Being sorta single again with Ace and baby girl miles away, I find more time to spend out with friends and I realized gay life has changed drastically and it’s a lot different than what it was when I was a teenage boy. People accept gays much easier and straight guys are no more embarrassed of showing their affections, like this morning when I told a colleague about moving to AK and he just hugged me saying I’d be missed. I was really shocked, not that I’m not used to same-sex hugs, I really didn’t expect it from a straight guy who meant nothing than missing me.

I think being gay isn’t ‘gay’ anymore, gays are now part of the society not looking much for their own secret places where they can go be themselves and act differently then the majority of society. It seems like a lot of gay bars have become deserted cos you can go to straight bars and be as gay as you like, and gay neighborhoods have become tourist attractions and safe havens for straight girls to live in; even gays just go there to see how it was like a while ago; even sex clubs have lost their luster since drug use has subsided and gay guys aren’t super sexed up on meth and x. Gays have become so common and they’re pretty satisfied with themselves they don’t feel any need to change anything.

Since gay boys have become more mainstream it seems as though being gay isn’t what it used to be. Look around, stylish straight guys aren’t really all that different from young gay guys in dress, style, and mannerisms. In fact, flirting and showing affection between straight guys is now the norm and some straight guys are even more concerned with their look and clothes than your average gay guy. In addition anal sex and rimming are no longer taboo making tons of curious straight white boys wondering what that’s all about and making it more common for them to ask their girlfriends to participate in sex acts that were once considered taboo and only part of the gay scene.

Everyday you can see gays in the media and everyone probably either has a gay sibling, relative, coworker, or neighbor. Gays’re not so much of a mystery anymore since the entire gay lifestyle has either been written about, filmed, or posted on the Internet. Straight guys are more sexually expressive and comfortable with their sexiness and now find acting sexy and showing off their half naked bodies hot, so you don’t need to look for gay guys when dying to see male flesh. Straight guys just enjoy showing their bodies that they’re not ashamed of standing naked in a group of guys of guys posing for the camera hiding their junk.

Think about this, does the desire to be with another guy sexually even make you part of a community anymore? Do gay guys connect in any other way with other gay guys other then sexually?
Even within the gay community there exists divisions between race, age, and desires (not even taking into consideration the whole lesbian and trannie part of the community.) Maybe gays don’t have that much in common at all. Maybe they’re not even a community per se. Maybe they have more in common with straight guys then what originally thought.

To become more accepted  is probably what the gay community originally envisioned and that’s a good thing but it seems that even though straight guys have taken on a more gay persona, they’re still not comfortable with the whole gay concept. Yeah a lot of straight guys have gay friends now and girls have always attracted towards gay guys probably because there’s no sexual tension, but overall being gay is still an oddity with the majority of society. Gay is now an adjective, like acting retarded, absurd, something to be embarrassed about. But the harm implied by calling someone gay has been watered down by teens, sorta like white teens calling each other the n-word. The hatefulness of the implication has been eliminated by frequent use.

So maybe gay boys aren’t really that much different then straight guys. They both seem to be in pursuit of the same thing: Attention and getting off. Strip away the fact that they’re sexually into different sexes and what you have left is guys wanting to be in the company of other guys. Maybe the need to feel close to someone of the same sex is there to fill a void left because relationships are so much harder to come by these days. And the majority of young people are in pursuit of companionship rather than traditional relationships, and that allows them to become closer to someone of the same sex without actually having to have the sex to make it meaningful.

So if society is in an ever evolving stage, maybe the differences between straight and gay are becoming blurred.This is a good thing, with traditional relationships falling apart on a regular basis maybe guys will realize the value in the friendships they can make with other guys whether straight or gay. Just maybe.