Queer Relationships Come in Many Colours!

Queer relationships can be anything you want them to be, not necessarily restrained by uninspired heterosexual parameters.

Queer relationships, rightly or wrongly, have always been assumed to be raunchy and fun affairs, filled with, for the gay fellas at least (sing it!) sunshine, lollipops… foreskins and big fat cocks, everything is wonderful and we’re together!

But in reality, speaking from the gay man’s perspective at least, most of us gay boys and men are filled with the same longings and desires as straight folks, instilled in us by a steady childhood diet of diabolical Disney propaganda promising true love’s first kiss and Hollywood’s confusion about the difference between lust and love.

Fighting Religious Institutions

But one of the best advantages about being queer is that, just by being, we’re already bucking the trend of what is traditionally expected of us and yet, for some reason, many of us still yearn to fulfil these unattainable ideals – with some even fighting religious institutions for the right to marry the person they love and still be allowed to be the musical director and organist for their church, as reported by ABC reporter Katherine Smyrk recently.

“They were heartbroken when it became clear the church in their hometown would not accept their relationship but had been overwhelmed by the support of so many in their congregation.”

We could be more open-minded about the possibilities that are out there for us to experience, that are so much more fun and might actually help us to grow and learn and evolve to be better human beings, exuding happiness and enriching the lives of those around us.

A Couple of Throuples 

Take, for example, the story covered by the Star Observer about the throuple in California who won the right in 2017 to have all three fathers’ names listed on their children’s birth certificates.

Here is a case of three men who decided to defy the conservative naysayers and live their best lives, even if that meant fighting the courts to live their truths, in turn teaching their children that love comes in many forms.

Or the case of three Australian women in a throuple, who started as a wife and wife team, who both then decided to bring their business partner into their relationship.

Jenna Weakland said to Katie Stow from Mamamia, “I’ve always been guided by my heart, and I’ve followed my heart to a fault. Me following this intuition brought me to a place where I was like, ‘I’m pretty sure I love these women’.”

It is a constant battle to live outside of western society norms, and that’s true whether it’s with the type of relationships you choose to have with other humans, your relationship with drugs and alcohol, choice to be a smoker, experiences with being a heavy person, LGBTQI person or myriad other reasons people stand out from the crowd.

You’re constantly contending with people who are always pushing you to define your situation and then if that definition doesn’t fit into their narrow field of acceptable experiences, it’s extremely difficult to get people to understand.

No Sex, Just Great Mates

My living situation is a perfect example – two single gay men that live together and co-incidentally work together and thanks to covid circumstances spend the other 98% of their time together, enjoy affection and close human contact and actually like each other’s company, but when you tell people that we no longer have sexual relations and have never had a romantic relationship, their heads explode.

netflix, mind blown, jay, explode, andrew, big mouth, exploding head, blow my mind pic.twitter.com/XMyBBKHMHp

— PAPETABOY (@papetaboy) April 9, 2018

This is my lived experience – after being a single gay man for the last 6 years, I can tell you that my arrangement with my housemate makes peoples’ eyes cross with their sheer disbelief of it all and that’s just the straighty 180’s reactions!

Most other gay men that hear about our living situation want to know how to get it for themselves!?

And why wouldn’t they? It’s awesome.

We met on the apps. Rooted around a few times and got that out of the way, and from that initial spark, we have managed to nurture this apparently incredibly rare arrangement, which is in its fourth year.

Definitely a relationship of some description but because it has never had a romantic aspect to it, we’ve managed to skip over the angst and anger and jealousy and the distilled result is a stress-free house, full of laughter, affection and a great friendship, all the while knowing that we’ll take the lessons learnt from this experience and apply them to any future relationships, romantic, sexual or otherwise, that may come our way in the future.

Grindr Unwrapped

The latest Grindr Unwrapped survey would have you believe that a high percentage of men in relationships are in, “Open Relationships,” and some might be looking for a guest star in their bedroom, but single fellas know this to be a ruse.

The reality is that you’re usually an unknowing pawn in the hosting couple’s sexual politics, and that’s just the fun ones!

More often than not, you realise after a quick scratch and sniff that there’s something a bit off about this uncomfortable situation and the tension is giving you the droop, so you pack up your bat and your balls and you head on home.

Then you’ve also got the fellas in long-term relationships who have been together for many years even though the spark of lust that started them off died years ago and consequently, have not had sexual relations with each other for a good amount of their time together.

They choose companionship over their physical needs with only a few lucky ones that can let go of their egos enough to allow their companion (and vice-versa) sexual release with someone else, while still enjoying jealousy-free companionship once the deed has been done.

There are so many other types of queer relationships out there that make the world go around and you’d never be able to list them all, but one thing is clear – the options are limitless!

Of course, covid has turned everything on its ear but we’ll get to our new normal eventually, and once we start to venture out and socialise again, with dance parties pulsating and dating apps pinging, it’ll be time to once again re-evaluate what we want out of our relationships and what we might be missing out on, if content to live an unexplored life.