More to Gay Life Than Sex

Are all gay men just superficial disco bunnies with only one thing on their minds? The mass media would certainly have you believe that is so, and with figure heads such as Boy George and Julian Clary, who can blame the public for going along with this idea. Of course, straight acting gay men are just harder to detect. So homophobes continue with their prejudices and the 21st century, thinking gay man gets very lonely wondering where all the men like him are! How, then, do intelligent professional gay men meet each other? There are thousands of clubs and pubs, dating agencies and personal ads for cruising purposes, but it can be extremely difficult to meet professional gay friends for purely social purposes, where a deeper relationship may develop. This is where the gay dining club comes to the rescue. I recently tried Out & Out, London's longest established dining club for professional gay men and was amazed at how civilized an evening with 40 gay men could be.

Out & Out was started by the disarmingly charming and truly scrumptious Julia Melinek. Eleven years ago, opera singer Julia (she's sung Madam Butterfly for English National Opera) and fellow warbler, Mark Glanville (more recently the author of best – selling book The Goldberg Variations) realised that they were so good at organising dinner parties for gay colleagues that they might as well do it professionally. As Out & Out, they booked a stand at a Gay lifestyle exhibition at Earl's Court and pretty much became an instant success. Today they're the biggest dining club for professional gay men in the UK, with a membership that sometimes hits a thousand. They are not just another gay dating service in London. Through the gay dining club format, members can meet new friends, network professionally and chat without any of the posing and cruising obligations of the scene.

How did they do it? Professional fag hag (it's her description) Julia reckons that, as far as social skills are concerned, "you're born that way." But she likens her table – hopping duties at Out & Out functions to those of the circus plate spinner, forever dashing to give the plate at the end another twirl. Having seen her in action, I can confirm that, like the guy with the plates, she performs apparently effortlessly. But what is it with Julia and gay men? "There's a special relationship between straight women and gay men," she explains. "It's like the girlie friendship, opposite sexes getting on with each other without the sexual tension." The personal touch extends to communications with the Out & Out office. There are no mail-shots. Julia and Mark can spend eight hours a day on the phone, telling members about upcoming lunches and dinners, plus other events including theatre visits, foreign trips and boat cruises. Clearly the label ‘Gay Dining Club' only reveals part of the picture as members use the club for professional networking purposes, expanding their social horizons, debates, message posting and of course, inevitably, for gay dating.

But, ultimately, is it all about sex? Surprisingly, no. "It's far less a sexual thing than the scene," says Julia. I accepted an invitation to the gallery bar of the Cross Keys, a beautiful old pub in Chelsea, where Out & Out celebrated Valentine's Day. The mix of men was much as Julia had described, all ages, classes and races, but "the common denominator is intelligence, those who enjoy a dinner party atmosphere as opposed to posing and cruising."

After a 17 year relationship broke up, lawyer David T found it very difficult to "let loose" again. "In the bars I was very conscious of being older," he told me, "but here, as you can see, the age range is very wide." At Out & Out he has made a lot of gay friends, some men he now sees independently. What about romance? None as yet. David feels that Out & Out is primarily a social group. But then I met David L and William R who have been together for three years after meeting at an Out & Out function. "Jules is very good at judging," said David. "She sits people next to each other if she thinks they're going to get on. With us, she got it right." "I didn't want a gay dating agency when I joined Out and Out," said William "I was far more interested in networking with professional gay men and meeting new friends....but then I met David, and the rest is history!"

Now David is trying to get William to County Hall! "We'll invite Mark and Jules," David promised.

Alan Turning and the Right to be Gay

Alan Turing is considered to be the father of computer science. In 1936 he helped answer one of the unsolved mathematical problems of the time, Gödel's incompleteness theorem, by showing that it is theoretically possible to design a machine which, given any equation, could decide whether or not it could be proven. During the World War II Turning worked in the British Communication headquarters at Bletchley Park where he was instrumental in solving the problem of the Enigma machine.

As well as laying down the foundations for the personal computer Turing considered moral dilemmas in computing well before anyone had the technology capable of causing these problems. In 1950 he thought up a test to determine whether or not a computer had developed artificial intelligence. This is known as the Turing test, and involved someone engaging in an instant message type conversation with a number of people without being able to tell which one wasn't really a human (Turing, 1950).

It wasn't until 1980 that John Searle showed that a computer could follow the rules of language to devise a reply without understanding it (Searle, 1980).

Two years after coming up with this idea Turing was burgled by a nineteen year old boy with whom he had had consensual sex. He reported the crime and in doing so was forced to admit to his sexuality. He was charged with gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885.

This law, implemented by Attorney-General Richard Webster, was also designed to protect women and children from sexual abuse and so it was important that it extended into the domestic sphere. Yet it required witness testimony and so could be used for blackmail and extortion. Just over 50 years earlier, in 1895, Oscar Wilde had been given two years of hard labour under this law. Wilde's time in prison had severely damaged his health and he died, at the age of 46, just three years after being released.

Turing was given the choice between suffering Wilde's fate or choosing to take oestrogen injections for a year to decrease his libido. He chose the injections, they made him impotent and permanently deformed his body, his security clearance was revoked and he lost his job.

Turing wrote to a friend;

Turing believes machines think

Turing lies with men

Therefore machines do not think

(Letter to Dr Norman Routledge, 1952).

In 1952, aged 41, he committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide, perhaps influenced by Snow White, the favourite film of his friend Godel. It wasn't until fifteen years later that consensual sex in the privacy of your own home was decimalised in the UK.

There have been a number of historic arguments as to why we should ban homosexuality. Lord Devlin (1959), a knight and British judge in the late '50s believed that if enough people were offended by something then it should be outlawed. This was because he thought that society was bound together by a shared morality and he believed that intolerance of homosexuality was one of these shared values. This view seems redundant in the modern age as an intellectual way to attack homosexuality.

