COMPARTMENTALIZING SEX

I am not trying to devalue the importance of the free wheeling nature of sexual exploration in those years before AIDS. I do not have any regrets about anything I did.

In hindsight I see that something important was missing from all of these discussions. There was little if any exploration of the fact that any of us might have feelings as a result of what we were learning to do sexually with other men. Thus, the separation of sex from feelings, and of sex from love was almost institutionalized for certain segments of the emerging gay men's community. Sexual freedom became synonymous with gay liberation, and a steady supply of "fast food sex" was taken as a right of passage for liberated urban gay men.

Of course there was a lot more than just sex going on in those days. People were coming out, making friends, forging a community with political agendas, having affairs and sometimes even beginning long term lover relationships that might or might not be sexually exclusive. Yet there was no denying the fact that erotic energy was one important fuel for much of what happened in those years.