You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Needy<br />
LifestyLe<br />
or Greedy?<br />
Are you HAviNG<br />
Too MucH Sex?<br />
Words by Simon Gage. Tweet me: @simonjhgage<br />
Sex is a good thing. A very good thing. Let’s just make that clear before we even start.<br />
As Kate Bush once said, “It’s good for the blood circulation, good for releasing the tension,<br />
the root of our reincarnation”. Not quite sure about that last one, but there’s no beating a good<br />
sex life for keeping you happy and healthy. It’s even good for the prostate...<br />
It’s also a great way to connect with<br />
someone, an outlet for expressing<br />
how you really feel (sex with<br />
someone you love and trust is a<br />
unique way of really letting go) and,<br />
you know, just nice. We wouldn’t all<br />
be thinking about it every seven<br />
seconds, or whatever that statistic<br />
is, if it weren’t.<br />
So, why do so many of us have<br />
sex we don’t really want with people<br />
we don’t really like and then feel<br />
terrible about it and about ourselves<br />
afterwards? There are many reasons.<br />
Probably the main reason a lot of<br />
us feel bad about ourselves after<br />
sex, especially sex with someone<br />
we don’t really know, is that we’ve<br />
been taught to. Sex, we’ve had<br />
drummed into us, is only for the<br />
married and the straight and the<br />
beautiful. Never mind that sex is a<br />
perfectly normal human function –<br />
like eating and sleeping and weeing<br />
and pooing – religions have always<br />
tried to control us through it: you<br />
can only have it at a certain age,<br />
with a certain person, under certain<br />
circumstances that may or may not<br />
10|<br />
involve a hole in a sheet after a<br />
certain ceremony where your<br />
parents (who may well have lopped<br />
the end off your penis, just to<br />
remind you they were there first)<br />
are there to give their consent.<br />
As a gay man living in the modern<br />
world, you may think you have left<br />
all that behind. Laughed at it. Maybe<br />
over drinks with someone you’re not<br />
married to who you’re just about to<br />
have sex with. But it’s there in the<br />
culture and in the back of your mind<br />
and it might – might – just be one of<br />
the reasons you feel bad after a hot<br />
sex session. Those religious types<br />
know that if they get their hands on<br />
your tender brain early enough,<br />
those thoughts will be there forever.<br />
It will be your life’s work shaking<br />
them. But that’s not what we’re<br />
talking about here.<br />
We are talking about those gay<br />
men – maybe you! – who find<br />
themselves on a treadmill of sex,<br />
always chasing the next shag and<br />
moving on to the one after that as<br />
soon as it’s been had. Nothing<br />
wrong with that, you might be<br />
saying. A heavily populated sex life<br />
is perfectly acceptable, especially<br />
among us open-minded gay men,<br />
whether that cast of thousands is<br />
present in the same room at the<br />
same time or dealt with<br />
consecutively in small groups or<br />
one-on-ones. If you’re happy<br />
slagging your arse around town<br />
(around the world in some cases)<br />
with the help of some iPhone apps<br />
and ‘dating’ websites and are<br />
keeping it safe with requisite<br />
condoms and lashings of lube, then<br />
we raise our glasses to you. More<br />
power to your elbows and other<br />
body parts if you are happy with<br />
that situation and it makes you feel<br />
fulfilled and content and good about<br />
yourself.<br />
But do you ever wonder if this<br />
‘next, next, next’ style of sex life<br />
you’ve created for yourself is really<br />
what you want? Or is it a symptom<br />
of something wrong with your life?<br />
Here are some of the reasons your<br />
fabulously well-attended sex life<br />
might not be making you as<br />
happy as you think it should.<br />
t
Change language