Sex is all around us in Sydney: online, on the bus, at clubs and bars, in the gym and in parks. The Catholic nuns taught me in school that gay sex was a sin, dirty and practiced only by paedophiles. The priests had gay sex which actually made it dirty and a paedophile activity. As a gay man, I learned that sex was the way to validate myself, get men’s attention and get close to other gay men.
This is an issue that many gay men deal with…this is especially true for Norwegians who have the highest rate of casual sex in the world (is this why I secretly love Norway?). My friend Victor has been sexless by choice for the last three months. Over the weekend, he met a very cute guy at the Phoenix. Things got pretty hot and heavy and he decided to go home with this guy. He was very attracted to him, yet he could not bring himself to have casual sex with him. He enjoys sex but in the past casual sex ends up leaving him feeling empty.
Victor was asking for my advice on the subject of casual sex. My story was very similar to his... I was actually starting to give up on the idea of casual sex for the same reason. I was really over sleeping with guys whose names I did not know and whose faces I would never see again. In the past, I had used sex to feel attractive and validate myself. Growing up meant, I no longer felt the need to shag like a rabbit and was now trying to get that emotional connection and intimacy back in sex.