Is Gay Art Sometimes...Bad?

There were 60 reasons, upon reflection, why I came out as late as I did. Self-protection, isolation, familial relationships, body issues, always rebelling against myself. It’s like a scroll, really. One of the reasons that’s pretty high on the list was not having anything gay in art or entertainment to relate to. I had not yet discovered Haring, Morrisroe, Van Sant. The closest thing I had were queerish straight male musicians like Ian Curtis and Kurt Cobain. I liked them because they were neither masculine or feminine, or maybe they were both. I related and I have always felt that fuck you, facetious attitude that they displayed.

At the time, during the late 90s and early 2000s, most gay films looked cheap, because there were no major studios funding them. That, I don’t fault. Again, I relate. We had Will & Grace, which I didn’t give much of a fuck about; a straight laced gay corporate lawyer and the buffoon-like faggoty bestie providing comic relief. And I’m not hating on Sean Hayes, he had strong timing. I didn’t see myself in them, I didn’t yet know how to see myself.

Gay films, then, were often straight-to-video, had point and shoot direction with very minimal character development and actors with a minuscule amount to work with. Experience and exploration is key and without seeing yourself in something, one feels trapped. Years later, in 2009, I moved in with who would become one of my best friends, in Washington Heights. The guy who lived in my room before me left behind his gay porn mags, most of them published in the early 2000s. They looked like those low-budget films. Cheap, saturated, with lots and lots of gel and spiky hair. I may have jerked off to them once or twice, but even that lacked excitement.

Recently, I stopped by an art show featuring gay artists and photographers. I scanned the room, I looked at the photographs. I tried. I do always try, but I left after ten minutes. The art reminded me of those early 2000 films and magazines. Ultra-chiseled men with blank looks in their eyes and greasy cocks in their mouths. The intention may have been centered on male beauty, but isn’t beauty in the eye of the beholder? Was the intention of the photographs just to turn me on? Was I expected to drool at pecs and cocks and “boys being boys”?

I have a layered relationship with gay art and artists. Nowadays, it’s all so transactional. A like for like on Instagram or Bluesky. Once you stop liking, then they stop liking and then the algorithm keeps you strangers. Is anyone actually feeling much? That brings me to my point: I don’t take to staged intimacy.

The other day, I posted on my Close Friends that I wish there was more of a distinction between art and porn. That’s half-true. Sex is a part of my work, my art, my writing. But what is sex? It’s a fumbling venture into something new, it’s engagement, it’s at times taboo. It is always a question. I don’t seek answers. What I look for are the questions and how they never stop coming. I don’t want to feel admiration or idolization. I never want to say, I wish I had that, I wish I had that body or I wish I had that type of fuck. That’s why likes are never enough.

Men are fragile beings, always searching for acceptance. The more you look, the harder it is to find. Two years ago, there was a gay film playing at The Quad theater, from 2003. I made myself go. I wanted to see what I’d feel, why that period gives me the feelings that it does. It’s why I still go to these art shows, the ultra-male models showing their cocks and holes. Some of them still have spiky hair, lubed with gel. I’m not perfect, I’m definitely not a critic or a historian. I am curious as to why I react the way that I do. And I am harsh at times, because I always want and expect more.