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Gay pride celebrations sprung up almost everywhere this past June, but it appears to me that many gay youth have no sexual pride. In fact, some young gay men are outright sexual hypocrites. Despite their-- sometimes extensive-- sexual experience (not to mention diverse fantasy lives), these gay youth won't talk about sex in public because they feel ashamed. Are gay youth in denial about sex?

In my experience, college-age gay men-- even at schools awash with gay resources and rhetoric about equality and diversity-- only share their (edited) sexual exploits with their friends under very specific circumstances-- usually while intoxicated. Drinking games-- such as one called "Never Have I Ever"-- are often the most open and comfortable environment for talk about sex. But when I last played the game with fellow undergrads at Dartmouth, I was warned not to write about anything I heard.

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"Never Have I Ever" is like any other drinking game. When it's your turn, you simply say, "Never have I ever..." and then fill in the blank with a specific sexual act. If anyone in the room has done what you haven't, that person must take a drink; if only one person drinks, he must tell his story. "Under the influence," guys shed reticence and even brag about their sexual exploits. By telling their stories and gossiping, young gay men learn about sex in its myriad manifestations. After recently partaking in the game in a college dorm room, I feel it is the truest and most immediate form of sex education available to young gays who otherwise keep their "deviant" desires to themselves.

Certainly it beats whats available in public schools. There are actually few opportunities for young people to learn about gay sex. In US schools, many sex-ed classes can't legally discuss it. And with AIDS still monopolizing the pedagogic imagination, most every message that does squeeze through the barriers falls securely under the rubric of "safety."

Truth or dare?

But while drinking games are better than no discussion of sex at all, "Never Have I Ever" carries with it a host of problems. Unsafe sex is certainly off limits. No young gay man, in my experience, will say "Never have I ever had sex without a condom." While drink loosens the tongue, it doesn't insure honesty. And in the course of divulging their sexual adventures, players are sometimes ridiculed.

For example, when I was playing the game a few weeks ago, one guy (he's 20) stated that he never has had sex with someone more than ten years older than him. A few guys drank as "proof" that they had fooled around with someone in their 30s, so the next guy added on another ten years. I was supposed to drink then but didn't. And since no one else drank, I felt I made the right decision to keep my more, I suppose, "radical" kinds of sex to myself. Otherwise, I'd have to tell my story and be judged for it.

Not only are young gay men unable to talk about sex unless they're drinking with birds-of-their-feather at a private party in a college dorm, these same men are often afraid to share their true desires, fantasies, and real-world sexual encounters with their gay peers without risking being labeled as "dirty."

A lot of the strain has built up around what's a growing generational fault-line in the gay community. For instance, some younger gay men have sex with older gay men but it's hardly discussed. In fact, it's frequently vilified by a younger gay generation intent on legitimizing itself by not talking about that-- nor a whole range of erotics: group sex, sex with toys, and SM. The current "correct line" among the gay youth I know is that group sex is whorish, sex with toys too kinky, and SM just freaky, although young gay men are doing all three. In this frightened, myopic world of sexual hypocrisy, the line is that young gay men should strive to have "clean" sex with other attractive men their age and keep everything else-- and there's a lot of everything else-- to themselves.

Don't ask, don't tell

But what if the sex lives of gay youth cross the boundaries of acceptability? I was confronted with the unfortunate reality of this question when I visited a health class at the local public high school. I was there as a member of Dartmouth College's gay community to answer questions about what it was like to be gay in college. The students asked questions of me and three other Dartmouth students. One student asked, "How do young gay people meet other young gay people?" Great question, I thought. But when I proceeded to answer that the Internet is the most viable option for gay youth to meet other gay youth and maybe begin to explore their sexuality and that there are specific sites you can visit for this, I was abruptly interrupted. It was not the teacher or the students who told me to stop but one of my peers on the panel. He stated that he didn't want me to "go there" and told the class that he didn't use hook-up sites on the internet himself. Well, the truth is he does; I know his profile on Manhunt! Evidently, cruising for sex on the Internet wasn't a reality he wanted to convey to high school students, some of whom were undoubtedly gay.

