Despite recent victories for equality in California, Out Magazine writer Michael Joseph Gross claims gay activism is still coming up short, perhaps due to the explosion of internet hook-up sites like the infamous manhunt.net. Its web prominence, he writes, with member numbers gay organizations like the Human Rights Campaign or the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force can only dream about, signals the priority in the gay community is sex, not rights. His piece, Has Manhunt Destroyed Gay Culture takes a crack at what’s become the single largest online gay community in the world, with almost 1 million members globally.
Gross posits that a “post-gay” community has emerged in the last 15 years, one that has become less concerned with politics and more concerned with getting off. Sites like Manhunt feed this trend, as the site’s very slogan, “Get on, get off” certainly promotes using the internet for quick sexual gratification. Aside from this, the site treats sex like going shopping, as men search for what they want by scrolling through x-rated descriptions of potential flings. He’s not preachy, noting that he’s even a subscriber, but he does manage to question the immense growth of this site as warning sign for gays that our mousepads might not be clicking in the right direction. He writes, “We still don’t know how to have enduring relationships. We still don’t have examples. We still don’t have mentors. We still don’t have courtship rituals. We are still getting HIV.” Gross generalizes, to be sure, but the reality of gay culture moving away from a political group to a predominantly social one is worth at least recognizing before logging on and getting off online.
Check out more on the owners of Manhunt, two former real estate businessmen who tackled the online hookup scene together:
