sex-obsessed | Geoffrey & Mika

I recall when I was in university in 1982. I enrolled in a film studies class, and one of the films we watched was Pagan Rhapsody. There is a scene in the film where two men play a sex scene. Though the scene was as vanilla as possible–there was kissing and a little friendly groping (nothing graphic)–the student audience’s vocal expressions of disgust were notable. In 2024, male homosexuality was generally accepted as a natural expression of human intimacy and treated with sensitivity in film and television. Netflix series such as Young Royals and Heartstopper feature a gay romance and intimacy between high school boys in a way that leaves something to the viewers’ imagination. Both series are immensely popular with younger viewers. Things have changed since the screening of Pagan Rhapsody in 1982. Still, when it comes to public perceptions of intimacy between gay men, there are a lot of people who have an unsavoury fixation on what they imagine goes on when two men are intimate. I get expressions of disgust in the comments on blog posts I write on gay rights advocacy, where people say things like, “There’s nothing more disgusting than two men fucking each other in the ass,” and “Cocksucking is not a men’s issue.” I mean, that is beyond the pale.

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In the summer of 1987, I lived with my boyfriend Fabio in a two-bedroom apartment in Kingston, Ontario. We met as students at Queen’s University and secretly carried on our love affair before moving in together. We became boyfriends during the burgeoning AIDS crisis. One evening, we sat in bed and watched a panel discussion held by one of the American News Networks–I cannot remember which one. What struck me was the inflammatory opening remark made by a conservative Congressman, whose name I do not remember, who asserted that “perversion and promiscuity” were to blame for the AIDS crisis. That sentiment was shared through the 1980s. I remember the stand-up comic Sam Kinison, who screamed in one of his routines that AIDS became an epidemic “because a few fags fuck some monkeys; they got tired of their own assholes.” Jerry Falwell claimed it was God’s judgement on homosexuals and blamed the spread of the disease into the innocent heterosexual population on bisexual men. Yes, AIDS was seen as a gay plague. Fabio and I, like countless gay men in the 1980s, were concerned. There was uncertainty about how easily the virus was transmitted. Before the dawn of the AIDS crisis, our biggest concern as students in the 1980s was the risk of an unwanted pregnancy or getting herpes.

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