Brian Finnegan, editor of Gay Community News, in his latest editorial, blasts Donal Lynch of the Sunday Independent for an article he wrote about gay men who are single. I’ve had my problems with Lynch and the Sindo in the past, but I found myself impressed with his piece, for it was naming a truth about men that I’ve been writing about for years, and the issue needs to be discussed, even in the Sindo. Perhaps, especially in the Sindo.

Without understanding ourselves, there is no possibility of change. If looking in a mirror, it has to be clear, not rose-tinted or draped in a rainbow flag. Those who might wince at this sort of article appearing in the middle of a campaign for marriage equality, when we are trying to persuade the great and the good (sorry, I meant Fianna Fáil politicians) that we are decent god-fearing citizens that wouldn’t harm a fly, are missing the point – we don’t have to apologise for how we live our lives. That, surely, is what equality is about. If one is concerned about promiscuity between men, for all sorts of well-intentioned reasons, then surely one can’t complain about it and, at the same time, deny those men the right to marry. Mark, one of the men interviewed in Lynch’s piece, says “I think if something like gay marriage were brought in, we’d live up to it.”
Lynch’s piece pulls no punches. “Gay love,” one of his interviewees discovered, “was all about internet sex encounters, leather and studs” and “...gay men go from innocence to debauchery without ever knowing romance.” “We measure relationships in minutes. Anything over a week and your friends start cracking jokes about buying a hat for the wedding.” He correctly, in my opinion, traces one of the origins of this phenomenon to the particular experience of many gay men in adolescence – the secrecy, the lack of socialisation regarding sexual adventures, the lack of emotional literacy between men. If, as a gay teenager, none of your friends knows about what you get up to, then there is no possibility of discussion, comparison, consideration about sex and/or relationships, and integrating them into one’s life. Such an atmosphere encourages what for many men is a natural tendency, to split sex from emotions, and once learned it’s not easy to unlearn. “The instinct of any man, gay or straight, is to sow his wild oats as often as humanly possible,” says Lynch, and although I wouldn’t go so far as to say that is true for all men, I would say that for most men the temptation is there, no matter what situation they are in. For many men it is a struggle, to a degree that most women, in my experience, do not really understand. Or, if they do, their instinctive hostility towards that drive, being as it is anarchic and disrespectful towards home and hearth and family, ensures that they rarely want to discuss it, or know more about it. For men (of all orientations), easy access to sex (that the internet in particular offers) creates a familiarity with the Dionysian, the carnal, the ecstatic, that few ordinary relationships can compare to. If we are let loose in an exotic sweetshop with endless tastes and varieties, it’s not easy to be persuaded to leave, to find contentment in the ordinary, the daily meat and two veg.
There is a natural caution about letting the side down when talking about this aspect to gay life. Gay men have long had to contend with the stereotype of being sex-obsessed and promiscuous, and those who have an investment in furthering gay rights and equality are wary of publicity that talks about this side of queer sexuality. Those who are lucky enough to be in a loving relationship are offended that they are being tarred by the promiscuous brush, and they quite rightly protest when comments are made that seem to imply that we’re all at it like rabbits. Brian Finnegan, in his passionate attack, dubs Lynch’s article as “propaganda” and “feeding into a myth”, and criticises him for using his position (as a gay journalist writing in a newspaper read by middle Ireland) to perpetuate a “lie” that “disenfranchises” gay men, “by dubbing us all as sexually and emotionally sub-human”. He thinks that Lynch is “bolstering the myth that gay people are not as valuable as straight people.” He believes that such an article feeds “bigotry and misconception” and that is damaging, to us all.
The truth may be uncomfortable. It may be strategically unhelpful in a political campaign. It may indeed be used by bigots as a stick to beat us with. But I am passionate about the truth, especially when it comes to human nature, and most especially when it comes to understanding men and our sexuality. Truth cannot be damaging. We can only learn from it.
Sexual people are not sub-human. Single people are not sub-human. Single gay men are not less valuable than those in relationship. I may wish not to be single sometimes but I won’t stand for my life, and the lives of many men I know, being judged in such harsh terms. Lynch hits the nail on the head more than a few times. I reject Finnegan’s condemnation of our lives, and although I am glad to read in his editorial that he has a loving relationship with a man, whom he would love to marry, acknowledging that other gay men have lives that are different to his, and who have different stories to tell, is, surely, not a threat to him or to the argument for gay marriage.