Emotionally all twisted up about his lack of desirability in the Gay community and he blames the community.
These articles are attacks on the Gay community by social worker type scolds. NO ONE OWES YOU SEX.
Introduction
These articles need to be recognized as the attacks on the Gay community which they are. Publications think they are somehow progressive in publishing these articles and they need to know that they are attacks on the Gay community and that Gays view them as attacks.
They are part of a larger hostility towards Gay sexual liberation and directly acting on sexual desire. I am expecting at some point Gay artists to be denounced for their drawing hot guys.
This is the link to the article by Don Hastings, “After coming out, I was surprised to learn that my fat, fem, dark-skinned South Asian body was not accepted by the gay men I met. I am still learning to love myself,” to be reviewed:
https://www.insider.com/south-asian-gay-man-accepted-lgbtq-2023-1
Every discontent with the Gay community isn’t oppression, sometimes it is just being whiny, self-serving, and emotionally irrational.
One of the reasons these articles continue to be published is that many Gays uncritically accept them and don’t recognize them for the attacks that they are. Gays often don’t recognize the tactics being used in these articles or just recognize the more obvious tactics and not the more subtle tactics.
The articles are harmful to the Gay community because they communicate to Gays and the general public that Gays are bad people. A community that thinks it is bad won’t defend itself and becomes a self-hating community which won’t mobilize for its own goals.
What this isn’t about.
If you like heavy guys that is fine. If you want to be heavy that is your choice. I don’t think it is a good choice, but I am not going to say anything to a heavy person. Probably heavy persons get too much unsolicited advice from people who aren’t close enough friends that they should be giving such personal advice.
Having sex with another person is about two people. In which case the other person might not find you desirable. That is their choice also.
Snickering about someones lack of attractiveness is also completely unacceptable. When someone has been pestering a person, there might be a temptation to do so, but don’t.
Conflating and confusing words
There is a difference in being accepted or being welcomed and people wanting to have sex with you. Don Hastings confuses terminology in his article.
The title of the article says, “body was not accepted by the gay men I met.” The subtitle says, “I found the gay men I met were not as welcoming as I had thought,” and also in the subtitle is “many gay men won’t accept me because …”
Yet when he went to the Gay bar he says, “… I met some who were friendly and had great conversations with them …” There was welcoming and acceptance, but Hastings doesn’t feel welcomed or accepted unless Gays want to have sex with him.
Creating his own problems driven by his own anxieties
Hastings states, “For me, being gay means dealing with a lot of self-hatred, to the extent that I sometimes feel incredibility hideous and not human-looking.”
It sounds like Hastings is working out issues self-acceptance as a Gay person and they are being complicated by not being sexually popular. It might be that he came to the Gay community for sex with unresolved issues over being homosexual and then when sex wasn’t forthcoming, it was an emotional crash.
Hasting states, “I fought against my anxiety and went to a gay bar several times to meet people.” Someone rejected him at the Gay bar and he “will never forget.” Someone ghosted him and he states, “I’m still licking my wounds …” He states, “Rejection never feels good, but it hurts most when it feels so personal.” Being rejected for romance or sex is personal. He finds “mirrors and pictures still make me uncomfortable…”
He goes to have a photoshoot of himself, and he states, “After applying a double layer of powder to hide the anxiety-induced sweat on my face …”
Maybe Hastings could just calm down and not be a bundle of emotional turmoil. Guys can sense desperation and emotional tumult in a person. It isn’t popular. “No drama” is a common requirement on Gay apps. (Of course, it might be that Grindr will ban that as oppressive to the neurodiverse.)
Hastings sweat inducing anxieties have driven him to lose weight and go to a gym to gain muscle mass to become a “real man” “to look like the stereotypical idea of masculinity,” contrary to his old self that used to wear gowns and loved barbie dolls. Thus, Hastings’ anxieties and sex stereotypes have made a healthy activity, exercise and healthy eating, not efforts to be not obese, but to him, a self-destructive effort to be a “real man.”
Again, Hastings might calm down and just look at exercising and losing weight as a healthy practice with the added benefit of getting laid by sexier men. Without the anxiety driving him to be “a real man,” he might find different physical activities which might work for him besides the gym, like swimming or running, and focus on healthy cooking and eating and discover new foods.
Hastings isn’t entirely off the deep end. He does recognize that he has self-loathing and is learning to “love myself.” He states, “… I’ve decided to quit desperately looking for a stranger who will make me feel loveable.” That is a good decision for anyone. Even if you are what is considered super-hot in the Gay community expecting strangers to make you feel loveable or valid is a bad expectation.
Blaming the Gay community.
The problem with Hasting’s article, is his personal emotional problems and problems with getting sex are blamed on the Gay community.
