What's the Matter with (18+) Kids These Days

[PhoenixGeoff]

Is it just me or is the younger generations just kinda...lame?  I mean I think the way they are rebelling is by basically want nice little suburban lives with their husband and 2.5 dogs and nothing more out of the norm than a hush-hush trip to IML or something where they wander around watching stuff happen and collecting stories for their next dinner party.  Apparently they're all wanting to be Nancy Reagan now.

Do you know, I actually have seen them on multiple occasions LOOKING through a glory hole to see who's on the other side?  Way to completely defeat the purpose there!  You do understand that anonymous barebacking is your birthright as a homo, right?  Hell even the NY DPH says that in this time of Covid were should be having more anonymous gloryhole sex, not less.

Or maybe I'm just old and unattractive now.  Dog knows I never appealed to the pretty boy set who don't hit the baths to get laid so much as to stand around and conspicuously shoot guys down as some kind of Mean Girls kink.  It sucks because to the extent I was desirable in my 20s I was happy to get with men twice my age or more.  Hell, they could be some of the best sex I had (case in point the 50-something Chicago leather daddy who gave me my first fist).  

Seriously though, when did sex become about who you exclude?  That's what the straights do with their monogamy crap.  Sex for us is all about who you include, with as wide a variety from as many different ages, races, body types, experience levels, kinks, backgrounds, etc.  That's what will make you an interesting, experienced and well rounded lover.  Sex within the small circle of your "type" just makes you boring.

Since when did we have to approach consent as if we're all fucking females looking for an excuse to call a lawyer?  Non-verbal consent (through eye contact and gesture, through a touch, a brush, that tentative finger on the hole, through fucking dropping your pants and bending over and waving your ass as you finger lube into your hole; through grabbing at your crotch, outlining your bulge, pulling out your dick and stroking as you stare...all of these non verbally express interest in the context of a backroom, bath, ABS, cruisy park or restroom, etc. And yet, apparently these days we don't even approach a stranger in a dark room but only use it as a place to go in with the guy we already know.

And how the hell are these kids handed PrEP and PEP and U=U on a silver goddamn platter and somehow seem LESS likely to bareback then the men I met 20-25 years ago?

I'm quite pleased that I started barebacking routinely prior to the discovery of the cocktails.  I was taking anonymous loads in my ass before there was effective treatment, knowing the risks.  I love what that says about my sense of priorities when I was in my 20s.  What's the priority of kids in their 20s today? I dunno, a new Google phone?  Getting a thousand followers on Instagram? Figuring out how to carry on a conversation in the real world? (That's obviously not a priority)

It's kind of revealing that the one big new kink that's taken hold since 2000 is the pup thing.  Now, I love the workmanship.  I love the inventiveness.  I love the playfulness.  But I can't help but wonder if a big reason it's popular is that you get to hide your face in public and (in many cases) aren't allowed to talk to people except from barks, wags, and growls.

Now it's not everyone.  There are some awesome pigs in the 20- and 30- something set.  They are my hope for the future of gay men.  But they seem few and far between.  They certainly aren't the role models they should be.  For fuck's sake Pete Buttigieg is apparently who the next generation wants to be, Dog help us all.

When the fuck did we look at suburban life in Tulsa or Kokomo and decide, "You know? That looks pretty damn good!"  Safety and Boredom is apparently the life we want now.

[AirmaxUK]

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Do you know, I actually have seen them on multiple occasions LOOKING through a glory hole to see who's on the other side?

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And yet, apparently these days we don't even approach a stranger in a dark room but only use it as a place to go in with the guy we already know.

This isn't new - I've seen this kind of thing going on since I started out in the mid 90's. The tech we carry with us makes it easier and worse: I've seen people using the torch function on their mobile or smartwatch to illuminate a dark room.  

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Seriously though, when did sex become about who you exclude?

The apps seem to push this. A point I've made elsewhere, search filters are binary - you set them up to find a 20-39 yr old tattooed top poz muscle bear into bondage and watersports and it will filter all the non matching profiles out leaving a handful of perfect matches. Truth is there are a ton of guys who match 80% of your criteria who get filtered and you miss the opportunity and experience of engaging them. 

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It's kind of revealing that the one big new kink that's taken hold since 2000 is the pup thing.  Now, I love the workmanship.  I love the inventiveness.  I love the playfulness.  But I can't help but wonder if a big reason it's popular is that you get to hide your face in public and (in many cases) aren't allowed to talk to people except from barks, wags, and growls.

