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Open or closed? No, not your bar tab

The swinging couple’s dream is the hopeless romantic’s nightmare

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Jake Stewart

(Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part feature on open relationships.)

Boy meets boy. Boy likes boy. 

For the first time in a long time, boy feels that thing, that connection, that spark with boy. 

Then one day boy grabs dinner with boy. Boy’s smiles and laughs throughout are equal parts sincere and excited. Boy wonders, is this the one? After all this time, has it finally happened? 

Boy takes boy home. Boys cuddle. Boys kiss. Boys have amazing sex. And in the glowing aftermath of what can only be described as a perfect night, boy spots an unnoticed ring. 

“What’s that?” boy asks. 

“My wedding ring,” the other replies. “I thought you knew.” 

When I returned to D.C. in 2016, I quickly received a lecture on why open relationships were the future of queer love. Nearly eight years later, they’ve more than just sprouted among the gay scene – they’ve overtaken the landscape. Simultaneously, what became the swinging couple’s dream descended into the hopeless romantic’s nightmare. 

It’s not all so bad given what comes with it: a lot of sex, particularly with hotties who were off-limits before. However, alongside that sex comes a minefield of rules and regulations open couples create but horny singles must abide by. One wrong move, and you’re the villain. 

Truthfully, I’ve soiree’d with open couples before, both separate and together. On the bad end, things get awkward – particularly between me and the other partner. On the good end, I might come home satisfied, but the moment I hop on my couch to watch rerun television, I realize I’m back to where I started: alone. 

If you’re like me and not yet onboard with an open relationship, it’s also easy to feel like a fish out of water. Queer social outings can sometimes become a Swinging 70’s Redux, with partners passed around like gay dishes at a potluck. Next up: ass, and lots of it. 

This leads to another issue: in a scene full of open couples, detached sex is more than just accepted – it’s often expected. The moment you let emotional attachment enter the equation, you lose. Now even the singles are trained to run away, for your attachment may prevent them from jumping onto – or into – the next in their queue. And I can’t even get upset, for I’ve been that guy before. 

For all these reasons, I wanted to dive further into the rise of open relationships. All I needed was someone in an open relationship willing to speak on the matter.

“That’s easy,” quipped my coworker, Chad. “Just open Grindr.” 

Chad and I met working at the pub, and under similar circumstances; he lost his day job a few months after me losing mine. We quickly found solace in our shared circumstance, and now he and I hang in the kitchen of a gay bar divulging details of our sex lives and pining to meet the man of our dreams. 

And Chad wasn’t wrong, for these days Grindr is chockfull of profiles in open relationships looking to play. Yet it turned out I wouldn’t need Grindr, for at that moment, in pranced our fellow coworker, Scott. 

There’s no better way to describe Scott than this: They’re a bundle of positivity and joy. Oddly, I didn’t meet Scott at the bar but rather at a coffee shop in Petworth in 2018, where they were my regular barista. Little did I know we’d work together half a decade later. Life is funny that way, isn’t it? 

Outside the bar, Scott is an actor in productions across the DMV. Naturally, they became my biggest inspiration for abandoning my career for the arts. Following a bar shift last summer we smoked a blunt and talked about it. They taught me to tune out the noise and follow my heart. 

Together, Chad and Scott became my newfound support system. In a way we’re like the Three Musketeers – equally gay, just a lot more working class.

Of course, as soon as Scott entered, I had to ask: “Are you and your partner open?” 

Scott smiled coyly. “Oh yes, honey.” 

So as fate had it, here in the kitchen of a gay bar, I had both ends of the open/closed spectrum represented. On one side Chad, a self-proclaimed romantic seeking monogamy; on the other, the fully open Scott. 

While there were many takeaways from our conversations on the matter, I distilled six truths in the debate between open and closed relationships. But please, take these with a grain of salt – I am just a barback, after all.   

  1. Monogamy is rooted in tradition.

For many of us, gay or straight, finding our one and only was a dream of our youth. Mine was supposed to be Colby Donaldson from season 2 of the hit TV show “Survivor,” but life had other plans. 

Yet many never dissect where this desire stems from. Our culture is inundated with stories of princesses rescued by their prince and true love’s kiss setting us free. There seemed to be a script we had to follow, and if we didn’t, no worries – God would simply banish us to hell. 

This is a common starting point for both the monogamist and the open connoisseur. When I asked Chad what drew him toward monogamy, he replied, “Honestly, it was how I was raised: settle down, have kids, and carry on the family name. I didn’t have any non-traditional role models.” 

