I wanted to write a post about how the word gay came to be used for homosexual. I found basic articles that left me yawning.

I wanted to find something more exciting…something that had a deep serious meaning because in my lifetime I’ve always used the word gay for homosexual and wasn’t even sure why.

In my search for something dramatic, I found wiki had the best answer. The other articles I found agreed with what I’d read on wiki. After reading all this, for me, gay is a word to describe a very diverse group of people that is a much better word than homosexual, fag, or queer. Plain and simple.

Then I changed my mind and decided to write a post about whether or not gay men can be monogamous and have lasting monogamous relationships. I found nothing but psycho-babble from verbose self-righteous clinical types who wouldn’t know a lasting relationship from the bottom of their asses. I found blog posts about how gay men NEED sex with more than one man, posts about gay men in open-relationships, and gay men who have this instinctive life-long need to cruise back alleys.

Blah, blah, blah.

The only thing I didn’t find were articles or blog posts about gay men who are in long term relationships and who are monogamous. I’m in one. I have many friends who are in monogamous relationships. I don’t disapprove of gay couples with open-relationships, but I wouldn’t want to be in one myself.

I think it’s important to point this out for younger gay men who are curious about these things. When I saw so much misinformation about the subject of monogamy and gay men it really pissed me off. Who are YOU to tell ME that gay men can’t have monogamous relationships? That was my first thought. You’re telling me that studies “say” and I’m telling you what I’ve been doing for twenty years? My second thought: kiss my ass.

Just like with everything, there’s a darker side to gay culture where life itself revolves around sex for pure gratification. It would be inaccurate to dismiss this fact altogether. But I find no issue in dismissing it with regard to how I live my life and how many, many others I know live their lives. Just like all the stereotypes about gay men this stereotype about gay men as sex pirates is just as damaging.

So I decided not to write a post about gay monogamy and instead write about the different sub-genres in gay literature. Guess what? I didn’t find much on that topic other than the basics that were accurate but not well defined. It seemed that each one wanted to put gay authors/readers into a box and lock the lid. Each one was the absolute expert and each one felt this pathetic sense of discrimination. It all sounded to me like, “I’m the victim, you’re the bully.”

And I thought, blah, blah, blah, once again.

Ultimately, I discovered that it doesn’t matter much to me how the word gay came to be used in place of homosexual because it’s just a word and doesn’t define me or anyone I know. It defines a large diverse group of people who are all working hard to achieve similar goals and it’s not as clinical as homosexual.

I discovered that there is a great heap of bad information going around about how gay men are wired to only think about sex first and emotion later. I’m sure that’s true with some gay men…and some hetero men…but it’s not the case with all gay men and monogamy is widely practiced within the gay community.

I also discovered that gay literature is about as broad and diverse as the gay community. The reason why we have genres and sub-genres is to let readers know basically where to look and how to buy their books. It’s a publishing term that all publishing professionals learn to use. Plain and simple, again.

And, the most important thing I discovered while trying to find more information on what I thought would be simple topics was that there are a lot of idiots handing out a lot of bad information that needs to be taken with that provervial grain of SALT.