Sex Starved Gay Couple, MN

Yes there is hope. Most couples, gay and straight, experience exactly what you wrote in terms of enjoying a healthy and often hot sex life early in the relationship and then it tapers off to less than hot and even mundane. Every couple should know this is normal and that it takes work to keep any sex life hot and interesting. It isn’t only gay couples’ for whom sexual activity tapers off after their initial “honeymoon” period. For both gays and straights, sexual excitement wanes after the first two or three years.

New lovers feel an elation, exhilaration, and euphoria mostly due to their bloodstreams being flooded with chemical cousins of amphetamines such as phenylethalimine (or PEA), dopamine, oxytocin, norepinephrine–all natural stimulants and painkillers. So if they feel drugged, it’s because they are! When first released, PEA is at its most potent, which is why you never forget your first love. PEA eradicates pain, lowers anxiety, makes the world bright and renewed-but above all, it heightens sexual arousal and desire for the beloved.

Then there is the social pressure. Gay male couples feel more pressure than their heterosexual counterparts to remain sexually fresh, new, and exciting. That’s the popular stereotype. “All gay men love sex and have it a lot” trumpets the popular press. “If I were gay,” straight men joke,” I would be having sex all the time with my partner! Guys always want it!” So gay couples think that other gay couples are enjoying all kinds of adventurous sex. After all, aren’t men, gay men in particular, supposed to be sexually open and alive? But this is often not the case at all.

To bring passion and sex back into your relationship, you have to want to do it–and know that this time around, it takes work. It wasn’t work in the beginning, when nature was on your side, drugging you with excitement and ecstasy. To bring it back in healthy doses now, you’re on your own-and you can.

1.  Plan time for sex.
Most couples–gay and straight–insist they shouldn’t have to plan for sex, which should come naturally and spontaneously the way it did in the beginning of their relationship. But after the first five years, you must make time for it. Planning can help you anticipate being together, making the coming experience more exciting.

2.  Focus on some detail(s) you find attractive about your partner.
Is your partner not quite as attractive as when you first got together? He’s put on some pounds, lost some hair, and doesn’t seem as hot to you now. Then focus on what you do like about him-his genitals, hair, feet, hands? The way he kisses? Focus on any aspect of him that most arouses you.

3.  Fantasize about some hot experience you had in the past.
It can be an experience and/or fantasy with your current partner, or with someone else. The popular press media claims that not being fully present with a partner during sex is destructive and to fantasize about anyone else is like cheating. Not true! If that’s the only way you and your partner can enjoy sex, that might be an issue. But doing this every so often can spark sexual excitement in you both.

4.  Watch porn together; get on the webcam with other guys on the Internet.
This should only be done if both of you agree on it. If one doesn’t then it is not a good idea. If while doing it, one partner becomes uncomfortable then you should both stop. Communication is key on this one. This aphrodisiac can heighten your sexual desire-and thus, for each other. There’s nothing wrong with being stimulated outside your relationship, if you bring that sexual energy back into the relationship with your partner. Again, this is no problem unless it’s the only way you can have sex together or one of you is jealous. This would not be recommended if so.

5.  Role-play.
Have you and your partner ever discussed your deepest, darkest sexual secrets? Maybe one or both of you like to be spanked? Maybe humiliating someone (or being humiliated) sexually turns you one? Perhaps you’ve never told him of your fetish of licking his feet or armpit? Fantasy role play can help you escape daily living, forget about your busy lives, and perhaps even problems in your relationship. Remember, you should only do this when you feel good about each other. The goal is to connect, not disconnect.

6. Don’t make sexual contact the goal.
After a long drought in a relationship, engaging in sex immediately and directly may be too tall an order. If so, give each other massages. Take a bath or shower together, lie naked beside each other, kiss, rub strawberries on each other’s lips and feed each other. But whatever you do, don’t have sex! If you both honestly decide to, fine-but your goal should not to create any pressure to perform.

Joe Kort, MA, MSW, is a psychotherapist who specializes in gay affirmative therapy, relationship therapy, sex therapy and sexual addiction. He is the author of 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives, 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do To Find Real Love, and  Gay Affirmative Therapy for the Straight Clinician.  He provides training to straight clinicians around the country and  is an adjunct professor at Wayne State University, teaching gay and lesbian studies. His website is www.joekort.com.

“Moscow Pride will take place on May 16th, the day of the Eurovision song contest final,” gay pride organizers said in a statement posted on the website gaypride.ru.