Meanwhile, Scott’s past reservations toward open relationships were for similar reasons. “When I was younger, I was not pro-open relationship,” they told me. “I didn’t understand the intricacies of it. I didn’t understand the nuances of it. I also grew up in a very conservative, Catholic household.” 

Both responses touch on a key argument in the pro-open saga: that closed relationships are often reflections of tradition, ranging from folklore to religion, and these traditions held queer people back for centuries. If queer means subverting these traditions, then monogamy is simply outdated. Or so they say.  

  1. 2. The desire to be open is biological.  

Over time, Scott’s views on being open changed. “As I matured and grew into my queerness,” they started, “and saw friends with alternative lifestyles, I realized this is something I could be interested in.”

In Scott’s relationship, this led to an understanding of the core needs for them and their partner. “I knew my partner’s libido was higher than mine. For me, it came from a desire to allow my partner to experience something I wasn’t able to fulfill fully. I personally get a lot of pleasure knowing my partner can go out, meet people, and make connections, knowing at the end of the day we will be each other’s number one priority and person.” 

Scott’s libido reference made me wonder: are open relationships taking off across the LGBTQ community, or specifically among sex-obsessed gay men? Realizing this conversation should probably be more inclusive, I made an arduous journey east – roughly 150 feet, to the front entrance. 

Kelsey is a hot badass who works the door of the bar. She’s stylish, a fellow Aires like myself, and I once told Chad I thought she was Fabulous with a capital F. I realized then I’m getting gayer by the minute. 

While Kelsey is currently in a closed relationship, she enlightened me to the status among lesbians. “It’s about 50/50 with the ones I know,” she replied. Honestly, this surprised me, mainly because I figured men were the ones dicking around.  

Kelsey has also been in open relationships before, and she isn’t exactly closed to that route again. “I don’t think people were made for one person for the rest of their life,” she added. This reflected what Scott shared as well: “The human body craves sex to different degrees, and as you get older those degrees wax and wane.” 

To me, both statements highlight that the desire to be with others sexually is natural for many, so caging that desire can feel confining. As queer people, we can all relate to that. 

Next week: Part two looks at finding the right reasons for pursuing an open relationship.

Jake Stewart is a D.C.-based writer and barback.

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Opinions

A confused Biden and a deranged Trump

Sad state of affairs after first presidential debate

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Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden debate on CNN on Jun 27, 2024. (Screen captures via CNN)

Joe Biden was clearly ready with some facts for this debate, the sad part is he couldn’t articulate them. He sounded raspy, and lost track of what he was saying in the first few minutes of the debate. He did get better as the debate progressed but came off sounding and looking like an old man. For those of us hoping he would sound like he did at the State of the Union, or the speech he gave on anti-Semitism, it was a huge disappointment. 

So, where his campaign goes from here is anyone’s guess. Behind the scenes some Democrats are calling for him to step down as the candidate. But that is much more difficult than it seems at this time. And then, will there be a fight for who the candidate will be. Will it automatically be Kamala Harris, or will it be someone else?  So many unanswered questions over the next couple of weeks.

The only positive take-away for Democrats from the debate was how deranged Donald Trump sounded. He refused to deal with any issue, refused to say he would accept the results of this election, refused to acknowledge climate change, or Jan. 6, and kept saying how the states should control the issue of abortion, and women’s health. Every one of these things should be frightening to so many people. It is clear if Trump is elected, we will have a dictator in the White House, who believes Hitler did good things. His election is scary for women, young people, Black Americans, and the LGBTQ community. If states control issues related to any of these groups, they are screwed. 

One of the very few good lines Biden got across was when he said 40 high-level Trump appointees, members of the Cabinet, and his vice president, have refused to endorse him as they know him best. People need to take their word for how bad he will be should he be reelected. Trump kept talking nonsense and it was hard to keep up with the lies. The moderators didn’t call him on any of it, but CNN has said before the debate they wouldn’t. But then Biden missed so many chances to call him on the garbage he was spouting. I kept hoping he would turn to him and say clearly, “You can’t believe all the BS you are spouting. You sound like a deranged six-year-old and someone who would take our country down the tubes.”

Now I accept the fact Biden speaks more slowly and softly. Though after the debate they said he had a cold. He could have said that at the beginning of the debate, if it was true, and explained his voice to the audience. And while we know he has a stutter, it seemed so much worse during the debate than it normally does. Was it nerves, maybe, but difficult nonetheless for him, and for those listening. We must have compassion for anyone with any kind of a disability. Then one had to ask, was he over-prepared for this debate? Was he so scripted he didn’t dare say anything off script. When he did, they got into this thing about golf handicaps and both sounded so childish. 

