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I read the Cornell 7 texts and I thought it was just another gay men’s Grindr/Sniffies orgy, setting up.

“free p*ssy”

“are you guys at least naked?”

“Like you can walk in and whip it out rn”

Then, I realized that the “star” of the event was a woman – and I became horrified.

Because this type of behavior is just so normalized amongst gay men. And we need to talk.

Every single gay man (and LGBTQ+ person, for that matter) I have ever known has been groomed.

“Grooming is when someone builds a relationship, trust, and emotional connection” with another person “so they can manipulate, exploit and abuse them.” (Source)

Why was it so normal for me, as a gay man, to feel that sex and manipulation are always connected? Because it’s assumed that I, a man, have sexual desires for a women, but never men. While straight people had books, movies, and culturally embedded cliches to lean on as a justifiable reason for their desire, I had to step outside of my own body and question if I was allowed to feel anything at all. Then, I doubted myself, because people with power AND issues (bad combo, btw) doubted me. For most gay people, our first crush could not be reciprocated (because most people are straight). It felt normal: to love someone who could never love me back the same. I thought this was love: to give… and to never get back.

I sat alone many nights, wondering why I kept falling for the same emotionally unavailable person. I wondered why I let him touch me when my body was in pain. I didn’t say yes, but I was too exhausted to say no.

And I sat with other men, yet still feeling alone. All I asked him was how he really felt. What he was really worried about with us. What he was really afraid of losing. He couldn’t tell me. He sputtered and asked me to repeat the same question five times. He reached for his phone mid-response and suddenly stopped talking. He then kept changing the subject to dicks and ass and all the other guys his ex started hooking up with.

Sir, I’m just here trying to make us a cabbage salad for dinner!

We can put each others’ body parts in our mouths, but we can’t put our own feelings in our mouths.

And then I wondered why another man, one night, texted me hot and heavy from a dating app (not a hookup app!), suddenly wanting me to “breed” him right then and there, and I said, “but do you… uh… wanna come with me to board game night instead? Can we get to know each other first?” And then he ghosted me. That is, until another day I said “okay fine, wanna come over so I can breed you tn?” and he showed up within 15 minutes. What! Afterwards, I asked him why.

“Well, I have this idea that if guys don’t want to fuck me, then something must be wrong.”

Another night: yes, I consented to going to an orgy, but no I didn’t want every single guy there to fuck my ass, yes it felt good to say guys liked my bubble butt, so I guess it would’ve been rude to tell just one or two guys not to fuck me in front of a smaller crowd of ten guys, where I suddenly became the star of the show without asking for it (PS I’m vers!!! I didn’t even want to bottom the whole time. My poor sore hole). I guess it would’ve been rude to say no, because, for us gay men, that’s bad etiquette.

Were some of them on ketamine? Probably. Meth? I don’t even know. You’re not supposed to ask. It’s not your business. Ketamine is so normalized that my gay dodgeball team said “Haha our shirts are blue so we should be called the Ketamarines!!! Hahahaha!”

I’ve always been a bit jealous with how straight women do a better job of unionizing their bodies. It’s part biology, sure, but there’s an unspoken standard that if you treat a woman like shit, other women don’t need to know exactly what you said, but you’re not getting her, and you’re not getting other women either. Okay fine, it’s not that perfect, and I’m enviously idealizing just a tad here from the other side. But at least there’s societal examples for how heterosexual couples should treat each other, even if it’s just for a hookup. A woman can expect drinks, maybe dinner, learning about each other a bit, using condoms, and to at least know each other’s names before they fuck. Gay men? Not so similar. We both just came, and – oh, by the way, what’s your name? It’s a grabby little gold rush for dick and hole. You won’t let him fuck you without a condom on the first date? Someone else will. You won’t invite a stranger over and skip meeting in public first? Someone else will. Do you want to be alone for the rest of your life or not? If you wanna meet, he’s gonna be “partying” (on drugs, sometimes meth, sometimes ketamine). Do you want to be alone all night or no?

Not all gay men, of course. But enough where gay dating has become fucked (pun intended) especially in hyper-competitive coastal city environments. Few intentionally take the time to build the feelings of actually being known, instead skipping the fear of vulnerability, and jumping straight into the physical rush of feeling close… that is, without actually feeling close. And now everybody’s wondering why they’re confused.

Then, something like the Cornell 7 happens, and we’re all outraged – which is good – but this read just like another night of gay happenings on Grindr/Sniffies. I mean, the starring bottom is usually conscious, sure. Is he not on Ketamine and fully consenting though? No guarantee. But the Cornell 7 group chat texts didn’t alarm me… until I realized it was about straight people. So you might have to lead the way on this one for us, straights.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5921159&forum_id=2#50248960)