GAY PORN and BODY IMAGE

I remember being filled with bother terror and excitement. I would finally get to see what gay . . .okay. . .bi-men do when engaging in sex. I knew there would be anal sex, but I had never seen it live or through the media. I’ll never forget the film, nor will I ever forget my reaction to seeing a guy anally penetrated. I thought it was weird, beautiful, painful, and intense. I felt a closeness to the two porn actors that I had not felt with the actors in any of the straight films I had seen. I felt they were letting me in on the secret that had both eluded and scared me for so long. Although the actors had engaged in the sex and my knowledge of it was confined to whatever was scripted in the cinematic fantasy, I felt that the experience was a shared one, nonetheless. Women were still a part of the film but they were surrounded by two or more men that were not afraid to touch each other. The presence of women, once again provided that safety I needed to continue the exploration without actually branding myself into any particular circle of interest.

The women remained a constant presence within the films until I was finally prepared to view a total gay porn. Taking that step seems quite harmless and easy but I assure you it was a very long, emotional and insightful one. That one move was symbolic of all the work, contemplation and thought I had placed in myself and in the therapeutic process. To finally let go of the woman porn actors meant that I was ready to give breath to my homo – sexuality; an acknowledgement that was to open up more doors of eventual and progressive exploration. Immersing myself within the fantasy created by an all male cast slowly enabled my mind to venture into male sexuality and I started to own some of that sex within me.

All was not fully positive, though. The male gay porn actors had phenomenal bodies – physiques that seemed even more muscular, lean and toned than the bodies of the heterosexual men I had seen in the straight porn. Their bodies intimidated me even more since these men were gay and I felt more a part of their community. My body did not measure up to theirs in so many ways, how was I then to be considered sexually appealing and attractive in the gay sphere. Were other gay men going to expect me to have a similar build? Media fantasy was slowly meshing into my vulnerable reality and the combination was deteriorating the esteem of having finally “come out”. Although I was attracted to some of the gay porn actors, I knew that they were well out of my league but there was an expectation that I must be like them in order to be priced as a high commodity within the gay community.