New episode of the show "Gay Chat", with the title "First intimacy, then relationships?", turned into an anthropological study of how sex, loneliness, and the search for intimacy work among the Russian-speaking LGBTQ+ community in the United States. The heroes of my podcast — Dima and Darkhan — talked about why dating in restaurants has become an unaffordable luxury, how Grindr replaces Tinder, and why giving up internal homophobia makes the world around you physically more beautiful.
Table of Contents
"Dating has become too expensive. The exhaust is the same as Grindr."
The conversation begins with a pragmatic question that is unlikely to be asked in classical media: how much does modern romance cost? Host Oleg admits that he stopped going on classic dates simply because it became expensive. This thought is picked up by Mitya:
"I believe that it has become very expensive to go on a date. And the exhaust is the same as Grindr or the rest, you know? Or pick up someone on the street. True, I don't do it, but I know people do. I think not, I'm alone, of course. Probably, when I earn more, I will go on a date, because it is interesting."
At the same time, participants note a surprising paradox: while heterosexual couples often envy the queer line of behavior for its seeming simplicity — "go, go, and that's it," industry participants themselves are increasingly coming to the "sex first, then dating" model.
"I explain to my friends, for example, straight guys, and they say: "Why do you have sex right away?" Sex is important enough for me and for him. It seems to me that we are talking more about the old generation, about the old generation, because now the new generation is a little different, more open," Dima explains.
"My vagina began to live its own life": gym, locker rooms and unfulfilled romances
A significant part of the issue is devoted to the therapeutic and at the same time comical experience of socialization in American realities — in particular, going to the gym, which for the characters has long become a place of spontaneous dramedy. Dima shares a fresh insider from the gym:
"I came to the gym today, and suddenly I saw a guy standing there. I had a feeling that I had always known him... And I had a feeling that we had some interesting connection there. And my Jaina began to flutter, throb, my vagina began to live its own life. She had a heart, she began to move somehow, that I didn't even finish the exercises and went home and jerked off."
Another participant in the discussion tells how he learned to say "no" to guys, although he used to give attention "indiscriminately":
"I just have a lot of love... I also came to the gym at an unusual time, at a different time. Accordingly, people there seem to be different. And right in the locker room there was a guy who was looking at me. And he was in such tight shorts... I looked, and there was a penis, and a very big one. And I'm like: I'm scared, and everything inside me... and you refused to be like, 'I'm not ready, I'm not ready.'"
"Until I cut it all off and tell myself I'm gay": self-acceptance and deconstruction of shame
One of the strongest moments of the podcast is a reflection on the traumas of the past, life in the CIS regions, and mental blocks that prevent people from accepting their identity. The guests agree that the internal ban on their own nature makes people project aggression on others:
"Until I realize that I'm going to change there, I want to be straight, I'm going to have a wife, I'm going to have kids — until I cut it all off and told myself I'm gay and that's it, I'm going to live for myself... As soon as I started accepting myself, I began to notice a lot more beauty around me in people. Therefore, I am conscious... my eyes were closed with worries about what would happen, what my life would be like."
This inner fracture is accompanied by amusing cultural memories from adolescence, from trying to understand the mechanics of masturbation through the movie American Pie and frozen chickens to religious guilt after the first experience:
"I usually take a shower for 5-10 minutes, but that night, after I came to one dude, I really washed myself for an hour, and it seemed to me that I had sinned, a dirty whore, the last... After that, I'll go to hell, and so on. I washed myself for a very long time, and I forbade myself, said that I would never do it again, refused for a whole year."
New York, Censer Party and Search for Real Warmth
Discussing life in a metropolis, the characters touch on the problem of isolation in the United States. On the one hand, New York gives complete freedom to be yourself without fear of facing aggression on the street. On the other hand, it is easy to stay in an emotional vacuum:
"They don't touch you here. Accordingly, you can be gay, you can be bisexual, freak, anyone... But no one will be in difficult times... If you have some kind of problem or difficulty, it's as if no one will come to the rescue."
However, the community is finding new forms of soft socialization, such as special events like Cuddle Party (pajama hug parties), where you can get tactile contact without sexual overtones.
The episode ends with reflections on polyamory, the comfort of a threesome in the same bed (where everyone has their own area of responsibility for the microclimate and blankets) and the invariable call to like, subscribe to the channel and send "tomatoes" in the comments to those who listened to this hour and a half session of group psychotherapy to the end.
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