I've never been a fan of the pup scene - it doesn't turn me on because for see it seems to lack the sleazy edge that more traditional fetish scenes are built upon.  It's a "Disney" fetish - sanitised and acceptable. 

I've always held the opinion that what we see in porn, read on the forums here, and experience in interactions with profiles on sites like BBRT, NKP, BZ etc is 90% fantasy and 10% reality - and getting guys to jump from the fantasy to the reality is REALLY hard. 

In my opinion you have to find your people IRL - the bars, clubs, or cruising spots where they hang out.  Lockdowns made that hard, but it's beginning to recover a bit. 

[tallslenderguy]

@PhoenixGeoff, enjoyed your wit and i think @AirmaxUK  makes some great points.

i tend to agree that finding people IRL is the better option for the gay community... or for the whole concept of 'community' in general.  When i think about it, the age group referenced in the OP is the first generation to be raised with all the apps and tech as part of their 'IRL', so they do not have the same foundation or frame of reference that those of us who came out during the cruise park era have. 

I love and miss the kind of connections/consent PG speaks of, that somehow seemed primarily, if not uniquely, gay. i have countless examples of such sexploits.  i was driving down a busy road one day and a guy pulls up next to me and glances over. Our eyes met (that was all) and he pulled up in front of me and i followed him into a Burger King parking lot. He went in to BK, i followed him into the restroom. He locked the door behind me, i dropped my pants and he bent me over and bred me, pulled up his pants without either of us ever speaking a word, unlocked the door and left. i had to scramble to lock the door behind him so i could get my pants up lol. 

Gaydar has been replaced by Grindar.  Gaydar didn't always work, but then, neither does Grindar, and i got a hell of a lot more sex, and faster, cruising than i ever have using apps. i say that, but to be honest, it may not be entirely true, i got a lot of anonymous walk in sex from CL, but it always took longer than cruising. And, i never experienced a "no show" or "ghost" at a restroom glory hole. 

i also remember being the 18 year old in the restroom gazing longingly through a glory hole.  At that age, i was still caught in a cultural/religious web of self rejection, but i'd still go to restrooms to read the writing on the walls and be near other guys who wanted what i did. i know that same culture still exists, even in the 21st century.  We did just have an openly anti gay vice president for 4 years and half the US population put him in office, so it makes sense that being the kid of one of those people is gonna involve some challenges to self acceptance if you happen to be on the other side of their wall.  

We see the differences, but we do not have their perspective any more than they have ours.  Media  (not just 'social,' but movies, tv shows) has certainly changed, but take a look who the writers are, and they are all still mostly middle aged white guys writing the scripts for "kids."  Kids watch and learn, but they also learn from their parents, so there's likely a mixed message in many of their lives.  Things were getting better for gays when i was a kid, but it took awhile for it to undo  the conditioning i had from religion and my parents.  

[NWUSHorny]

I'm not really sure how much worse it has gotten, 14 years ago I moved from a city where I could fairly easily find a willing partner and get laid when I was horny in an hour or less to one where it takes hours to find someone then even more wasted time going back and forth, either online or in person, just to find out they don't fuck on the "1st" hookup.  I was in my mid to late 30s at the time.  I did notice that the "gay lifestyle" is much more popular here, and there is a strong emphasis on dress up fetishes including the pup scene.  Unfortunately even the leather fetish guys, the one I previously enjoyed, seem to only be interested in modeling their gear, not fucking.  Their is also a lot of teasing where they act like they want to tuck or suck but won't actually act on it.  I still have much better luck when I travel, although I have noticed it is becoming more like Portland in most places.  My recent pet peave is guys going cruising with their cocks caged AND a plug in their hole that they are insistent that stay in, what is the point of cruising for sex if you block all access?

[FunCheerSlut]

Fascinating question, hilarious rant. Only time will tell how much our generation has screwed up this generation. I blame the parents. wink

[BootmanLA]

Geoff,

It seems to me that your biggest beef boils down to "people today don't want the same things I wanted when *I* was their age! What's wrong with them?"

I'm sure that's an oversimplification, but to the extent it's valid, I have to say, it's awfully presumptuous to assume what you wanted then is what they should want today.

