BAREBACKING IS CAUSED BY SELF-LOATHING

All things considered, many gay and bisexual men are undeniably knowledgeable about HIV and AIDS but still participate in risk-taking activities. Our participants were certainly clear: Men do not like condoms, and men are led by powerful and deep cognitive factors....

Generations of HIV/AIDS workers have been distributing condoms to men who clearly do not like how condoms feel.... The hurdle isn’t necessarily a lack of knowledge. The hurdle is facing complicated variables that come into play during sexual encounters, which appear to be primarily emotional experiences rather then mechanical behaviors.

[For the full article, see here.]

Anyone who doesn't use condoms is a masochist, and this nonsense about "emotional experiences," and not liking "how condoms feel," in encouraging barebacking is a load of crap!  Condoms are so thin that it's very hard to tell the difference, so there's more to the desire for barebacking than mere "inconvenience" and "emotional" considerations. 

Some gay men are bug chasers, and show their self-loathing by engaging in that practice.  With all the discrimination visited upon Gay people, it is natural that self-loathing overrides potential emotional intactness and  logic for many people, so that they manufacture rationalizations for engaging in life-threatening behaviors, ranging from alcoholism, drug abuse, sticking fingers in the eyes of potential Straight allies, hedonism being interchangeably used for being Gay, and barebacking.

Indeed, there is a significant market for bareback porn among gay men.

The glorification of bareback porn is a dangerous development and is killing our youth. They're being taught that bareback is sexy, it is the norm, and it is how to behave. In turn, they are contracting HIV/AIDS at a staggering rate.

[For the full article, see here.]

It is crucial that Gay people override the hatred that has been visited on them from "religious" and secular sources, and develop an emotional intactness that affirms their self-worth, and would prevent the psychological need to hurt oneself by engaging in all sorts of risk-taking behaviors, including that of barebacking.

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AFFECTIONAL ORIENTATION SHOULD BE SUBSTITUTED FOR SEXUAL ORIENTATION

A person is Gay or Straight whether or not he/she can engage in sexual activity! Most Gay people engage in sexual activity just as most Straight people engage in sexual activity, but those activities don't define whether or not they are Gay or Straight.   There are many people who engage in same-sex sexual activity who are not Gay, as often seen in prisons and in boarding schools; there are many people who engage in heterosexual activity who are not Straight, as seen by many people who are in the closet.

What makes a person Gay is not basically his/her sexual orientation but his/her affectional orientation!  The distinction between sexual orientation and affectional orientation is crucial to underscore to all people, particularly potential Straight allies of whom there are many.

When I was teaching in the university, when dealing with this subject, I would ask my class what is the first thing that came into their minds when I said two different words.  I would say "Heterosexual," and the words that they said were such words as "marriage," "family," and "children."

I would then say the word "Gay," and almost everyone said, "Sex."  Many people, when they think of Gay people think primarily of sex and sexual activities in which many Gay people engage.  It's relatively rare in my experience to have people first think of sex when, for example, a heterosexual couple get married, or when a Straight person is characterized.

I suggest that the term, "Sexual orientation" may be retarding the Gay Civil Rights movement, and it might be far better to discard that term in favor of "Affectional Orientation."  Of course, sexual orientation is part and parcel of what make us Gay or Straight, but it is primarily the affectional orientation that we possess that ultimately define us as one or the other.

Being Gay, just like being Straight, is primarily about love!  It's about our emotional connection to people of the same or opposite sex respectively!

And why shouldn't we categorize and refer to people, when appropriate, by one's affectional orientation when dealing with Gay and Straight people?  It is far more accurate a description of Gay and Straight people than is the emphasis upon sex and sexual activity that seems to currently falsely embody the public's major perception and defining of Gay people as distinct from their major perception and defining of Straight people.

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WITHHOLD MONEY FROM HOMOPHOBIC CHURCHES AND INSTITUTIONS

When Carrol Grady received a phone call telling her that her organization, Someone To Talk To, was being disinvited from having a booth at this week's North American Gathering of Seventh-Day Adventist Teachers because "this convention is not the right venue for your group," she was shocked and distressed. With only one week before the start of the convention this was painful news to absorb, to say nothing of the expense already incurred personally by her and her volunteers.
Someone To Talk To is a ministry to Adventist families and friends of gays and lesbians. Grady is the 76-year-old founder. "I found it difficult to understand how this venue was not right for our group," she says, "when we are a ministry directed toward young people who are often the target of bullying in our schools and one of the themes of this convention is bullying and harassment in schools. What students and teachers often need is simply someone to talk to." Grady wrote a book, "My Son, Beloved Stranger," and ultimately founded this ministry after walking with her own gay son through the challenges of being gay and an Adventist Christian....

The Seventh-day Adventist Church's official position is that, "sexual intimacy belongs only within the marital relationship of a man and a woman." This places Someone To Talk To's viewpoint outside the official church doctrine. Other Adventist leaders wonder whether every booth is being submitted to the same scrutiny.

[For the full article, see here.] 

I can virtually guarantee that if every single Christian worthy of the name, and all decent people, refused to give one red cent to any church or secular institution that discriminates against LGBT people, such discrimination and exclusionary/hateful rhetoric and actions would largely disappear.

In churches, just like in virtually all secular institutions, money talks!  Indeed, as the late attorney Melvin Belli once quipped, "Money doesn't talk!  It screams!"

Put these hateful clergy and institutions at risk by not enabling them to continue to spew their venom by withholding all monies from them, whether or not you attend those churches; putting no money in their collection plates, and they will quickly change their tune.  As I wrote a long time ago, if there were more money to be made by supporting LGBT people and equal rights, as opposed to preaching homophobic lies and hate, most strident homophobic "Christian" clergy who make money from their ignorant and hateful rhetoric would be proudly marching in Pride Parades!

The best way to neutralize verbalized homophobia is by withholding funds, and that is one of the best ways to engage in meaningful activism to help move the LGBT civil rights movement forward.  In addition, taking just one homophobic church in each city or jurisdiction, and continually picketing that church every time they are holding their services, carrying signs that state that what goes on in that church violates Gospel teachings, can do a lot to mitigate homophobia in churches.

As I've written before:

Make no mistake, every drop of blood shed by GLBT people either through suicide, bashing, or murder, are on the hands of all those religious leaders, their followers, and their allies who spew forth their ignorance, prejudice, and hate against GLBT people and their relationships! These wolves in sheep's clothing take the Bible, God's love letter to His children, and selectively and perversely use it as a club to condemn others, and deny GLBT people full inclusion in the Church and in society.  
[For the full article, see here.]

By withholding funds from all homophobic churches, churches that don't embrace all of God's LGBT children, you will be saving lives!

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Regarding the Chic-Fil-A fiasco, and to all others who show animosity toward Gay people in the name of God, and who profess themselves to be "Christians":

Disciples of Christ do not show animosity to other people. Those who would demean and seek to exclude Gay people from acquiring full and equal civil rights are not Christians, but mere haters who may actually believe that they are "Christians," but they are deluded, and seek to delude others. God loves His Gay children, and those who would dare to declare otherwise are tools of the devil, whether they recognize that fact or not.

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