The song festival, broadcast throughout Europe, is immensely popular. Each nation picks a singer or musical group to represent it and gay activists Monday called on competitors to publicly back LGBT rights in Russia on stage.

Laws against homosexuality were repealed at the end of the Communist era, but Moscow city officials have refused to allow gays to hold a pride march for years.

Moscow Pride has seven cases already pending before the European Court of Human Rights.

The latest was filed against President Dmitry Medvedev. The others involve Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov.

Despite Mayor Luzhkov’s refusal to grant a parade permit last year, the third Moscow Pride took place on  June 1, 2008. Gay activists picketed the monument to the Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky and then hung a huge banner from an apartment in front of Moscow City Hall.

The banner read: “Rights to gays and lesbians! Homophobia of Moscow Mayor should be prosecuted.”

In 2007, the mayor also refused a parade license, citing security concerns. Gays, many of them from the Europen Union,  marched anyway. About 20 people were arrested at the May 27 parade, including Alexeyev, two European parliamentarians and British gay advocate Peter Tatchell.

Charges against the foreigners were later dropped and Alexeyev was fined $1000 rubles – about $40.

AIso in 2007, a Moscow court tossed out a lawsuit accusing Lushkov of libel over claims he made that gay rights marches were “satanic.” The court ruled that Moscow Pride leaders had failed to prove that the remarks were incendiary or intended to vilify gays in general.

Last January, a Moscow judge acquitted 13 gay activists arrested last month for staging a protest outside a polling station during national elections.  But last month, a Moscow court said the mayor had not exceeded his authority in banning gay demonstrations including pride marches.

And last December, Luzhkov said he will continue to ban gay pride parades in the city to prevent spreading HIV/AIDS.

“We have banned and will continue to forbid this propaganda by sexual minorities, as they could turn out to be one of the factors in the spread of HIV infections,” Luzhkov told an international AIDS conference.

“Certain homegrown democrats believe that sexual minorities can be a primary indicator and symbol of democracy, but we will forbid the dissemination of these opinions in the future as well.”

The European Court is slow to take up cases.  It could be more than a year before any of the lawsuits is heard.

With the first generation of baby boomers now reaching retirement, the ranks of Americans 65 and older will swell from 12 percent of the population to 20 percent over the next 25 years. LGBT people are estimated to represent between six and eight percent of all seniors in the country ­ 2.8 million strong and growing.

For 30 years SAGE has helped LGBT seniors face the typical challenges of aging as well as the unique twists for older people whose lives and sexuality do not fit into the traditional heterosexual cookie mold. For example, the research shows that LGBT seniors are:

* twice as likely to live alone as other seniors
* half as likely to have a partner
* four times more likely to have no children to help out
* and 50 percent more likely to have no close relatives to call for help when
needed.

These challenges are compounded by the discrimination that LGBT older people too often face when attempting to take advantage of senior services. Unfortunately, the stories are legion of home care attendants haranguing LGBT seniors about their “lifestyle,” senior facilities making it clear that it’s time to get back into the closet, and more. These experiences of discrimination discourage many LGBT seniors from seeking out the services they need.

SAGE and organizations like us exist to help LGBT older people address these challenges.

For example, at SAGE we have “friendly visitors” ­ volunteers who make sure that homebound seniors have the support they need. SAGE’s volunteer caregivers program makes sure that friends, neighbors and loved ones have the resources to “be there” for an LGBT older person. From a “friendly visit” to helping a senior get an air conditioner and lugging it up the steps of a four story walk-up, we are here for our clients. From individual therapy and support to groups for grieving partners or men over 50 with HIV/AIDS, we are here.

And we work with mainstream senior providers to help them become welcoming places for LGBT older people. Our October conference, aptly entitled “It’s About Time,” will provide an opportunity for hundreds of seniors learn more about what resources exist for them and give those who provide services to seniors how to create more welcoming environments for their clients and patients.

It’s about time, indeed.

One thing is for certain – the landscape is changing fast. History tells part of the story. Current generations of LGBT seniors came of age in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, decades when LGBT people faced extraordinary hostility, rampant violence and outrageous government-sponsored bigotry. Their life experiences were shaped by these realities.

As a result, some are less open about their sexuality and have learned to “work around” discrimination rather than confronting it head-on – ­ for many years to do anything else was literally life-threatening.