Hastings references a book, “Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness,” which supposedly means if you don’t like obese people for sex, you are anti-Black.
Hastings reference to this book is to portray as him as being rejected for being obese because of racism and frames the lack of obesity in the Gay community as a manifestation of racism. Hasting writes:
Plus, my large body — I'm 6 feet tall and weigh 240 pounds — puts me in the obese category, a condition surprisingly uncommon among gay men. That's according to statistics from the National Library of Medicine, which also says in the US, gay males have "significantly lower odds" of being obese when compared with straight adults.
Supposedly the Gay communities desire to be in shape and not obese is a dastardly white supremacist effort. If you are physically desirable in the Gay community you have the opportunity to have lots of sex, hot sex. As a result, a lot of Gays think about what they eat and stop eating junk food and get exercise and not surprisingly are less likely to be obese. There is a rather immediate and intensely motivating reward for healthy living. This is a good thing actually. It is one of the opportunities that Gay life affords. You could whine or you could live healthier lives. Hastings choose whining to some extent.
Behavior at the Bars
Hastings goes to the Gay bars and reports, “… I will never forget how a guy ran away from me after I approached him.”
The person rejecting him likely didn’t do any running in a Gay bar, likely the person quickly moved away. This type of report of being rudely snubbed at a Gay bar is common with Gays complaining they aren’t desired at Gay bars. I think it needs to be analyzed.
When you are at a Gay bar and looking to pick someone up for sex, usually you glance in that person’s direction and see if they are looking at you. Likely all the persons reading this essay know how cruising works, but it is going to be described anyways for the purpose of this discussion.
There is other body language which could communicate interest in a bar.
There is also body language which communicates disinterest. Avoiding looking in a person’s direction. If a person is moving gradually in your direction, you might move away. These are methods of avoiding the person directly talking to you and you having to reject them.
Of course there are people who avoid all that and just directly come up to the person of interest, and that is fine also, “fortune favors the brave,” but it also means a greater risk of rejection, that is where the “brave” part comes in. Not everyone will want to go through the whole social sequence and they might just walk away.
Likely Hastings ignored cues and just directly went to those he was interested in. That isn’t bad itself, but it means he might face rather direct methods of rejection.
Hastings’ likely hypocrisy
Hastings can meet people at the bar. There will be some who are interested in dating him. It just is that they are people Hastings doesn’t desire. There are other obese Gays at clubs. The common excuse with Gays who want to claim to be righteous, is that they would date a transman or obese person if it was the “right one.” The reality is that they wouldn’t and likely Hastings wouldn’t. The author has known many Asian Gay guys who have sex occasionally with another Asian guy to prove to themselves they would date Asian guys, but never actually do.
Also, there are different venues for Gays to meet. Gay life isn’t monolithic. Some bars and clubs are very much about muscles and looking good and being hot, others are much more about getting to know people. Going to a club where everyone works out and has their shirt off probably won’t work for Hastings as the neighborhood bar where it is about talking and getting to know people. Hastings is thirsty for the muscle club with the music and shirtless men dancing and unhappy that he can’t have sex with one of the bodies at the club thus counts himself as oppressed.
In life all our fantasies don’t come true or they take hard work to achieve them. Hastings hasn’t accepted that yet it seems.
Race and Attractiveness
Different ethnic and racial groups vary in popularity in Gay clubs. Different body types vary in popularity and other physical features vary in popularity.
People aren’t attracted to anatomical abstractions; they are attracted to specific bodies with specific attributes. Some like beards, some abhor beards, some don’t care. Some people love red hair, gingers, some don’t.
Desire is strongly influenced by the cultural context. This has the result of some groups not being popular as objects of desire and others as more popular. Hopefully as the world becomes more multipolar and with the resulting multipolar cultural entertainment, there will be less differential in the popularity of different ethnic groups. Likely with the rising popularity in America of K-dramas and Chinese movies and with more racial mix in American entertainment, as well as more racially mixed communities, this differential will diminish.
No one ever got a hardon from being denounced for their desires, (excluding those who are into abuse).
The social worker scolds about race and desire also tend to be a problem themselves. When Gays do decide to experiment and date a different race, which might result in an expanded range of persons they desire, they are also denounced.
Summary
It isn’t constructive for a person to get themselves all twisted up over not being sexually popular at Gay venues. Getting hostile at the Gay community will impact interactions with other Gays negatively and imped on meeting people. Attacking the Gay community when someone finds that they are not sexually popular is self-serving and doing it in the press is an attack on the Gay community.
There is nothing wrong with wishing the hottest guys in the bar were into you, but if they aren’t a person needs to adjust their goals and expectations accordingly. Some start looking at guys who will date them, others will go to the gym, and that is their choice.
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