Has Sex Become Too Transactional?
American culture has reached new heights…or depths depending on your point of view. You can pay to have someone bring you fast food. Yes, fast food is apparently not convenient enough on its own. You can Postmate Taco Bell at 11 pm. It’s not shocking this aspect of our McCulture has extended to our sexual interactions. Thanks to gay dating apps like Grindr, Scruff, Jack’d and whatever app is being developed for post-Covid era you can find sex, dates, and conversation without leaving your house. This isn’t such a new idea. Gay sex has been evolving into take-out throughout the digital age. Web sites like Gay.com, Manhunt, and Adam4Adam were the apps of their day.
You can select your type of guy, plan the encounter, and with the proper leg work get exactly what you want. But has this push towards instant gratification made sex too transactional? Have we begun focusing more on the sex act itself rather than on the connection with another person? This gives way to a whole host of issues including sex addiction, antisocial behavior, and more gay-on-gay verbal violence.
Sex: a Primer
For the sake of argument, let’s say there are three types of sex: making love, having sex, and fucking. Sex is when you commit to a mutually pleasurable experience. Making love is when you also have a mutual emotional connection while having sex. While fucking is often one person using the other. It can be mutual using but it can be one-sided. Similarly, there are three types of exchanges you can have with someone. You can have an interaction with someone that’s uplifting and leaves you both energized. You can have a completely neutral exchange. Or you can have an interaction that leaves you energetically or emotionally drained.
No one of these experiences is necessarily better than the other. Testosterone can make us need an occasional animalistic tension release. Sometimes, we can be in an emotional place where we need a romantic tryst. The problem is sex involves two people. And oftentimes, we become so caught up in fantasy, pushing our own sexual agenda, or blind hunger we do more damage to our partners and ourselves. How often do you see guys mindlessly scrolling through Grindr like it’s Pokemon Hoe? They’re looking for the next sexual encounter but they’re completely on auto-pilot.
McSex
Think of a Big Mac. It’s filled with artificial flavors and additives to make it enjoyable. It’s pleasurable at the moment, but afterward, you might feel gross. Or 20 minutes later, you’re hungry because you weren’t satisfied or nourished. Similarly, there’s a type of McSex we have off apps. It can leave you spiritually, or worse yet, sexually malnourished and thirsty. If two people are having McSex and focusing on being instantly gratified rather than being satisfied where does it end? This can create a culture of gay men on a hamster wheel of thirst consistently seeking gratification but not finding it. In lieu of pursuing other avenues for deep personal satisfaction, they waste time focusing on singular sexual encounters that don’t fill the need. Maybe rather than trying to have a complete stranger fulfill your fantasies after a lengthy negotiation you can just learn the social skills, empathy, and how to build it organically. Right, Jeff?
Now, to the millions of people who say, “But it’s Grindr.” I am not implying everyone needs to have a deep emotional experience or meet their boyfriend on a sex app. But if we end up masturbating using another person we’re robbing ourselves of emotionally validating experiences. Plus, if you go through the entire experience of having sex with someone and it’s as fleeting as masturbating, doesn’t that devalue sex? Casual sex can be a positive experience without requiring a deeply romantic connection. Like a diet of fast food, too much casual sex makes us lazy and complacent. If you have sex every day, can it be that good? It feels good, sure. And I’m not saying abstinence makes the heart grow fonder. But if we are truly honest with ourselves, how often, no matter how good at sex we may be, is the sex we are actually having?
Additionally, having sex with the concept of a person rather than the actual person can be problematic. It’s essentially forcing a physical connection you wouldn’t have otherwise while expending all this effort and energy projecting a fantasy onto someone. Not to mention the pressure you put on that person. Or worse, what you ignore to keep your fantasy flowing.
Let’s be real, who we are when we are hooking up and who we are with friends can often be completely different people. But this splintering of our personalities can be work better spent on accepting who we are. Role-playing just to get laid can keep us playing an act rather than finding people who find our fully integrated selves sexy. Not to mention this can limit personal growth. Isn’t it better to find a way to be authentically yourself and still get laid? We’ll meet someone based on a photo or negotiating a specific sexual scenario and then project the rest. But at its core, it’s mutually dehumanizing. That person becomes a tool of fantasy rather than someone with thoughts, feelings, and their own biography. It seems like a lot of unnecessary work considering how far we’ve come with fleshlight technology.