Yet Michael Levin (1997), a professor of philosophy in New York, argues that heterosexual people's disgust of homosexuals is so great that it would be wrong to force them to have to work together. Levin argues that this disgust might be biological in origin since he believed that homosexuality was a disease, this is because he believed that homosexuals were intrinsically unhappy. This claim was supported by his theory that each bodily organ has a purpose which must be fulfilled in order for people to be happy. According to this sex with someone of the same gender is not morally wrong, but never having heterosexual sex would mean not fulfilling the needs of your body and this would make you intrinsically unhappy. He dismisses obvious counter examples such as celibate priests because the priest chooses celibacy for a 'higher purpose'. Needless to say, these arguments seem childish at best.

Sometimes people have used Kant's Categorical Imperative (1785) to justify banning homosexuality. This states that the morality of an action can be determined if we think about what the consequences would be if everyone were to do it. Lying is always wrong because if everyone lied it would have terrible consequence for society. The fact that if everyone were homosexual then no children would be born is often used to explain why it is unnatural. However, I think this use of the Categorical Imperative is wrong, it would be terrible if everyone were postmen and there were no farmers, however this does not mean that people shouldn't be free to be postmen. A universal law could be simply that no one can enforce sexual control over consenting adults who are not harming anyone, since a world where we were not in control of our own sex lives would be terrible, this is analogous to Mill's harm principle.

I believe that gay people should have the same rights as all other people: to have sex, to marry and to adopt children. To not allow this implies that homosexuals are something less than human and I think that it is this view which is most damaging to society.

Find Gays at Free Gay Dating Sites

There are many free gay dating sites that offer singles to find gay men online. Many guys found their partners through these dating services. It is so easy and simple to find gay singles online because it is not cost to you. When you are looking for partners at the bars, it is just too expensive. To find gays online, you only need to join these free gay singles dating services. Gay singles should join gay dating sites to find gays or gay friends. A gay man seeking a guy at the bars or nightclubs is the old way. People rarely go to the clubs to find gay singles. Seeking dates online is the new way for gay people and online singles. We have seen many online gay dating services booming on the Internet in the last few years. Many popular gay dating web sites offer 100% free gay dating services which help many online singles to find love and romance without a fee. That's wonderful, isn't it? Online dating services is a good way to find gay friends. Some gay dating services provide free membership for a limited time but some gay dating sites offer free for a life time to the members. There are paid gay dating services that were created long time ago and they charge members a small fee monthly. Popular gay dating services have the amount of joined members to two million and the number of members are going up. We can see how on line gay singles and gay personals like searching for their partners on the Net. The main purpose of online gay dating services is to provide single men and single guys to know each other on Net. Some gay dating services focus on specific area, such as Northern America, UK, Russia, Asia, or Europe regions, and there are gay dating services world-wide. Single men and single boys can meet thru the on line gay dating sites for friendship, relationships, or marriage. On line gay singles, in a moment, can see other gay personal ads in front of computer. Registering a profile takes a few minutes at these gay dating sites and we recommend that you upload your photo to increase your chance in getting more attention from other members. You should post a nice profile to search for gays. The old saying said that one picture worth thousands words which is always true. When a member look at your photo, they will contact you right away if they are interested in your photo, without reading all the information you write on your profile. So, posting your profile with a picture or two photos increase your profile values. Usually, online gay dating services have new members on the homepage, which have newest members with photos. Profiles without pictures are usually not displayed on the front page of these gay dating web sites. Let us put it this way, when you search for a profile, you always look at profiles with pictures at these gay online dating services.

The Best Way to Find Gay Love and Sex

To have a homosexual kind of relationship is as a result of some influence regarding love and sex. I do not think that a person who is attracted to girls can be a gay। You become a gay because you are romantically comfortable with people of your gender। Love and sex are great gifts of choice. You choose who to love and who to have sex with. Gay love and sex sometimes can be limited because of the public opinion. If you are a man and you want to love a girl, you will exactly do that because you can use your eyes to see that she is female. There are even commercial sex workers who are there to offer sex services to heterosexual people. What happens when you are a gay who wants to enjoy that rare service? There is no magic bullet to pair up people.

You can find gay men who are interested in romance very easily. The almost sure way is through online gay dating sites or chat rooms. You can browse through the many profiles and look for the man who best suits your requirements. You should also remember to state the circumstances for serious romance. Dance clubs or lounges can also be wonderful places to find gay love and sex. Gay men have been said to hate clubs but there are those party enthusiasts who would never miss a dancing event. There are less intimidating clubs for all types of men. Gay men also hang out with straight men but it is also easy to spot them from a far.

The fairly tales we read as children made us to believe that there are possibilities such as a prince riding on a white horse showing up on your front door to save your day. The chances of having a smiling delivery man handing you a date invitation is not zero but quite slim. However we have heard stories about meeting the love of your life at the kiosk, car wash or the coffee joint among other places. These are not fake stories because in your every day activities you can find gay love and sex. This is because gay men carryout the same errands as straight people do and there are more chances of bumping into one than sleeping at home. If you are a gay living in a small town, this can be a very effective approach.

Listen to your friends because they have a way for you to meet gay love and sex. Referrals act best when they are from a trusted friend, coworkers or relatives. If you are an experienced gay, an introduction can grow into a wonderful romantic gay relationship. If a friend says "I suspect one of my colleagues at work is gay". Be quick to act and say something like "can you arrange for us to meet?" It is not necessarily that you will love them or they will like you but you should find solace in the fact that they must be knowing other gay friends. Through this kind of networking there are higher possibilities of finding gay love and sex.