Gay "Sis": How Language Fre Us to be Ourselv | Psychology Today

Contents:

• GAY "SIS": HOW LANGUAGE FRE US TO BE OURSELV
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• HOW CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS DEAL WH DIRE
• LGBT RIGHTS AI: WILL KENYA BE THE LATT TO PASS ANTI-GAY LAW?
• NFL STRENGTH ACH OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR US PROFSNAL SPORTS
• SI GUYS: THKG BEYOND GAY MALE "TOPS" AND "BOTTOMS"
• ARE YOU STRAIGHT, GAY, OR SOMEWHERE BETWEEN?

GAY "SIS": HOW LANGUAGE FRE US TO BE OURSELV

A third add: “Personally I’m not crazy about the term ‘si’ (sounds to me like someone lyg there, dog not much) but ’s good that Grdr acknowledg that there’s more to gay sex than anal. That’s what happened 2013 when, an article I wrote for the Huffgton Post, “Guys on the Si, ” I created the term “si” for gay men who aren’t to beg a “top” or a “bottom” or practicg anal peratn. The term “Si” was created when 2010, I was talkg wh some lleagu about “tops” (gay men who prefer the sertive role durg peratn) and “bottoms” (gay men who prefer the receptive role durg peratn) and outed myself for beg a gay man who don’t engage anal terurse at all.

Beg a “top, ” “bottom, ” or “vers” (short for "versatile, " or someone who uld go eher way) were the only acceptable mols the gay muny, and I felt dissed for not ftg to the mold. About a year and a half ago I formed a Facebook group lled “Si Guys” and some of the guys the group started a petn to Grdr, the gay datg app, to add “si” to their list of preferred posns and filters.

Back 2011, an article was published the Journal of Sexual Medice which rearchers surveyed 25, 000 gay and bisexual men Ameri about their most recent sexual enunters, and only 36 percent said they had bottomed, and 34 percent said they had topped. Public opn studi over the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s routely showed that, among large segments of the public, lbian, gay, and bisexual people were the target of strongly held negative attus. The associatn of HIV/AIDS wh gay and bisexual men and the accurate belief that some people held that all gay and bisexual men were fected served to further stigmatize lbian, gay, and bisexual people.

WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

Dpe the persistence of stereotyp that portray lbian, gay, and bisexual people as disturbed, several s of rearch and clil experience have led all mastream medil and mental health anizatns this untry to nclu that the orientatns reprent normal forms of human experience. Helpful rpons of a therapist treatg an dividual who is troubled about her or his same sex attractns clu helpg that person actively pe wh social prejudic agast homosexualy, succsfully rolve issu associated wh and rultg om ternal nflicts, and actively lead a happy and satisfyg life. The phrase “g out” is ed to refer to several aspects of lbian, gay, and bisexual persons’ experienc: self-awarens of same-sex attractns; the tellg of one or a few people about the attractns; wispread disclosure of same-sex attractns; and intifitn wh the lbian, gay, and bisexual muny.

Th, is not surprisg that lbians and gay men who feel they mt nceal their sexual orientatn report more equent mental health ncerns than do lbians and gay men who are more open; they may even have more physil health problems. Lbian, gay, and bisexual youth who do well spe strs—like all adolcents who do well spe strs—tend to be those who are socially petent, who have good problem-solvg skills, who have a sense of tonomy and purpose, and who look forward to the future.

HOW CELIBATE GAY CHRISTIANS DEAL WH DIRE

If they are a heterosexual relatnship, their experienc may be que siar to those of people who intify as heterosexual unls they choose to e out as bisexual; that se, they will likely face some of the same prejudice and discrimatn that lbian and gay dividuals enunter.

For example, are the children of lbian or gay parents more vulnerable to mental breakdown, do they have more behavr problems, or are they ls psychologilly healthy than other children? The picture that emerg om this rearch shows that children of gay and lbian parents enjoy a social life that is typil of their age group terms of volvement wh peers, parents, fay members, and iends. In summary, social science has shown that the ncerns often raised about children of lbian and gay parents, ncerns that are generally ground prejudice agast and stereotyp about gay people, are unfound.

When lbians, gay men, and bisexual people feel ee to make public their sexual orientatn, heterosexuals are given an opportuny to have personal ntact wh openly gay people and to perceive them as dividuals. Antigay attus are far ls mon among members of the populatn who have a close iend or fay member who is lbian or gay, pecially if the gay person has directly e out to the heterosexual person. It very much appears that same-sex sexual attractn is not a choice but actg on is; so if you fe gay as the mere prence of same-sex attractn, then om everythg we unrstand, beg gay is not a choice.

LGBT RIGHTS AI: WILL KENYA BE THE LATT TO PASS ANTI-GAY LAW?

But bee they see actg on their orientatn as ungodly, they m to a life of, for the first time, a soclogist has taken an -pth look at what mak Si Bs tick, particularly how they navigate their same-sex sir and their awkward posn as stuck the middle of ex-gay groups and ntent gay Christians. (The origs of the "Si B" term are foggy, but the termology seems to e om the anizatn the Gay Christian Network, which labels gay Christians who do not see their sexualy as sful as "Si A" and those who do as "Si B.