When I came out in the late 1970's, the idea of a lifelong relationship wasn't even on the radar for most gays - not just because many didn't want it, but because society actively worked to prevent us from having it. A lot of people - even then - if you'd pressed them, might well have said "It would be nice if I came home to a bed that wasn't empty", even if the terms of that relationship allowed for lots of extracurricular fun, together or separate. It was just a lot harder to do except in the largest of cities.

And again, not suggesting you were one of them, or should have been one of them; but your dreams and goals aren't theirs, and finding fault in that seems, well.... not a good look for someone.

And yes, I get that part of this is tongue-in-cheek. But still: there's nothing wrong with finding random sex less meaningful or less attractive than something more committed and stable (or vice versa). They aren't "doing it wrong" any more than you were/are "doing it wrong". They're being true to themselves.

One reason might be that today's parents are much more likely to be accepting of their gay kids than those of my parents' generation (mine were OK with it, but not the parents of a lot of my friends). Kids who come from households where they're loved and accepted as they are, are possibly more likely to want a household like that for themselves, while kids who get kicked out of the house or become permanently estranged from their families when coming out are less likely to look at domestic situations as something to aspire to.

But I get it - conventionality, in any fashion, doesn't seem to be your thing. That's fine - really! - but it seems a tad defensive to attack how others choose to live their lives, confident you know better than they do what's right for them. Isn't that what the moralizing scolds who told you to get over that phase, that you could live a straight life if you chose to, were doing?

[BlackDude]

I actually see the opposite at times. A lot  young people want to fuck, they just aren’t into the group thing as much. 

It’s the “older” (35+) are the ones who are acting uptight about sex. They are the ones still thinking they are 20, sitting around waiting for another 20 year old. I can’t count how many times at the local cruising spot or sauna I seen middle age guys sitting around holding out for that perfect 25 year old jock, when it’s dozens of regular guys ready and willing to fuck. Or show up at a local motel for a Cumdump only to say “sorry I’m saving it for later.”
 

Then they’ll scurry off in their little mini coopers, mad, bitter but pretending like they have action somewhere else. When u had all the chance to fuck right there.

I mean if you want to hold out for a specific type of guy fine, but that’s basically the same thing guys are accusing younger folks of doing. They are just choosing to move into together and buy a dog and have a relationship in between sexual exploits. 

[AirmaxUK]

6 hours ago, BlackDude said:

Or show up at a local motel for a Cumdump only to say “sorry I’m saving it for later.”
 

Then they’ll scurry off in their little mini coopers, mad, bitter but pretending like they have action somewhere else. When u had all the chance to fuck right there.

Haha, Oh yes, Mini Cooper Guys. I know them. I live quite close to a nature reserve that can be cruisey - apart from that it is a really nice place to walk and exercise so we're usually there 3x a week in the daytime. You get to recognise people. I find it quite amusing that Mini Cooper guys will post on Squirt that they're going there or that they are there and are up for fun. You'll then see Mini Cooper guy sat in his car glued to his phone oblivious to his surroundings. He'll sit there for five - maybe ten minutes, and then speed off dramatically with lots of wheelspin showering bystanders with gravel. You'll usually then see a post on Squirt a bit later saying 'its not worth bothering'.  Now if you hop on the apps (and he's usually on every single one) and try to engage while he's there you'll get ignored, and a bit later after he's gone home and had a wank, a message saying he didn't notice me and its a shame as he liked to have hooked up but he's all spent now. Next time? Maybe, but he plays the exact same game every time. 

I suspect he gets off on the idea of the anonymous hookup but has trouble bridging fantasy to reality. 

The real seam of gold at this particular place isn't Mini Cooper Guy, it's White Van Man. The spot seems very popular with tradespeople, builders, farmers and labourers looking for some relief on their way home. There's a tow truck driver who parks up there in between callouts on quiet days, who's particularly nice.  Once you're practised at making anxious 'straight' but bi-curious guys comfortable, it's a great source of cum. They won't go near people like Mini Cooper Guy. (And I bet that pisses him off)

 

[BlackDude]

30 minutes ago, AirmaxAndy said:

Haha, Oh yes, Mini Cooper Guys. I know them. I live quite close to a nature reserve that can be cruisey - apart from that it is a really nice place to walk and exercise so we're usually there 3x a week in the daytime. You get to recognise people. I find it quite amusing that Mini Cooper guys will post on Squirt that they're going there or that they are there and are up for fun. You'll then see Mini Cooper guy sat in his car glued to his phone oblivious to his surroundings. He'll sit there for five - maybe ten minutes, and then speed off dramatically with lots of wheelspin showering bystanders with gravel. You'll usually then see a post on Squirt a bit later saying 'its not worth bothering'.  Now if you hop on the apps (and he's usually on every single one) and try to engage while he's there you'll get ignored, and a bit later after he's gone home and had a wank, a message saying he didn't notice me and its a shame as he liked to have hooked up but he's all spent now. Next time? Maybe, but he plays the exact same game every time. 

