Male erotica in the LGBT group: Why now? What's changed?

[Prism]

131. Hmm, I do see your point

I'm somewhat removed from my "Oooh, hot guys!" phase in life (I'm 33 going on 63, apparently). But, given what you've just said, I can see how there are perhaps unintentional echoes in the OP of how LGBTers are castigated for things like Pride parades and the like. It's actually a fairly deep and tricky topic, because there's a strange dueling sensibility lurking in those murky waters. The Religious Right has been hammering the LGBT community for years as sex-obsessed deviates. Except . . .

The gay male community is totally, totally, totally sex-obsessed.

So it's kind of a true charge that we get defensive about. Perhaps it's remnant cultural guilt. We both celebrate sex but simultaneously don't want to be seen that way. Or, at least, not seen as only that way. So when the sex-obsessive characteristics of the gay male culture are highlighted, it renders an almost automatic en garde reaction. (I know the rebuttal here is "But the straight male community is just as obsessed!" Yes, that's true, but I think we take it to more extreme degrees in general).

I guess by contentiousness, I meant more along the lines of how a handful of beefcake threads could trigger such an earnest objection. I honestly barely noticed them until now. I certainly knew those threads were there, but they took up almost no mental space on my end whatsoever. It was all very left field and weird to me.