When instant gratification is too slow

Has the internet made sex too easy? A recent article in Attitude magazine caught my eye when it suggested that dating sites, as they have become more hardcore and allowed users to upload explicit photos of themselves, have desensitised us to the extent that a mere face pic is just so, well twentieth century.

Look, gay men have always found ways to get sex when they need it – parks, public toilets, beaches – and in recent years sex clubs have made this search for a quickie (or something more enduring) more straightforward. I have to say that I have issues about sex in public spaces – never mind that it has a furtiveness about it which has never worked for me, I’ve always felt that it’s not cool to unsettle people who are going for a stroll or who are simply relieving themselves. Having said that I acknowledge that it may be precisely what unsettles me that turns someone else on – the mystery of sex and desire is not completely fathomable so I am trying not to be judgmental here.

I also realise that as a gay man who has been lucky enough to have received enormous support and experienced little direct homophobia, I have been able to live a life as an out homosexual and not in some scary and restricting closet. Many men around the world have been forced into secret and furtive sex because their communities and societies make it almost impossible for them to have relationships with other men.  And a recent report on how Iraqi gay men have been stalked, using the dating sites they visit, and then tortured and killed is beyond comprehension in the new millennium. This certainly puts paid to the idea that tolerance is an inevitable by product of human progress and scientific advances – in some ways the revival of all sorts of fundamentalism shows us that we can regress.

So if this blog is feeling a bit schizophrenic – I’ve gone from moaning about too much gay sex to bemoaning the plight of people being killed for having gay sex – bear with me. Being able to hold these contradictions, not go mad, and still maintain a sense of integrity and self worth are qualities required of us if we are to survive today. But gay men are doing more than just surviving, they’re out there getting it on. More precisely, they’re doing a lot of it from the safety of their own homes with nothing more than a cellphone, an internet connection, a webcam, Skype and a vivid imagination.

Is this a sign of progress or are we spiralling down to some hedonistic point of no return? In the Attitude article a psychologist argues that when people post explicit pictures of themselves, or bits of their bodies, they exhibit a diminished sense of self worth, a reduced capacity to meaningfully relate to others and an oversexualised way of relating. As you can imagine, these are not good things.

The psychologist also notes that his younger clients who grew up in the internet age exhibit less shame. On the one hand this is a good thing because shame can be so crippling but on the other, he says, it can be our friend if it stops us from getting into situations which might actually be dangerous for us. And he means physically dangerous, not just emotionally dangerous.

Perhaps it’s too soon to know whether we’ve painted ourselves into some corner or if there’s a secret panel in the wall which opens us to new forms of enlightenment and personal growth. Is gay life cannibalising itself to the point where we seek endless pleasure with other people, or bits of them, we don’t know? Or is this a hopelessly moralistic view? Perhaps love and intimacy will always survive – we’ll just separate them from sex. Some would say this is more honest, others (fundamentalists?) would argue that we are in danger of passing a point of no return. I am more optimistic, how about you?