After I ditched, again and sadly, the project around the homeless issue, I come up with another idea to talk about the loneliness as a single gay man. Also I would like to address the casual sex culture in the gay community.
My question is:
How can casual sex reflect a single gay man’s mental state?
It’s quite common in the gay community to have casual sex with other people just as simple as log in to the apps like, Grindr or Growlr, you can easily to find someone to get laid.
From time to time, it becomes like a daily routine or a ritual for many gay men, they go home and open the app and scroll through the profiles to see if someone is available. However, more and more articles claim that these kind of intimacy actually cannot heal one’s loneliness then it would become like a cycle as you feel lonely then you go online to find someone for intimacy. After one-off action, you would feel empty inside and you feel lonely instead, then you do it again and again, just like a cycle with no exit.
Intervention:
Me, myself as a lonely single gay man, is in a high risk for being in this vicious circle. So, I want to put myself in the core of the issue to use the hook up app to find other lonely flesh to experience and to test the physical connection whether could fill the loneliness and emptiness inside or not.
For the outcome, I would like to shoot a series of photos from a first person perspective with a hint of erotic touch to portray the storytelling scenes of the loneliness, pleasure, emptiness and sadness of the gay culture of casual sex. It would be like an editorial in the fashion magazine as well as like the photos would be appeared in the iconic, sadly discontinued, gay culture magazine from Amsterdam, BUTT.
I did a tiny intervention with a guy, Frank*, who I’ve connected on Growlr and below were the outcomes of the test shoot. The pictures of test shoot show the fun element as the “SEX” fan just cover his private part. The “SEX” fan is a product from a luxury designer brand, Christopher Kane, to add a touch of fashion in it.
I’m not sure if it’s too vulgar or someone would find offensive for my topic, but I find it’s an interesting as well as crucial issue in the gay community, so I think I will stick on this topic to the final.
To be continued…
p.s.
I would not show Frank*’s face here as he is only ok with consent for educational use.
*Indicates that name has been changed
Reference:
Jonkers, G. (2008) BUTT Magazine #25. Available at: https://www.amazon.com/BUTT-MAGAZINE-25-Gert-Jonkers/dp/B00JSZ4FAY (Accessed: 25 August 2021).
Bonos, L. (2020) ‘Yes, some people are still having one-night stands’, The Washington Post, 24 August. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/08/24/hookup-casual-sex-dating-tinder-pandemic-one-night-stand/ (Accessed: 25 August 2021)
Hudson, D. (2019) ‘Casual sex, loneliness and the desire for human contact’, Gay Star News, 30 April. Available at: https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/casual-sex-loneliness-contact/ (Accessed: 25 August 2021).
Hobbes, M. (2017) ‘The epidemic of gay loneliness’, Huffington Post, 02 March. Available at: https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/gay-loneliness/ (Accessed: 25 August 2021).
Pavelou, A. (2017) ‘Grindr and Gay Loneliness’, 34th STREET, 30 October. Available at: https://www.34st.com/article/2017/10/grindr-and-gay-loneliness (Accessed: 25 August 2021).
Vanbuskirk, S. (2021) ‘What Is the Impact of Casual Sex on Mental Health?’, 34th STREET, 11 May. Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-impact-of-casual-sex-on-mental-health-5179455 (Accessed: 25 August 2021).
Bruett, T. (2017) ‘I Deleted the Gay Hookup Apps And Now Feel Less Lonely’, Sydney Gay Counseling. Available at: https://sydneygaycounselling.com/2017/08/deleted-gay-hookup-apps/ (Accessed: 25 August 2021).
Mangalindan, JP. (2017) ‘No dating app has more engagement than Grindr’, Yahoo!finance, 14 February. Available at: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/no-dating-app-has-more-engagement-than-grindr-170850018.html (Accessed: 25 August 2021).