By contrast, the newest generation of LGBT older people came of age during the emergence of a vibrant and powerful “gay rights” movement. Pride parades and rainbow flags have gradually overtaken police raids and bashings (though much work remains to be done). Coming out and refusing to tolerate inequality are the sine qua non of LGBT life for many of those who are now reaching their golden years.

So what will the emergence of newly empowered generations of LGBT older people mean for our community, and for an aging country and world?

While we don’t yet have all the answers to those questions, at SAGE we’re excited about the potential for a more powerful voice for LGBT older people. It will become harder and harder to keep the needs of LGBT seniors off the table.

Even the Bush Administration had to cede a little territory at the 2005 White House Conference on Aging, when SAGE was admitted as the first official LGBT delegate in the Conference’s history.

We’ll see new marketplace opportunities for LGBT older people (the slow rise of LGBT retirement communities is just one example). And we’ll see more “in your face” tactics like lawsuits. The ACLU recently filed one on behalf of several older lesbians in New Mexico who retired from their state jobs only to discover that their partners couldn¹t receive the same retirement benefits as the spouses of their heterosexual co-workers.

It’s a brave new world out there for LGBT older people. We can’t predict exactly what it will look like. But at SAGE we’re betting that we’ll be breaking down a lot of barriers as we age. So as an iconic aging screen idol once said, fasten your seatbelts!

Michael Adams is the Executive Director of SAGE. For more information, go to
www.sageusa.org

 What will be the message behind her choice of words and phrases this evening – genuine love, understanding and respect, or hostility, prejudice and misunderstanding?

Will she fly the “family values” flag of the Religious Right? Will she stand on the shrill and divisive “gay marriage” foundation of James Dobson and Tony Perkins?  And will she stand on Sean Hannity’s “traditional value” of allowing deep-seated hostility and prejudice toward gays and lesbians to be passed along to yet another generation?

But there is a much more important question as it relates to the gay or lesbian teenager who without friends or family is anticipating ending his or her life out of despair. For all those who seek an end to a national moral failing, the question for us is: Will we begin to question and therefore expose this horrible hypocrisy?

The gay teenager’s despair and emotional trauma is not because God created them without affection for the opposite sex – it’s because society says they should be rejected, condemned and deemed unworthy, inferior or immoral because of the way God created them.

For far too many years, groups like Dobson’s Focus on the Family and Perkins’ Family Research Council have used words and phrases that on the surface appear innocuous and somewhat meaningless, but upon basic scrutiny reveal hostility and prejudice toward gay and lesbian citizens.
Could there be a worse form of hypocrisy for Palin than doing harm in the name of religion – and particular the evangelical community which professes the Christian ideals of respect, love and understanding?

All of us – private citizens, public officials and the media – must do a better job as caretakers of the words and phrases that are used to communicate issues and positions related to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens.
 
We hope that Gov. Palin will choose not to use the anti-gay establishment’s code language. But if she does, we urge you to hold Gov. Palin accountable for her use of these words and phrases. It only takes but a few simple follow-up questions to expose the true intent behind these words and phrases – and please, take my word as a former anti-gay Christian Right voter, the intent is not love, understanding, compassion and respect.

The presence of Barney Frank and Tammy Baldwin in the U.S. House of Representatives has proven to be of great value in educating Congress about the lives of LGBT America. 

The U.S. Senate isn’t the most diverse place and a gay voice would help move the ball forward on many slow moving pieces of legislation important to achieving equality. 

In a legislative body where decorum and respect (mostly!) rule the day, having an openly gay person serving there would also change the way many in the Washington press corps view LGBT people and how they cover us. 

Lane Hudson is a political and communications consultant

Go back to the main story for more opinions on where we need LGBT officials.

The appointment of the first Jewish (Louis Brandeis), female (Sandra Day O’Connor) and black (Thurgood Marshall) Justice to the Supreme Court marked an important step in the full acknowledgement of the voices of each of those groups in our system of constitutional law.

It is time now for the appointment of the first openly LGBT Justice.

Although individual Justices do not “represent” their constituents in the way elected officials do, there is no doubt that an openly LGBT Justice would bring a distinctive set of experiences and perspectives to the Court. Moreover, the appointment of such a Justice would publicly recognize the standing of LGBT citizens in our society in a way that in itself help to further the equality of all individuals under the law.

There are many quite sensible nominees based on their achievements in the legal profession. Two obvious candidates would be Kathleen Sullivan, former Dean of the Stanford Law School, and Pamela Karlan, one of the nation’s most distinguished scholars of constitutional law.

Geoffrey R. Stone is the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago

Go back to the main story for more opinions on where we need LGBT officials.

