CLOSETED DISCRIMINATION

This is a great Article Gentlemen.  I post this for the many out there still exploring, just entering and testing this new realm of their own male to male sexual desires!  Many beautiful experiences await the many of you BOLD enough to take the stand as you may be doing now.  Learning that your sexuality is yours to do with as you wish, regardless of how anybody else feels about it.  Some of you "come out", some of you, just choose to do your own thing very quietly sharing with almost no one except for those you occasionally choose to explore with.  I have known many men who have even revealed to their wives, their "hidden" secret, and still continue to manage those relationships.  The situations differ greatly, but nothing is impossible and there are certainly no clear cut ways to handle this.  

Well, know that it is all good, and a great place to start.  Eventually you may come around to know that your life doesn't necessarily need to take a severe U-turn at all!  This is for many a jump into uncharted territory.  Many end up stumbling and fumbling their way through what may seem like a totally NEW life full of uncertainty, not to mention how in the world to go about finding a true mate to share the journey with.  Well, despite popular opinion, many men seek the company of
another man not only for sex but for more of true emotional connection too, and sometimes even hoping to find a guy he can truly fall in love with.

It is this need to explore that often leads to social media, and experimenting the many endless ways to "hook-up" aka connect out there!  The article below covers one of those such mediums.  Now, I will you let it go for you to read on and learn something more for yourself.

This may very well serve as a precursor to a male on male centered newsletter I plan to create and offer my new Members only website/ blog once I get all that in place.  Feel free to express thoughts guys.  I am open to communication with any of you.    Article begins below, please read.

"Granted, Grindr was not best plat ace to start.

For those of you unfamiliar with this whole ordeal, Grindr is a location based smartphone application that displays the closest gay/bi/closeted/married men based on their proximity. Press the orange box, and thumbnail images of torsos, height/weight statistics, and petty ramblings on personal preferences appear on your screen. As empty and dense as it was, this was initially the most convenient way for me to interact with other gay men.
After performing as a straight male for upwards of 20 years, I suddenly had higher standards for my body image, speech and fashion than I had ever experienced in the heterosexual community. Was I in good enough shape? What is it, exactly, that makes someone masculine? I had this urge to mold my identity into this projected ideal image of a gay man. Why? So that so that someone’s thumbnail image of a torso would talk to me.  I was getting a glimpse into the societal pressures that heterosexual women feel every day, forced to live up to the body image standards of men.
And I had it easy.

I wasn’t being labeled a bear or cub, or being blocked because of my
skin color, or being called names like queen, fairy or fem. There are plenty of people who suffer from body image issues far worse than mine; who wake up every day thinking they’re inadequate or undesirable because some anonymous profile deemed them as such; and who are driven into the same suicidal thoughts that they attempted to extinguish by coming out in the first place.

As much as we can’t let Grindr represent the entire gay community, in some ways it acts as a fairly candid microcosm for the scope of homosexual categories, social behaviors and desires, perhaps presenting an even more brutal honesty than the porn industry. (Many feminist scholars, most notably Catharine MacKinnon, delve heavily into how pornography tells us a lot about pure, or at least blunt sexual desire). There are plenty of gay men don’t associate with Grindr, but many who do contribute to a terrifying introduction to the world of gay social interaction.

Grindr is a virtual world of avatars, most of which strive to project that they possess the qualities of the ideal, desirable gay man.

A place where black men white-out their picture in attempts to pass as white men.

Where people claim to be straight, or "straight-acting" to attract other gay men.

Where femininity is masked and degraded, and masculinity is cherished and sought after.

Where overweight men either embrace obesity to align with a "bear" or "cub" identity, or are told to lose weight.

Where young homosexual men are told to identify as top or bottom, white or black, jock or bear, twink or otter, masc or fem."

Read the complete Article by going to this link.   On Grindr: Closeted Discrimination Within the Gay Community :: http://www.edgeseattle.com/157336