Biden did manage to talk about the things he has done, and the successes of his first administration. There have been many. First bringing the country successfully out of the pandemic. He spoke about unemployment being the lowest it has been in decades, and the more than 15 million jobs created since he took office. He was honest about inflation and the fact that not all the economic successes the country is having are trickling down to every American. He understands that rents are high, and grocery bills are still too high. He made clear he wants to raise taxes on the rich and Trump wants to lower them. He had a plan to ensure Social Security would stay solvent, Trump had nothing as usual. 

Finally, I was surprised that in his two-minute closing, Biden didn’t go back to the issues of abortion, climate change, and saving democracy. Did his debate prep team tell him not to? If so, they were wrong. Whether it remains Joe Biden on the ticket, or is someone else, I am 1,000% committed to do everything I can to see Democrats are elected across the board. It is clear to me, and should be to all decent people, electing Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans, will be the end of our country as we know it today. 

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.

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Opinions

As fewer anti-LGBTQ bills pass, the fight gets harder

A growing indifference to suffering that is baked into the legal system

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(Photo by Proxima Studio/Bigstock)

In recent years, advocates have faced an unprecedented avalanche of anti-LGBTQ legislation each spring. In 2024, however, the onslaught seems to have faltered somewhat. While hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills were once again introduced, as many state legislative sessions draw to a close, fewer bills have been enacted into law.

While that may seem like cause for celebration, it’s also cause for concern.

To be sure, the slowdown in anti-LGBTQ legislation is welcome. Beginning in 2020, legislation targeting transgender rights in particular had sailed through state legislatures, with the number and scope of hostile bills increasing each year. Unlike earlier years when one or two prominent anti-LGBTQ bills triggered a national pushback that often chastened lawmakers, hundreds of bills have been introduced during legislative sessions in the last four years, often with little debate or scrutiny, and dozens of them zealously passed into law.

Those bills do real damage when they are enacted, cutting LGBTQ people off from material benefits like health care and domestic violence sheltersrecognition by the state, and equal participation in public life. Even when they fail to become law, they have devastating effects on the mental health of LGBTQ people, throwing their lives into disarray and sapping valuable time and energy from LGBTQ communities. This especially affects children, with more than 90 percent of LGBTQ young people in a recent Trevor Project survey reporting that politics had negatively affected their personal well-being.

But the recent slowdown, far from being a positive signal, may well reflect a growing indifference to the suffering of LGBTQ people that is now baked into the political and legal system. Opponents of LGBTQ rights have normalized hostile rhetoric and enacted draconian laws that seemed unthinkable just a couple of years ago, and even ardent supporters of equality find themselves unsure how they might reverse state laws that unapologetically strip away LGBTQ rights.

If anything, it has become apparent that the damage that has been done since 2020 will most likely reverberate for a generation, and the past year shows that restoring and advancing LGBTQ rights will be a painstaking endeavor.

And one sobering reason for the slowing pace of anti-LGBTQ legislation is that, at this point, many conservative states have already stripped away important rights, particularly for transgender children. As of 2024, half of the states in the U.S. prohibit transgender girls from playing school sports, and half have banned or criminalized at least some forms of medically indicated healthcare.

Put differently, lawmakers aren’t targeting some rights this year because they’ve already eviscerated them.

Yet even as the pace of legislation slows, critical rights continue to be stripped away. According to the ACLU, more than 30 anti-LGBTQ bills have been enacted in 2024 — fewer than the 84 enacted in 2023, but still far too many. Among them, Utah and Mississippi restricted transgender people from accessing bathrooms and locker rooms in public schools and other government buildings.

Lawmakers in Ohio overrode the governor’s veto to ban transgender children from receiving gender-affirming care or playing sports consistent with their gender identity. South Carolina and Wyoming similarly enacted blanket bans preventing transgender children from accessing gender-affirming care.

Many of the bills that have been introduced this year sought to expand existing anti-LGBTQ legislation in new ways. Alabama, for example, successfully expanded its bathroom ban from K-12 schools to colleges and universities. Even those that didn’t pass are in many cases likely to be reintroduced after the 2024 election, particularly if anti-LGBTQ lawmakers increase their showing in state legislatures or if governors who are supportive of LGBTQ rights are no longer positioned to veto hostile legislation.

In many states with anti-LGBTQ legislation, administrative and regulatory agencies are being used to curtail LGBTQ rights even further. Florida offers an instructive example. Even after years of anti-LGBTQ legislation, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles took things a step further within its mandate, and decided in 2024 that transgender people could no longer update the gender marker on their driver’s licenses. This echoes recent regulatory crackdowns elsewhere in the United States, from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services investigating parental support for transgender children as child abuse to school boards across the country stripping away lifesaving resources in schools.

