Putting In The Werk
Creating Community Beyond Commiseration And Carnality
This is Sitting Queerly, a newsletter about the late blooming queer experience and the lofty goal of opening up conversations and celebrating those who embrace their full selves.
Toward the end of an online workshop on biphobia and embracing one’s bisexuality in late 2024,
of Boyslut fame issued a call to his fellow bisexuals:When I talk about community and talk about how important it is and how to find the bi community…I saw a question earlier about how do we create more non-sexual bi spaces. And the answer is you just have to fucking do it. I wish there was something that was exciting. Get on Reddit, get on these places where bisexual people commune and do it. And the first few things, it’s not going to get out a shit ton of people but over time…And making sure there are bisexual places that are fun, not just support groups, which do exist to limiting degrees. But do bisexual rock climbing. Bisexual and poly people fucking are obsessed with rock climbing. That will get a gajillion other people.
Zach and co-workshop speaker Leanne Yau of the blog Poly Philia offered a few other possibilities such as Renaissance fairs, drive-in movies and rage rooms. I contend that outside of Renaissance fairs with their opportunities for gender play, none of those options seem inherently bisexual.
Tuning into the workshop was part of my effort of looking for community, or at least looking for ways to build one. Yes, I had progressively come out to more people in my life, my marriage endured being opened and I developed friendships of varying depths with other men.
Yet, I felt alone. I feel alone. My engagement with queer folk is largely relegated to occasional one-on-one lunches or drinks, chat threads and pleasant yet disappointingly short-lived connections.
And that’s because my queer social interactions hinge on one of two elements: commiseration or carnality. It’s all support groups and sex. Everything is tenuous and transient.
There is nothing wrong with those elements on their face. So much of the queer experience is about finding a shoulder to cry on or a bed to jump into, and for good reason. The rest of the world denied us understanding and persecuted us for who we love. We need space to lament the time we weren’t true to ourselves. There’s medicine in celebrating the human body and everything we love about it and want to do to others bodies and have done to ours and, out of a sense of survival, those celebrations were discreet and fleeting.
Late bloomers especially need opportunities to find support and explore queer intimacy1. We have years—decades!—worth of shame and guilt to process and dismantle. We have fears to overcome like whether to enter a queer bar or even just admit to ourselves that it’s OK to desire what we desire. We need time to learn how to navigate the cultural mores of a group of people we were often told was every type of horrible thing but are really the most welcoming, loving and understanding people I’ve met. We need to agonize to others over how to be honest and transparent about who we are.
A support group discussion or meeting doesn’t exactly make for a fun Friday or Saturday night, though, nor necessarily build lasting community. I’ve seen that recently in the support groups I’m part of. Folks join while in a tailspin. They find stability and understanding and solutions, for which they are grateful. But, gradually, they post less, miss virtual meetups, don’t reply to DMs. There’s no malice or disdain, it’s just…that’s only one piece of themselves.
And as much as sex is a prominent feature of queer culture, a single-minded emphasis on it comes with its own baggage—body image issues, an often unhealthy worship of youth, an undercurrent of substance abuse. And while I can’t speak for everyone, I think most want, on some level or at some point, the kind of intimacy that lasts longer than a hurried quickie in a club bathroom or hotel room. You can only scratch an itch so long before you realize you need more lasting and meaningful comfort.
But then, who am I to talk? I’ve gradually fallen away from the very groups who saw me through the depression, anxiety, thrill and joy of my coming out. Plenty more have joined those folds since that time and, while I’ve offered support and guidance, I’ve largely become a lurker, reading distantly of the struggles and victories of other late bloomers. It’s not that I don’t care about what others are going through, it’s just…it takes a lot of energy, you know? We’re supposed to guard our energy, our hearts, our emotions, right?
Yet, I also want someone to put that work into my energy/heart/emotions. But with the exception of Harry and the first man I had sex with, all my other intimate relationships have been fleeting. Not necessarily one-offs, but two-offs, three-offs. Of course, not every connection can be lasting but I talk a lot of shit for a guy who says near the top of his Scruff profile “not looking for one-offs.” I like to blame a lot of this failure to find deep connections on where I live, a deeply conservative metropolitan area which doesn’t have any true queer community spaces2.
The reality is, community building is hard. And men suck at it. We can be great at a lot of things, but putting in the work to create, maintain and grow friendships—much less social networks— that support, nurture and celebrate is not one of them. There’s different explanations for why this may be but none of that changes the end result that a lot of guys end up isolated and thinking they just have to handle shit on their own.
Even when we do engage, we’re largely bystanders. This past winter, after the current administration came into power, I learned about a meetup for queer folk in my community to just support and chat. I went, wanting to find an entry into local queer community and maybe vent a bit. But I largely bit my tongue; most of those attending were trans or non-binary, or their partners. There was only one other cis-male and he was as equally subdued as I was.
This wasn’t because I didn’t have interest in connecting with or supporting trans folk; quite far from it. But as a white, cis, seemingly het-presenting man, I am at least aware at how much safer I am. I was afraid anything I said in support would sound hollow or performative. Any concerns I voiced I feared would be perceived as relatively hyperbolic. And what could they say or do to connect with me? Clearly our experience is too different for us to find commonality, right?
I do not have a pat solution for all this. There is no “one easy trick” or clear five-step process to building communities. But I know I need it. All of us need it, more than ever. And the only way to do it is to…do it.
And as scary as that fact is, I know it’s true. Because my friend made it happen just by organizing a game night. Yeah, I felt awkward as fuck at first, as I waited nervously in an armchair while texting my friend to see if he was enroute only to have him wave across the bar to me. As he introduced me to another of his friends, after more friends arrived, after the first round of Codenames.
But before that final round, before my friend got loud because he had tequila, before the queer ones among us laughed knowingly when someone asked who’s on top, I felt it. I felt comfortable. Accepted. Seen.
So, that’s my goal for Pride this year. Put myself out there, and not just with sultry selfies or panics about whether to come out to my parents when they visit later this summer.
This past weekend I made a date with a guy I recently connected with to just go to a baseball game. It was a good time (even if the home team managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory). Yes, there was thigh massaging and knowing laughs but it was otherwise pretty PG. Was there a tinge of regret that we wouldn’t have an opportunity after the game for some more private time together? Sure. Did I potentially overplay my hand by going in for a kiss that wasn’t fully reciprocated when we said goodbye? Yes. But it was still just a fine night out, connecting, trying to get to know a guy.
Happy Pride, y’all.
If they so choose.
OMG-rock climbing? I literally had no idea. But seriously, thanks for this, Ty. We just have to fucking do it. It's overwhelming, but only when it stays in our heads. When we put out an idea, an invitation, it can be very simple. Eventually, if we build it, they will come.
Reading this hit a mark. The way we can have pleasant connections that don’t last or drift away, 1 to 3-offs with hookups that soon dissipate into nothing, subduing ourselves for the sake of others who are certainly more in need—and even in moments where we ourselves are the ones tired and spent, and thus we become the connection is lost.
It’s also so easy to become jaded and doubtful of others when these connections don’t survive long enough or create solid community. There can even be the occasional self-effacing thought because things aren’t panning out.
But I can agree that there is a necessity to keep going, to keep trying, and to show back up when it feels awkward.