" Numbers on ex-gay dividuals are hard to e by, but Exod Internatnal claims 3, 000 people worldwi attend one of s mistry events each terviewg people who had sought help om ex-gay groups and then left, Creek found two distct groups: Si As, who renciled their sexualy wh their relign and believe beg gay and Christian is not ntradictory; and Si Bs, who accept their orientatn but m to celibacy orr to rema le wh anti-homosexualy tes. "I tend to tegorize myself as a gay, celibate Christian, but I am very hant g that [scriptn] bee secular society, the word 'gay' means attracted to men, and Evangelil Christian subculture, means ‘sleeps wh everybody five days a week, ’" said one terviewee, lled "Jam" the report. Dealg wh the nnotatns of the term was often too much of a headache, Jam said, so he equently kept the rmatn to other tim, claimg a gay inty was a way to nnect wh other Christians, both gay and straight.

NFL STRENGTH ACH OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR US PROFSNAL SPORTS

Image source, Getty ImagIn the latt sign of risg homophobia different Ain untri, a Kenyan opposn MP is leadg a mpaign for parliament to further crimalise the untry's small LGBTQ muny. Gee Peter Kaluma's move after neighbourg Uganda adopted a tough new anti-gay law, rejectg threats by US Print Joe Bin to impose sanctns and travel rtrictns on "anyone volved ser human rights ab". "We want to prohib everythg to do wh homosexualy, " Mr Kaluma tells me, addg that his bill will be much broar than the legislatn passed by Uganda's parliament and approved by Print Yoweri Meveni May.

The Ugandan law is regard as one of the harsht anti-LGBTQ laws the propos life imprisonment for anyone nvicted of homosexualy, and the ath penalty for so-lled aggravated s, which clu havg gay sex wh someone below the age of 18 or where someone be fected wh a life-long illns such as the other si of the ntent, MPs Ghana earlier this month unanimoly voted favour of amendments to the untry's anti-gay legislatn, phg closer to beg enacted to law. Though ls harsh than Uganda's new law, the Promotn of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Fay Valu Bill propos a three-year prison sentence for anyone who intifi as LGBTQ and a 10-year sentence for anyone who promot homosexualy. Gay sex is already illegal Kenya, but the ernment n also be tolerant of gay people - for example, has given asylum to people om other Ain untri, cludg Uganda, who faced persecutn their home untri bee of their sexual orientatn.

Image source, Getty ImagImage ptn, Many Kenyans believe that gay rights are agast their relign - whether Christian or MlimAlthough the meetg Uganda was billed as an attempt to protect the "sovereignty" of Ain stat, was actually -sponsored by an Amerin Christian right-wg anisatn, Fay Watch Internatnal (FWI) Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian prit the Anglin Church and an amic at Boston Universy the US, says Ain untri are beg targeted by FWI and siar US-based anisatns, and that the impact of s lobbyg has been "horrible and humane" parts of Ai, fuellg what he lls "ant homophobia". "It is one thg to say: 'I don't agree wh you beg gay', but we didn't have the ant one, where policians now are sayg: 'You go to jail for life, you go to jail for talkg about beg gay, you go to jail bee you're livg wh your fellow woman', " Dr Kaoma says. Josh Proctor, producer of the Life on Si B podst, summariz that, for Si X, “marriage and chaste sglens are both viewed as godly optns for people wh same-sex attractns to pursue, but while there are multiple ex-gay dividuals who end up sgle for life, the pursu of marriage is always seen as the higher llg” (, accsed 2/18/2023).

SI GUYS: THKG BEYOND GAY MALE "TOPS" AND "BOTTOMS"

But what if you’re a gay man who don’t enjoy anal sex or fds anal peratn paful, don’t like the feelg or the troublome amount of preparatn and cleang up need for to be a pleasurable experience, or simply don’t experience anal sex as erotic? That’s why a 2013 article I wrote for Huffgton Post, "Guys on the ‘Si’: Lookg Beyond Gay Tops and Bottoms, " I began workg on popularizg the term “si” orr for the gay men to have the language to exprs their sexual and erotic preference. As you almost certaly know, gay is the mon term now ed for any homosexual dividual; gay men or gays is the mon term ed for homosexual men, while lbian is the mon term ed for homosexual women.

While most dividuals had experienc and feelgs that were exclively heterosexual, a signifint number had experienc and feelgs that were eher exclively homosexual or both heterosexual and homosexual varyg gre. As he wrote, “It is a characteristic of the human md that tri to dichotomize s classifitn of phenomena…Sexual behavr is eher normal or abnormal, socially acceptable or unacceptable, heterosexual or homosexual; and many persons do not want to believe that there are gradatns the matters om one to the other extreme” (Ksey et al., 1953, p.

ARE YOU STRAIGHT, GAY, OR SOMEWHERE BETWEEN?

Perhaps Ksey’s most signifint and ntroversial fdg was that gradatns did, fact, exist between beg exclively heterosexual on the one hand and exclively homosexual on the other hand.

In terms of specific numbers, Ksey found that (a) 37 percent of mal and 13 percent of femal had had at least one same-sex experience; (b) 10 percent of mal had mostly homosexual experienc between the ag of 16 and 55, while up to 6 percent of femal had mostly homosexual experienc between the ag of 20 and 35; (c) 4 percent of mal were exclively homosexual after adolcence began, pared to 1–3 percent of femal; and (d) 46 percent of mal eher had engaged both heterosexual and homosexual experienc or had been attracted to persons of both sex, pared to 14 percent of femal.

4 percent of women self-intified as gay/lbian or bisexual, wh greater percentag reportg havg had sexual relatns wh same-sex partners or beg attracted to same-sex persons (see Table 5. In the great cy of Athens ancient Greece, male homosexualy (to be more precise, sexual relatns between a man and a teenaged boy and, ls often, between a man and a man) was not only approved but even enuraged. 12), Athenian society “certaly regard strong homosexual sire and emotn as normal, ” part bee also generally “entertaed a low opn of the tellectual pacy and stayg-power of women.