In my day I have had a fair amount of interaction with the gay community (for a straight guy in the military anyway) and I have several observations. Before I make them however you should know that I do not base these observations from any sort of moral judgment. What you do behind closed doors with another adult is your own damn business as far as I am concerned. Additionally it has been suggested that I turn in my membership card for the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy because I support both gay marriage and openly gay service members. That being said here we go…

            When I was dating Strappy (a man hating lesbian for those who won’t bother to read the article) many of our mutual friends were gay, lesbian, or somewhere in between (Nancy I am looking at you!). As with any other group of folks there were some who were nice folks, some who were total assholes, and others who I didn’t have much of an opinion on. One thing they all seemed to have in common though was that their entire personality was built around their sexuality. Many (not all) of these kids when asked, “What are you?” As in what do you do in the Army or in life would  respond (or wish they could respond they would say to me) “I’m gay/lesbian.”

            It was very much as though their sexual preference substituted for the things that “normal” people define themselves with like: personality traits “I’m a nice guy”, a profession “I’m a soldier.”, or a life goal “I’m studying to be a priest”.

            To be fair I believe (unscientifically) that a contributing factor to this was that most if not all were closeted for most of their lives. This intense sexual repression led to a bizarre backlash of overcompensation when they were in situations that allowed them to be whatever they wanted. They were not just a girl who liked girls or a guy who liked guy… they seemed to feel the need to be flagrant with their sexuality in ways that heterosexual folks tend to shy away from. Sure everyone has seen the hetero couple or three in the club who are way too touchy feely after a couple dozen beers but go into a gay club and it is rampant.

            This tended to feed into a vicious cycle or pattern of behaviour among many of the gay/les folks I have known. For the most part they have been serial cheaters, very indiscreet about the former, and tend to participate in an odd form of sexual one-upsmanship (no I will not go into details here) that I have yet to see among even the most aggressive of hetero guys. (SFC Calangelo I am looking at you now…well ok maybe from The Evil Sangus). Some of this of course can be readily explained that in a gay male relationship there are two raging sex drives in play and no braking feminine force to slow it down. This is in part true but the repression of desire feeds into it heavily as well methinks as you see the same sort of thing on the distaff side of alternative lifestyles.

            The upshot of all this is that many of my gay/les friends have been a very unhappy lot. They have lacked much in the way of stability (no support from home, maybe even hate from home, a lack of long term loving relationships (not all of them of course (don’t write letters please)), and of course the pressures of an unaccepting society) and this has lopsided many of their personalities. Most of my gay friends have never had a stable and lasting relationship (a few of the women have managed and even those suffered through more infidelity than I have ever seen in a hetero coupling), have not even managed to avoid alienating many of their gay friends (usually through serial infidelity as aforementioned), and of course still have issues dealing with the rest of the planet socially.

            Does this mean the lifestyle is wrong? Not to my mind (your mileage may vary), but it does speak to how many contributing factors can produce a synergy that is capable of defeating something as basic to humanity as the pair-bond.

            Long ago when my close friend SGT Smacker decided that he was gay (he was married at the time) I urged him quietly to simply “be gay on his own” for a while first. I urged this because the local gay community had no interest in seeing him deal with new feelings in this area or to help him seek some stability. No, the overwhelming interest was to push him into serial sex partners who had some very odd fetishes. The idea seemed to be that if they could really make him not only gay but perverse as well then their own self guilt (even undeserved) would be somehow lessened by comparison. This is a pattern I have seen perpetrated time and time again against my friends.

            Is the gay community broken? Yes. Is it because they are gay? No. (If you think that is what I am arguing you should read this article again) Frankly I think applying the word “community” here is a misnomer. A community tries to buoy and support it’s members, not to push them too far and too fast for their mental health. There is a shortage of gay relationship counselors out there but if you are looking for a job out of psych school I think it will be a growth industry.