I'm a guy who is attracted to guys. I can't help but be impressed by a trim young man who keeps healthy and fit. But I don't understand why these young men often deface their beautiful forms with body art. In Mormon theology, our bodies are gifts from God, temples which our spirits inhabit and in which we commune with the Holy Spirit. Tattoos and piercings are not in harmony with the respect we owe our God for gifting us these mortal bodies. And personally, I think it's terribly ugly. It turns out that I'm not alone. Although it's looking at guys' views of tattooed girls,
this article examines the man's point of view. Men think women without tattoos look more attractive. But women with tattoos look more sexually promiscuous, and are therefore easier to approach -- remember guys usually have a big fear of rejection.
Despite my gay orientation, I still think like a male. To me, guys look more attractive when they haven't got tattoos or piercings. And I think like a Mormon, sexual promiscuity is not an attractive trait. The culture that grew around the gay community, though, encourages body art. It's one of the reasons I never identified as gay when I was growing up.
In general, as a church, we need to teach our youth whose orientations are gay that they do not have to follow the culture that has grown around the gay community. Drinking and smoking, body art, promiscuity, these things are not a necessary part of a gay orientation. Following the advice of the prophets is still the best way to live, even if you don't fit the mold of the ideal Mormon kid.
I am sure you know that many, many gay men live lives just like you do, except they are in gay relationships. Many who have never been promiscuous and are in deeply committed relationships, with homes, children, dogs and cats. And deep and profound relationships with Jesus Christ. Yes, there are indeed some wh like you write about but not the the.majority. gay men in gay relationships are just like you go figure. Easier to.promote the stereotype of course.
ReplyDeleteThis post is about my feelings about body art. It also mentions the culture that has grown around the gay community, and it is statistically documented that those in this community are more promiscuous, more likely to smoke and heavily drink, and other such activities. I'm sure there are also many many gay men who are not considered part of this culture and don't fall into these statistical categories. A large portion of them might even be married to women, but since they have come to terms with it, they never come out at all and nobody knows about them. They are entirely missed by virtually all the statistics and contribute to vast misunderstandings of homosexuality in this country. However, that is not the focus of this post.
ReplyDeleteFair enough. Would you happen to have a link to those statistics about the promiscuity, etc?
DeleteI'm not sure that a large portion of gay men who aren't in that community are married to women (and some who are married to women are in fact, on the down low, within that community). You are right that they can't be counted because they are hidden - so we go with what we have - which is that a large part of the gay community are not living the life you described but are in committed same sex relationships. Not a straw man lest I be accused of that - but rather responding to your comment.
Most of this is quite well documented. For substance use, for example, see https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/report/2012/03/09/11228/why-the-gay-and-transgender-population-experiences-higher-rates-of-substance-use/ and while there have been a decent number of studies of relationships, they tend to get echoed and exaggerated by uber-conservative Christian organizations, so you have to be fairly careful. It was definitely true in the past ( like this article from the mid 90s http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3813477?sid=21105075928211&uid=3739632&uid=3739256&uid=2&uid=4 ) but there is good evidence that the high rates of promiscuity have been dropping steadily since then. Personally, I believe that there is definitely a correlation, as the data is pretty clear, but I don't believe in the causation. I think the correlation is due to selection bias. I think those polled do not represent a good representative sample of those attracted to their own gender, and hence we get the correlation.
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