A Moment for Sex Work
Please bear in mind, this conversation about transactional sex is no way a dig at sex work. Sex workers set a price for their time, and if both parties feel safe and consent, more power to them. Hell, sites like Onlyfans and JustForFans have literally monetized people’s sex lives. And it’s a viable side-hustle for many LGBTQ folks who need money. But with sex work, people are being honest with their intentions and expectations. Someone is paying to enjoy someone’s image or their time. But when two non-sex workers are negotiating a hook-up it seems like what is the point? And it seems like something is missing.
Un(cut) Negotiations
The transactional nature of sex has bled into how we talk to each. Exchanging photos, which is par for the course, becomes a negotiation. Let’s be real, wanting to see a photo of a stranger you are talking to let alone meeting is more about safety than superficiality. Wanting to see what you are putting your penis into or putting into your body is the result of years of evolution. It’s not so far fetched a request. The Pic 4 Pic back and forth becomes about extortion and withholding rather than actual courtship. If I have to negotiate just to see your face how generous of a lover can you be? How comfortable can we be with each other?
After the pic swap, there’s oftentimes a pre-sex interview. I say pre-sex interview because the conversation typically involves intrusive on-the-spot questions vs. fun banter. Some guys interview you just for finding them attractive. This isn’t Out Magazine, girl. Or worse, you get someone who messages you out of the blue and inundates you with questions. It simultaneously feels like interviewing for a job you don’t know you want and makes casual sex not casual at all. If a guy has asked me 15 questions, asked for a complete body scan, and is only offering, at best, a 40-minute rushed sexual encounter, we’ll both forget it seems more like a waste of time.
Bringing energy back into the equation, this whole back and forth becomes a time-suck…with teeth. We forget there is another human being on the other side of the chat window. As the disembodied torsos and colorful chat windows take us further away from human interaction and further into video games it takes away the empathy.
That cuts to the heart of the issue. We treat sex like consumers rather than as an exchange with equals. Like a conversation, it is about mutual communication and connecting on some level. You want to leave the exchange knowing, or having experienced, something new. But sex becomes about how are we going to get our needs met. Or, if you’ll pardon the pun, how to leave the interaction on “top.”
How often do guys try to “sweeten the deal” and ask if someone has Poppers, or booze, or drugs? It may just be living in West Hollywood, but I’ve been asked by total strangers if I’ll host a group. A couple of notes to those individuals:
1. Perhaps focus on having one sex partner satisfied before you expand the cast of characters.
2. Who asks a total stranger to host your porn-sex fantasy? That’s a big ask, Jeff, especially if you don’t have your own apartment. If you’re not willing to sully your sheets with the aftermath of 5 guys, why should you expect someone you’ve talked to for 30 seconds to do it?
If we treat other members of the queer community as disposable, we’re no better than the people who oppress us. We perpetuate the same idea we hate: that queer people don’t matter. That we are less than. If we treat some guy on Grindr like trash because we are tired of apps or being single or had a bad day we’re using them. Then that guy does it to someone else. Suddenly, we find someone we like and they’re rude to us for no reason, we wonder why. It’s the gay karma boomerang.
If the pursuit of casual sex ends up being a ton of work, a huge time/energy drain, or puts us more at odds with our community how is it serving us? If we are perpetuating toxic patterns, this behavior bars us from growth. There’s nothing wrong with casual sex. But that’s the thing — it should be kept casual. The second you’re trying to shoehorn someone into your fantasy, forcing someone to take on your baggage, or just using someone in a non-mutual, nonconsensual living sex toy, that’s not casual, Carol! Besides, there’s no telling how this transactional sex is keeping us from learning the ultimate lesson: what is keeping you from the long-term or deep relationship, meaningful friendships, or life you want?
Originally published at https://www.theauthenticgay.com on August 3, 2019.
