(GAY) SEX AND THE CITY

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A SINGLE GAY MAN IN POST-SECTION 377 INDIA

HOW DOES THE QUINTESSENTIAL GAY MAN measure his sexual experiences? In the condoms he used? In the beds he left bare? In the men to come or the men that went by? In the jocular tales that he shared or the rumours that he helped spread? In the whispers behind his back or the compliments down his front? In his spreadsheets of kinks or little black books of conquests? In Grindr pings or Tinder swipes? In this or that? Before we dive in, do we have space for the LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual+) community to measure their sexual experiences at all?

A year might have passed since the Supreme Court’s iconic verdict to read down parts of Section 377 of the Indian

Penal Code, effectively allowing two consensual homosexual adults to love (and in retrospect, make love), but has it really made any difference to our everyday lives?

Yes, and no. Let’s look at the broader picture here. For a whole month after the verdict, #LoveIsLove was trending and the number of click baits (related to queer culture) soared to an all-time high. India was finally talking, and asking all the right questions—about coming out and acceptance, about emotional struggles and inclusion, about the spectrum and sexuality. People genuinely wanted to know.

But when it came to our sex lives, there was only radio silence. ‘What’s there to ask,’ the nation nervously giggled, ‘…what people do in bed is strictly their business.’ I’d ask the casual reader to take a moment to step back and laugh at the irony of this sentence because of what it might have meant in the pre-377 era. They did have questions, yes. But were they the right ones? Not really.

‘How do you do it?’ they’d ask with a snigger. ‘How does it feel?’ is a question they won’t bother.

For a country that prides itself on creating the

Kama Sutra, we are surprisingly not very progressive when it comes to talking about sex. Especially gay sex. And that includes the average gay man.

When spotted in the wild, the average gay man is a charming, debonair gentleman who smells of petunias and Paco Rabanne—his GQ hair gelled back, constantly clogging up the suggestion feeds of other gay Instagram users. He’s polite and effusive, and always knows the right things to say. He talks about fashion, and veganism, and how his glutes hurt after leg day at the gym. The average gay man, at first sight, is the lead character of every Netflix original. Affable.

It’s behind those closed doors that you see a whole new sexual revolution. For the ignorant and assuming, gay men will forever be linked to Grindr, gay bars and (the occasional) golden shower. And the flippant will forever chide their more ‘fabulous’ friends for seeking the One in cyber space, or worse, the corner stall of the public restroom.

As a 30-year-old single gay man who’s as self-aware as he is self-loving, I have no qualms about being on Grindr (or any other dating apps for that matter). I have heard the ‘buh-dupe’ sound everywhere I’ve gone—the club, the gym, at Starbucks, my favourite restaurant, and this one weird time from the pockets of my local general practitioner.

Grindr (and its motley crew of match-making apps) have forever been a gay man’s golden ticket to sexual liberation. With their taps, woofs and super likes, gay dating apps are literally begging you to have sex. Do it ‘right now’, they chant, like the profile handles of exactly half their databases suggest. If the myths were to be believed, you’d actually presume every gay man to be a promiscuous archetype of a badly written porn movie.

But that’s the thing. Our sex lives are like everybody’s sex lives. Ask any gay man you know and he’ll tell you it’s all the same. It’s always going to seesaw between delicious and depressing. At the end of the day, we are all equals.

The truth is equality has never been about being palatable to society. It’s about having the freedom to do whatever you want to do, just like our heterosexual friends—our relationship with sex included. We have half a dozen other battles to fight—because when you are already dealing with homophobia, transphobia, sexism and violence against LGBT youth, there simply isn’t any time (or fu*ks to give) about who is having sex with whom and how often.

Just remember one thing.

You do you, until then.

Or just about anybody you want to.

WE’RE ALWAYS ASKED HOW WE DO IT, NOT HOW IT FEELS