Horny is irrelevant

Rape culture in the queer community

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It was a typical high school day; my friend and I were walking away from school towards the mall. We were playing a guessing game. She was thinking of a word that she said was largely associated with gay people and frogs. I was racking my brain trying to figure it out. Her face was turning red with frustration. "It is so obvious!" she squealed. Finally after me guessing wrong a thousand times she shouted "HORNY." "Horny?" I giggled. At that point in my life horny was the last thing I was. At that time the only action I had ever had was a Jr. High spin-the-bottle kiss with a girl named Cleo. Sex was something I thought I had the privilege of avoiding because I was gay. I felt lucky that I didn't have to deal with it. Sure I was boy crazy but I didn't want to make out with them, I just wanted them to like me. And yet here was one of my best friends, who I saw everyday, assuming that all I ever thought about was sex. When I think about it now I understand. Our dominant culture was louder than her ability to witness my lived experience. Movies, the Internet, magazines, gossip, ideas around pornography, all dictated and still does, that gay guys are first and foremost sexual beings. And some are. But I wasn't.

A few weeks ago at Dr. Lise Gotell's talk about Canadian sexual assault law I thought about how the perception of gay guys as "horny" (so what if we are!) affects how we think about sexual assault and gay men, especially considering the lack of understanding around women and sexual assault. I wonder if the way people wrongly justify rape through excuses like, "She was asking for it" factor into how people view the possibility of a gay man being raped? I wonder if people who have a hard time understanding a man, any man, can be raped, have an easier or harder time thinking of a gay man being raped? If one can conceive of a gay man being raped how do they categorize him? Not masculine? Assume it was anal sex? Would they write it off as a function of gay culture?

I started thinking about how gay guys think about their own experiences and their ability, and possible inability, to recognize when they may have been assaulted. I was thinking about this after the talk when I ran into a wise friend. We started talking and he said that when he thinks back at stories he told and has heard he realizes for sure that assaults have happened and gone unnoticed, unlabeled and unreported. It was clear through our conversation that too often assaults are not seen as such and rather are chalked up to "an experience."

In thinking about one's own experience it might be helpful to know that in Canada a sexual assault is not understood based on "no means no" but rather an affirmative consent standard or "only yes means yes." This means, and I quote from a presentation given by Gotell, "Consent is specific. After someone has said no, one must take active steps to re-establish agreement. Silence and ambiguous conduct do not constitute consent."

In Gotell's talk she shared information on the Sadaatmandi 2008 case where a woman met two guys online, went over to their house, was drugged and raped while being filmed. The woman charged the men. In my mind it is easy to imagine this story with a man in place of the woman but with a different outcome. I wonder if this had been a Manhunt hook up if the victim would have seen it as an assault. If they did, would they have reported it? I can imagine this story being told over drinks, no one batting an eyelash, everyone relating to it in our own way. This is not to pathologize online sex or state that everyone should report everything to the police or a therapist. This is not even to suggest that one needs to label what may have legally been an assault as such. Instead this is an understanding that unresolved trauma exists within the gay community and affects people. I wonder what the long-term effects for individuals and a community are if trauma is left to fester and becomes an unspoken norm. The possibilities, which I am sure we live with everyday, are bigger than I dare guess in this small column. V

Queermonton

Horny is irrelevant

Rape culture in the queer community

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