Having an open LGBT person in that position would signal to the world that America will stand up for the human rights of LGBT people everywhere. 

What a powerful symbol that would be of America’s re-commitment to its own founding values of equality, justice, and genuine respect for diversity – values that make this country so great!

Michael Guest is a senior adviser at the Council for Global Equality and the former ambassador to Romania

Go back to the main story for more opinions on where we need LGBT officials.

Ten percent of those surveyed support McCain, while three percent favor Ralph Nader and one percent supports Bob Barr. Three percent chose “other.” Fifteen percent of all LGBT voters still are not sure which candidate to support.

The Harris Poll was conducted online within the United States between August 1-7 among 2,834 adults aged 18 and over, of whom 178, or nearly 6.3 prercent, self-identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

Among all registered U.S. voters, Obama retains an eight point lead over Senator John McCain in the latest Harris Poll, virtually unchanged since the nine point lead he enjoyed in early July.

In many previous elections, Harris said in a media statement, Republican candidates have done slightly better among registered voters than among all adults, reflecting the fact that they are somewhat more likely than Democrats to register to vote.

“The fact that there is no such difference in this poll may reflect the fact that many new voters registered to vote in the Democratic primary elections,” the pollsters said.

Obama’s lead is critically dependent on his 33 point lead among Echo Boomers – people under 32 – but they are usually are the least likely generation to actually vote. If they do not vote very heavily in November this would hurt Obama’s chances, the pollsters said.

McCain leads among “Matures,” those over 62, by nine points, the generation that is usually the most likely to vote.

The new poll also shows there currently is no gender gap in this election. Obama’s lead is almost the same among men (+8 points) and women (+10 points).

In addition, Obama currently wins virtually all the African-American vote (+91) and most of the crucial Hispanic vote (+25), but loses the white vote by eight points. In the past, whites were more likely to vote than blacks or Hispanics.

While neither Obama nor McCain supports same-sex marriage, Obama favors repeal of federal legislation barring the government from recognizing gay unions and supports civil unions.

Both candidates oppose attempts to amend the U.S. Constitution to bar same-sex marriage, although McCain supports state bans.

Obama also supports legislation giving federal domestic partner benefits and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell – the ban on gays serving openly in the military.

The “Gay Neighbor” campaign will feature LGBT families drawn from the Milwaukee area and was unveiled this week at a news conference. It begins Monday.

The ads, from the Cream City Foundation, all bear the slogan ” Family. It’s all about LOVE!” and direct people to a Web site that offers more information on the issues facing same-sex couples and their children.

In 2006, Wisconsin voters approved a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. Since then LGBT activist groups have been focusing on efforts to get bills granting recognition of domestic partnerships passed in the legislature.

Marketing expert Denise Crawley said the photos used in the campaign were selected following intensive focus groups.

“We tried single people, we tried couples by themselves. None of those sorts of images worked as well as presenting people in the sense of family,” Crawley told Milwaukee Public Radio.

The ads feature with young children and teens pictured with their gay and lesbian parents, and LGBT kids with their mothers and fathers.

“We also heard from people that they thought that gay people don’t have families, certainly thought they don’t have children. Don’t even think to ask about a significant other, about their mother, about their sister,” Crawley said.

Several of the families represented in the campaign were present at the news conference, but were identified only by their first names.

One of the couples, Kristie and Karen, said that it was difficult to decide whether to expose their children in the ads.

“The last thing a parent wants to do is to put their child in harms way and, while I don’t feel like we’re necessarily doing that, it’s a little nerve-wracking. And there were days I did feel sick to my stomach about it and we talked about that a lot. But, we felt like the cause was worthwhile and we need to do it,” Karen said

“My true feeling was, I came back to the code, you have to be a part of the change you want to see in the world and there was no other way to do it. And I think our families and our kids know, that it’s a worthwhile cause.”

Crawley said that in addition to educating the straight population, she hopes the ads encourage more gay people to come out.

“The fact that there are still hate crimes and there are still unfair laws, there are so many people who are still closeted,” she said.

“There are plenty of people who still have people come into their homes and have dinner parties and people don’t know that they’re gay. And we’re not going to be able to make inroads into more fair laws and opportunities if more people don’t realize how many gay neighbors they have.”

The foundation did not say how much it cost to produce the ads, but noted that it received funding from the Joseph R. Pabst LGBT Infrastructure Fund and that Clear Channel had donated a large number of billboards.