And while many believed that courts would provide a bulwark against discriminatory legislation and regulations, in part because of strong Supreme Court precedent to suggest that anti-transgender discrimination is a form of sex discrimination, that has not consistently been the case. Trial courts have largely found in favor of transgender litigants, criticizing the insufficient justification and discriminatory purpose of anti-transgender laws, but some appellate courts have nevertheless allowed the laws to take effect.

Perhaps most alarming, there are advocates and lawmakers who, if in a position to do so, are eager to carry out an even harsher attack on LGBTQ rights. Project 2025, which a group of conservative organizations has drafted as a roadmap for a second Trump administration, promises an even more draconian attack on LGBTQ rights. This would include rolling back existing nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people, reinstating the transgender military ban, and codifying state restrictions on transgender rights at the federal level, in addition to limiting recognition of same-sex relationships.

The anti-LGBTQ backlash may be waning in certain respects — but in other ways, it has only just begun. As we celebrate Pride, LGBTQ people and their allies should be mindful of the need to support those communities whose rights are being eroded, invest in transgender rights organizing, demand that lawmakers prioritize LGBTQ rights, and fight for the independent institutions and protections for basic freedoms that are essential to hold power to account.

Ryan Thoreson is a specialist on LGBTQ rights at Human Rights Watch and teaches at the University of Cincinnati College of Law.

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LGBTQ people deserve freedom, a sense of home, and belonging

Latoya Nugent found refuge in Canada after fleeing Jamaica

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Latoya Nugent, center, at the March for LGBTQ+ Rights in Toronto on May 16, 2024. (Photo courtesy of Rainbow Railroad)

Seven years ago, my fight for queer liberation in notoriously homophobic Jamaica culminated in a violent and brutal unlawful arrest and detention. This was the peak of decades of persecution due to my sexual orientation and work as a queer human rights defender and activist. It completely broke me and silenced me. I suffered severe emotional trauma, from which I am still recovering years later. 

Following that life-threatening arrest, I became a shell of who I once was. I cut off communication with my community for several years, unable to face my fear of the police and the hostility of the world around me. 

In 2022, I was one of the 9,591 at-risk LGBTQI+ people who reached out to Rainbow Railroad for help. Through the organization’s Emergency Travel Support (ETS) program, which relocates at-risk LGBTQI+ people and helps them make asylum claims in countries like the U.S., I resettled in Canada where I’ve been living safely with dignity and pride. 

This Pride Month, I’m reflecting on what it means to be safe. Who has access to safety and why others are excluded from it. What is our collective role and responsibility in expanding safety for our queer and trans communities, especially those in the over 60 countries that criminalize LGBTQI+ people? 

Safety means different things to different people depending on our experiences and journeys. For me, it’s the difference between suffering and thriving, feeling worthless and worthy, and feeling hopeless and hopeful. It is the difference between displacement and belonging. 

Rainbow Railroad recently released a report that examines the state of global LGBTQI+ persecution, drawing on data from 15,352 help requests spanning 100+ countries. This report is significant for several reasons, chief among them is the reality that no other organization or government captures the breadth and depth of data on LGBTQI+ forced displacement, perpetuating the invisibility of queer individuals in humanitarian responses. The report is an important contribution to the discourse on the intersection of queer identity, LGBTQI+ persecution, forced displacement, and humanitarian protection systems. 

Of all the data and insights uncovered in the report, I was most struck by one statistic — 91 percent of at-risk LGBTQI+ individuals relocated through the ETS program reported an improved sense of personal safety. This statistic is particularly personal to me because ETS was the only relocation option accessible to me in 2022 when I reached out to Rainbow Railroad for help. 

I am in that 91 percent because I am now thriving. I feel worthy. I am hopeful about life. And I belong. 

Today, among the 120 million forcibly displaced people around the world, queer and trans individuals face compounded complications from homophobia and transphobia while trying to access protection and safety. And while the anti-gender movement continues to swell in some states, I firmly believe that the U.S. remains a global leader in refugee resettlement — which is why the U.S. government must uphold its international obligations and reverse its recent executive order that imposes severe restrictions on the right to seek asylum. 

Queer and trans individuals deserve freedom, a sense of home, and belonging — realities that flourish only when rooted in the bedrock of safety. 

There is a lot more work to be done. It’s challenging. It’s complex. It’s costly. But I have experienced firsthand what the transformative impact of Rainbow Railroad’s work has on someone’s life — that ability to lift people out of danger into safety is something worth celebrating this Pride. 

Latoya Nugent is the head of engagement for Rainbow Railroad.

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