Sex in gay youth cultures is quickly becoming more secretive and even a cause for shame. Consider GLSEN-- the Gay/Lesbian/Straight Education Network. At GLSEN-Boston's annual conference for gay youth in April, the presence of a safe-sex pamphlet ignited a public relations nightmare after the organization was attacked by "Article 8 Alliance," a right-wing pressure group.

In a statement released May 19th, Sean Haley, head of GLSEN-Boston, deemed information that describes sexual acts performed by the very age groups GLSEN targets as "inappropriate for the audience." The banned material, however, is simply describing exactly what some gay youth do and should not be demonized. Even if GLSEN is just trying to protect the foothold it has in public schools, the organization should publicly own-up to its servility to a federal government set on abstinence. Otherwise it denies the reality of young men's lives.

During my own visit to the local high school, I was trying to tell the students that not everyone on Manhunt is a dangerous pervert, but my fellow gay representative simply perpetuated the stereotype that looking for sex online is misguided, scary, dangerous, and shameful. The truth is it's not-- especially for gay youth who have few other options when they're in high school and no one else is out or visibly gay.

There are very few spaces for gay youth to learn and talk about gay sex. This was brought home to me, yet again, when I was the panelist at the local high school. At one point, I tried to convey some of the history of the codes and cues that gay men in decades past used to find one another and make their particular desires clear. Many of these codes-- such as wearing certain clothing-- disappeared because of the generational divide in the gay community and the AIDS panic. Even then, I was suddenly censored by the rest of the panel participants the moment I said "anal sex." What's the problem? It's not like these students have never thought about-- or had-- anal sex. The reality is that youth struggling with their sexual identity in high school would much rather hear about how to have safe and fun sex than be subjected to another coming-out story from a survivor of harassment and discrimination because he or she is gay.

Propriety über alles

If young gay men want to really talk about sex, they must be willing to reveal their deepest fantasies. There's nothing unhealthy or wrong about using leather for sexual pleasure or massaging the privates of a 45-year-old man when you're 20. Broad strands of gay and mainstream culture, however, say there is. Consequently, sexual expression is often curtailed; but much worse, sexual knowledge is lost. The cult of "appropriate- ness" among gay youth threatens the transmission of knowledge of gay sexual cultures that may be soon forgotten. Really talking about sex doesn't mean encouraging sexual indiscretion in everyday non-sexual encounters. It means ensuring that a deeply eroticized sexual language among gay men (previously characterized by a secret and mysterious system of signs, codes, and cues) is not replaced by a need to relate to a common, controlling discourse describing more socially-acceptable heterosexual sex. In the end, young gays must be sexually blunt among themselves while securing their eroticized world from the imperative to define their sex acts as anything but gay.

The closest thing young gay males have to a sexual education is drinking games where nothing's supposed to leave the room. My gay college peers didn't even want me to state the obvious and point out that kids in high school are looking for sex on the internet. They didn't want me to say that it's okay to hook-up in chat rooms, especially as most gay youth don't have access to gay hangouts, bars, or clubs.

How many drinks would it take before a young gay man admits to masturbating sometimes twice a day to pictures of older guys with whips? And how many more drinks are needed before the other guys present stop ridiculing him for it? Talking about "MILF's" (Mothers I'd Like to Fuck) is popular with young straight guys, but I have never heard a young gay guy say he wants to have sex with an older gay "dad." It is naive to think young gay men don't find older guys desirable. Self-censorship is rampant in gay culture and gay youth are hypocrites for not owning up to their sexual desires.

So much is lost in the process. Even drunk gay men edit their share of sex education, myself included. The common sexual experience among gay males that is discussed (oral sex, hand jobs, "making out") is only acceptable because it's tame-- very mainstream. Young gays seem scared and ashamed to explore any further after they're told it's "unacceptable" to go after anything other than the unattainable mythologized straight Abercrombie model. As a result, sexual activity is being divorced from a gay identity.

The next generation of gay men is slowly narrowing their sexual options. They are not listening to older gay men or even allowing their gay elders to contribute to the discussion. Instead, they're only permitting themselves a little sexual indiscretion, some verbal sex play, and flirting after a few drinks. The result: young gay men are instilling fear and shame in themselves and no one's learning a thing.

And don't tell anyone I told you this.

Author Profile:  Michael Amico

Michael Amico is a junior at Dartmouth College