A couple of links from Andrew Sullivan brought me to this new Out Magazine article on Manhunt, the sex-connect site of choice for gay men these days. Given that I started the day talking about John Edwards and adultery, finishing up thinking about gay men and promiscuity seems both book-ending and mirror image... if you see what I mean.
I've never been especially fascinated with Manhunt, nor do I see its particular usefulness. Partly this is because I have no use for internet "dating" sites (it's a stretch to call the hooking up via Manhunt "dating", but then that's a little bit true of some straight connection services, too). For whatever reason - mostly because I do not look like the man I am searching for - I think the internet hookup services deal too much in the visual, and the bottom line. People are looking, so often for their twin, not their complement, I find, when dealing in visuals. And a luandry list, really, of birthdates and sun signs, hair color and height, actually tell us very little. Which leaves the little blurbs of personality in the "what I'm looking for" paragraph... and frankly, people lie. The only safe move, I always figured... was not to play.
My own links to Manhunt are somewhat dual perception - a friend of mine from my old Starbucks store in Boston wound up working for them, while another friend swore by his hookups on the site. From the latter friend I've come to see the almost business-like, muindane nature of gay hooking up that Mandate has fostered; while the former friend provided hours of hilarity at Thanksgiving last year by supplying us with his employee handbook, and its detailed explanations of what members can and cannot do (and discuss on the site). This is especially fun if you have a couple of college age straight girls who don't know the ins and outs of a lot of gay terminology - oh, and it also helps to have one or two uptight straight boys in the mix (but not too uptight).
Seeing Manhunt from both sides, I tend to agree with Michael Gross in Out - there's something new and different about the way Manhunt (and others, like Craigslist, which Gross essentially ignores) has commoditized the way gay men cruise. What used to happen in bars and clubs has gone online, and with it, gay life has become more hidden, less communal, more private, and more isolating. On the one hand, I think this explains why gay life has seemed more... well, sober these days, more boring. People don't seem to get out like they used to. It's harder to get people to do the social things. On the other, I think maybe blaming Manhunt for what the web has wrought is too much - when we made it easier for more and more people to share their lives online, the exponential increase in possibilities was bound to follow. And perhaps, that's not all bad.
Still, though I have no use for Manhunt, I can't say I'm immune to the way sex, especially gay sex, has become so mechanical, so businesslike, because of the web. The soul killing aspects of porn and promiscuity may always have been around, yet the web has exponentially increased that now. We are all touched by the wages of sin. We are, in our ways, whores and pornstars now... or at least, we can be.
I think Gross is wrong to leap on the high horse - which Sullivan, of course, can't help but agree with - that all this sexuality online is killing our politics; the quotes he provides from activist types at NGLTF tend to underline a constant dilemma that existed long before the internet - that the men who came for the party and to get laid do not care about the ideas, and it's often the earnest hectoring the beautiful to pay attention... which rarely works. No, Gross is on firmer ground - and Sullivan on dicier territory, given his own promiscuous escapades that became so public - pointing out that when men see themselves as little more than their body parts and basic functions... seomthing about who they are as people is lost.
It's never been my goal to be prudish in this; but I've always thought promiscuity, ultimately, is mainly a dead end - much the way prostitution (the job of being promiscuous professionally) is, too. It's true, as Manhunt advertises that "he's out there." He's always out there, he's always been out there. But in here, in our hearts and in the nature of who we are... what's out there the externals, the physical value of who we are... is not all we are. And I suspect, at some point, that the joyless, mechanical nature of online hookups will become more of an issue than it is now. Let's hope we can separate the business from the pleasure.
"I've looked at Manhunt from both sides now..." ;)
But in some seriousness, isn't it possible, or didn't it used to be at least, for some to have come to the party in order to get laid staying on for the ideas?
Posted by: jinbaltimore | August 10, 2008 at 09:48 AM
Being much too old for this newfangled interweb dating, I continue socializing with my friends at the neighborhood gay bars down the street from where I live. Of course if studs like Justin Hartley are to be found at sites like Manhunt, I might have to rethink this whole online hook-up thing.
Posted by: Michael Rebain | August 12, 2008 at 03:33 PM