I watched Oprah "After the Show" tonight and felt totally ancient and out of the loop.
Can any GMs explain the Down Low to me? I must admit, I've always presumed that if a man had sex with another man, that meant he was gay. But, on the other hand, is my thinking skewed because I can see two women kissing and/or caressing and not think they're lesbians? Does society condition us to that viewpoint? Also, on this show, one of the "experts" (don't know his actual credentials, sorry) said that "gay" is a "white word," and that "homosexual" was a better term. Again, I feel completely clueless - I thought "gay" was a sort of universal acceptable word for male or female homosexuals, of whatever ethnicity. Can any GMs please give an enlightened point of view?
I don't know exactly what my question is...I thought I was open-minded regarding sexuality, but this show has made me re-think my ideas of lesbianism vs homosexuality. As I mentioned earlier, to me, two women being intimate was sometimes just a gesture of closeness or comfort and didn't necessarily mean they were homosexual, but I'd never had the same viewpoint towards men. Can/do heterosexual men become intimate with one another? I apologize in advance if my head has been in the sand all this time.
Yes, not all men who have sex with each other are gay. Some are bi- or hetero-sexual. That is why, in health outreach messages recently, the new term "men who have sex with men" is used instead of "gay" because not all men who have sex with men are gay.
It's pretty much the same with women. There's no black or white, but a million shades of gray in the spectrum. I don't think many are 100% straight or gay, I think everyone has a little bit of tendency towards the same sex whether it's just in fantasy or in experimenting, thoughts, etc.
I think it's conditioned that a man is gay and not bi if he sleeps with a man, by society's pressure on men to be either one or the other. I feel even though lesbians face the same stigma and hardships, they're more.. 'accepted' with experimentation and can still be considered straight, because we're exposed to woman-on-woman acts on TV, magazines, exposure to men's fantasies etc. Not many TV shows or mainstream magazines expose society to man w/ man acts. I think there are a lot of men out there that have the tendency towards other men as well, but don't indulge in it or admit it because of the stigma that all men that sleep with men are gay, that you're either one or the other, and not free to be a little bit of both.