ontario Canada, of all new reported HIV infections: “51% were through anal sex with a condom, 33% anal sex without a condom and 16% oral sex.”1. The same report found that “Condom failure is often due to breakage and slippage, sometimes, but not necessarily, due to non-optimal use.” This is sadly the case, because condoms are always more prone to failure when used for anal sex as opposed to vaginal sex; in fact, the FDA has never “cleared or approved any condoms specifically for anal sex;” from the FDA web-site: “Condoms may be more likely to break during anal intercourse than during other types of sex because of the greater amount of friction and other stresses involved.”2. Furthermore, because of the often aggressive and even violent nature of gay male sex, anal trauma is sometimes likely let alone condom breakage; in a similar study to the Canadian one, Swiss researchers found that 28% of gay men reported “passive traumatic sex.”3.
In spite of that, a critical argument in favor of same-sex marriage has often been that the stability of legally recognized monogamous couplings among gay men will have the effect of lowing disease rates within the male homosexual population. Yet, another study turns that argument on its head - in a survey of male same-sex couples; researchers found that: “A majority of couples allowed sex with outside partners. Overall, 65% of the sample engaged in UAI [unprotected anal intercourse] with primary partner…Meanwhile, 22% of the sample engaged in at least one episode of UAI with an outside partner, half of whom were discordant or unknown HIV status outside partners.”4. Therefore, the gay male psyche, which is predisposed towards promiscuity, will reduce or nullify any perceived benefits of same-sex marriage.
But, why is this the case? From my own life experience: especially during those early initial days in the gay lifestyle, I was always attracted to those men who represented, or seemed to project, a quality or characteristic that I believed I lacked. Most of the time - I usually sensed this as a rather indefinable force of confidence, stability and masculinity. One man in particle – I thought encapsulated all three. Yet, merely being with him, even having sex with him, didn’t change my own self-perception. Because my feeling of inadequacy that led to my inordinate need for male affirmation had nothing to do with him; he could not make me into the man I thought I wasn’t. I guess the lost little boy inside wanted a daddy, but as someone trying to be a man – I didn’t want a father. Perhaps, if this had been an opposite-sex relationship it would have worked – as the complementary between the male and female realizes and fulfills the two halves of human biology and experience. But, we were drawn towards each other in a false pull of magnetism, only to realize that like poles always repel. Celebrated gay novelist Andrew Holleran probably put this tragic dynamic best when he wrote: “Two male egos together are very tough. Men are just not raised to cowtow to other men.”
In conclusion, male homosexuality is completely unsustainable, even within the context of prophylactic “safe-sex.” For the unnatural forces at work create a physical situation in which injury, even minor ones, are always a distinct possibility therefore leaving one or both partners open to infection and disease. And, the drive to act these scenarios out, even while knowing the physical risks, is sometimes significantly beyond the control of the participants. Because gay male sexuality in inherently impulsive, rising and falling as quickly as an erection; however, it is also deep-seated and pathological: motivated by childhood desires going so far back that many gay men never remember feeling another way; hence they often steadfastly belief that they were born that way. Two studies have shown that personality traits, associated with confused childhood gender roles, often determines participation in certain homosexual acts when adults: “…the FGI [the Freund Feminine Gender Identity Scale] (and many of its factors and items) are significantly associated with preferences for receptive anal intercourse;”5 In other words, boys who grew up exhibiting feminine characteristics often become adult gay males who prefer receptive anal sex. In another similar study: “MIPs [male insertive partners] desired sex where they were dominant and in control whereas MRPs [male receptive partners] desired sex where they were overpowered or ‘taken.’ The desired power differential was evidenced in the type of sexual behavior and the type of partners participants wanted. These findings underscore the importance of power as a sexual motive.”6 Consequently, gay men are constantly re-enacting these dominant-submissive story lines, a perverted father-son relationship, in an attempt to deal with painful memories. Then, when you inevitably get older – there is this bizarre sort of reversal which takes place: the boy becomes the daddy and now you have to take on the opposite role; only, you never became a man; but, you try to prove your tenuous grasp on masculinity by dominating the young and the inexperienced; it’s a horrendous inescapable cycle. From a physiological standpoint, gay men cannot continue along this path; the only hope for true health, healing and peace is program for life which first embraces chastity, then spiritual and psychological counseling followed by reparative therapy.
1. “HIV Transmission among Men Who Have Sex with Men due to Condom Failure”
Robert S. Remis, Michel Alary, Juan Liu, Rupert Kaul, Robert W. H. Palmer
Published: September 11, 2014DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0107540
3. “Over Half of MSM in Swiss Study Group Don't Know About HCV Infection”
ICAAC 2014 54th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
September 5-9, 2014, Washington, DC
4. “Relationship characteristics associated with sexual risk behavior among MSM in committed relationships.”
Hoff CC1, Chakravarty D, Beougher SC, Neilands TB, Darbes LA.
AIDS Patient Care STDS. 2012 Dec;26(12):738-45. doi: 10.1089/apc.2012.0198.
5. “Effects of recalled childhood gender nonconformity on adult genitoerotic role and AIDS exposure. HNRC Group.”
Weinrich JD1, Grant I, Jacobson DL, Robinson SR, McCutchan JA.
Arch Sex Behav. 1992 Dec;21(6):559-85.
6. Damon, Will (2001). “The relations of power and intimacy motives to genitoerotic role preferences in gay men: A pilot study.” Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. 2000 Vol 9(1) 15-30.