We're Allowed to Love Now

Another year passes, and love has yet to come around. I keep being told that there is somebody out there for me, but how can that be when I seem like the only one interested in love. Everybody wants sex, or they want friends (benefits included), but they don’t want love. Gay culture for so long has been short term, with bathhouses and closets and seedy motels. Love didn’t really enter into the equation because we weren’t allowed to love. Times are changing, but we have failed to change with them.

In years past, gay people have had to resort to secret sex, in bathhouses, “bookstores,” and backwoods. Our community was forced into conforming to the social norms: wives, kids, and closets. We got our satisfaction the only way we knew how, secret hookups, and anonymous meetings of hot naked bodies. At the time, it was OK, because that is all the world offered. There was no chance of finding love and dating, getting engaged, and eventually married, and most certainly no chance of adopting.

However, over the years, we fought to be who we are, without fear of the rest of the world. Now we have events, communities, and support. We grew powerful, and eventually, we were accepted. So we came out of our closets, and we started living our truth. It is amazing, but the fight wasn’t over, we still had no hope of marriage, of kids, or legal spousal benefits. We kept fighting, we got gay marriage legalized, and finally we had a real hope for a future, a hope for a family.

The problem is, we never changed. We jumped out of our closets and jumped right in the bed with literally EVERYBODY. We traded our bathhouses for Grindr apps and nude sharing. No longer were we oppressed, but like a prisoner freed from their life sentence we went crazy. Drunk off our own ability to choose, we chose to lose ourselves in lust. Lust isn’t bad, but that’s not all we are good for. We could be dating, moving in, getting engaged, and yes, even married. Instead we retained our closet mindset, we still think like we don’t have a future, we remain shortsighted.

Now is the time to start not only living our truth, but also to create our lives. WE ARE ALLOWED TO LOVE!!!!!! No longer are we held back by the world. Before, the only thing we could look forward to was lust filled encounters, but now we can accomplish so much more. We can build families, and have a white picket fence, we can be happy.

We have a long way to go, the fight still isn’t over, but someday it will be. Start planning for a real life, try going out with guys that aren’t just eye candy. Start looking for men that will love you, not screw with you. Look for a man with a bit more body fat than he would like, cause he is the guy who will feed you. Look for the guy with a four-door family car, not the guy with the sports car, he’ll be the guy to give you a family. Sex is great, and we shouldn’t stop having it, but maybe we should just start having it with the right people.

It's time to stop sleeping with every man available. Stop acting like sex is all you’ll ever have. Stop acting like you aren’t allowed a future. Start being the kind of guy that you want to find. WE ARE FINALLY WINNING, so act like it, because you have a beautiful future, but first you gotta get there.