Have you noticed how obsessed with gay sex straight people are? First they’re telling us Aids is a “gay disease”, then trying to tell us we shouldn’t be allowed PrEP on the NHS to prevent it. Next, they’re up in arms about chemsex. It almost makes you nostalgic for the days they joked about lesbians using strap-ons, or got drunk and asked gay men “who is the woman and who is the man?”
Now, no question is taboo, no subject verboten. Thanks to Grindr, which straight people don’t seem to realize paved the way for all their dreary flirtations on Tinder, what we do and the way we do it has never been more fascinating. We hook up! With strangers! And just do it! Then we leave! Ignoring that this is what’s been happening in straight nightclubs up and down the country since Elvis first swivelled his hips, straight people can’t wait to get right in there and have good old nosey.
Our latest infiltrator is Nico Hines, a British, heterosexual journalist commissioned, for reasons that I’m sure seemed very sound in whichever MDMA-fuelled meeting it was dreamed up in, to write a piece for the Daily Beast about gay athletes in the Olympic Village, who were – shock horror, clutch your pearls and kiss a chimney sweep – using dating and hookup apps to meet other people for sex.
Nico, like every good journalist, wanted to put himself at the heart of the story, so he uploaded his avi to a series of different apps, put out a few ‘stats’ and sat and waited. Whether it was a slow day at the Olympic village, or the Brazilian humidity had short-circuited everyone’s wires, I couldn’t possibly say, but soon our intrepid reporter was inundated with replies on Grindr, the most popular hookup app for gay men.
The story – its news angle so toothless it can barely manage soup and liquidised veg as it lies dying on its hospital bed of irrelevance – goes that gay men short on time are usually pretty direct when it comes to asking for sex. They ask for photos, share their stats and locations and cut straight to the chase. Nico claims that he was only ever honest with these guys in his replies – that he was not only a journalist but straight and married – but the act of putting your photo on an app like this is an understanding you are available. It is an invitation to be wooed, propositioned or demanded of; it is an acceptance of an invisible, unspoken code. “I am here for the same reason as you. I understand you. I want this too.”
Nico, of course, did not understand. Picking over grammatical errors and curious ways closeted athletes – many of whom are from countries where the discovery of their homosexuality would make life very difficult for them – hid their identity while they tried to arrange hookups, Nico gleefully, and almost spitefully, held up these poor guys to ridicule. Oh, he may not be directly taking the piss or making any specific homophobic comments, but the malice is there, thanks to the power of suggestion. Someone asked for his “sex foto”. Another sent him the location of his apartment so he could come and meet him. Some of them used odd photos to conceal their identity. How strange, Nico seems to be saying, how queer. Isn’t it funny how the dear little gays do it.
Among the most malevolent aspects of this noxious, patronising horror show is Nico’s disrespect for these guys’ anonymity. He reels off guys’ stats, their countries of origin and even the sports they compete in, under the guise of showing the variety of guys available and looking for sex. This is not only cruel, it’s irresponsible. As I said, a lot of these sportsmen come from countries where any revelation of their sexuality could result in their lives being made difficult or, in some cases, snuffed altogether. Whether we like it or not, a great number of people – increasing if the current political climate is anything to go by – think homosexuality is wrong, or shameful, or disgusting. These guys aren’t just hiding their sexuality because they’re worried about product endorsements – they’re trying to stay safe. Nico shows no regard for this, however, he’s got 1,500 prurient words to file. And, let’s remember: this could literally get someone killed. Sexuality isn’t a game; it is not content. It is our life.
The sad thing is it’s a missed opportunity for the Daily Beast, if not for Nico. While the author may like to tell himself his was a human interest story and not a patronising smirk, there was a genuine tale to be told here. The story of how the Olympics, and the availability of hookup apps, is allowing gay athletes from homophobic countries to express themselves and have sex could’ve been genuinely informative and enlightening. It could have held these countries to account, asked what “inclusive” events like the Olympics can do to reinforce themes of freedom from oppression, maybe even talked to these athletes about what it was like to hide who they really were – and it could’ve provided work to a gay journalist to tell it.
The gay hookup apps we “hide” on exist because of straight people. You don’t like it when we’re doing our thing in public, you never have, so we have to find people who understand us, who want the same things we do. We can’t trust you in the real world, so we shrink into our own, we put up barriers to be among people we can believe in, and, sadly, those safe spaces we create are too often compromised by our own behavior – we don’t need you making it worse and breaking our trust. We don’t need any more Nicos.
LGBT people don’t need straight people dipping their toe in to our sexuality and dutifully reporting back how weird and wonderful we are. We need them to make room – LOTS of fucking room – for us to tell our stories under our terms. We’re not here to entertain you, or amuse you; our life is not a cabaret act and you are not the peanut gallery. We’re here to tell you: you don’t get to speak for us anymore. You don’t get to expose us for your own pleasure, to out us before we’re ready, to control the conversation. You don’t get to show us off like an artefact, to be brought down from the top of the cupboard and dusted off whenever you remember we exist.
Move over. You’re getting it all wrong. We can drive from here.