I suspect he gets off on the idea of the anonymous hookup but has trouble bridging fantasy to reality. 

The real seam of gold at this particular place isn't Mini Cooper Guy, it's White Van Man. The spot seems very popular with tradespeople, builders, farmers and labourers looking for some relief on their way home. There's a tow truck driver who parks up there in between callouts on quiet days, who's particularly nice.  Once you're practised at making anxious 'straight' but bi-curious guys comfortable, it's a great source of cum. They won't go near people like Mini Cooper Guy. (And I bet that pisses him off)

 

Man you took words right out my head 100%. I thought was delusional with these Mini Cooper dudes.

The ones who you describe are hilarious. But it’s no point, they’ll die waiting on that young jock to show up.

Even worse and the guys cruising who aren’t fucking anymore so they stop you from fucking out of spite . They will sit in their box cars and play music And do other annoying activities to draw attention to the place. Or even worse, they will  get out of the car find a cute guy, and literally run their mouth and try to talk him to death so no one else can hook up with them. 

 

[MuscledHorse]

17 hours ago, AirmaxAndy said:

This isn't new - I've seen this kind of thing going on since I started out in the mid 90's. The tech we carry with us makes it easier and worse: I've seen people using the torch function on their mobile or smartwatch to illuminate a dark room.  

The apps seem to push this. A point I've made elsewhere, search filters are binary - you set them up to find a 20-39 yr old tattooed top poz muscle bear into bondage and watersports and it will filter all the non matching profiles out leaving a handful of perfect matches. Truth is there are a ton of guys who match 80% of your criteria who get filtered and you miss the opportunity and experience of engaging them. 

I've never been a fan of the pup scene - it doesn't turn me on because for see it seems to lack the sleazy edge that more traditional fetish scenes are built upon.  It's a "Disney" fetish - sanitised and acceptable. 

I've always held the opinion that what we see in porn, read on the forums here, and experience in interactions with profiles on sites like BBRT, NKP, BZ etc is 90% fantasy and 10% reality - and getting guys to jump from the fantasy to the reality is REALLY hard. 

In my opinion you have to find your people IRL - the bars, clubs, or cruising spots where they hang out.  Lockdowns made that hard, but it's beginning to recover a bit. 

If you think the pup scene isn't sleazy you haven't met the Atlanta pups like me. We just had Dog days weekend at the Parliament resort in Augusta where I, pup Canyon, was publicly mounted, fucked, bred and fisted by piles of resorts guests and other pups. When i am at the local bar for pup night i am in the back room with my lubes, in my pup gear, getting fucked and fisted while pups and bar patrons watch or take a turn in me. And that's not even getting into my L and XL Bad Dragon K9 toys. We Pups and Furries are way more sleazy and perverted than you realize.

That said, i agree the apps have reinforced exclusionism. And, as to the OP's original issue much of what is infecting the younger males (all of whom seem to have serious daddy/coach issues) is the lack of a male figure in their lives. Single women have raised  large number of these boys to think like they were raised about their female bodies. Notice how younger guys all change clothes under a towel in the men's locker room and have this wholesale investment in the hetero monogamous couple that looks like a gay version of the Cleavers right out of Plesantville. And they get disappointed every time when it turns out 1 or both of them were 'cheating.' The hyper concern with consent grows out of that too. The relief I see so frequently in guys' eyes when I tell them i am a public sexual play space tells me how bad it's gotten, especially when with guys (bears, cubs, just plain average build) that are not the muscled beast build like me. It's why i like sex clubs over bath houses. The latter is to much teasing cat and mouse play. The sex club, guys all know they are there to fuck like animal in heat and do so.

[PigBoyDallas]

Wait…gay people are ageist?!? What? Don’t tell me they’re racist, sizeist, and discriminate on looks too!? Can gay guys be petty and shallow? Yes, but that’s NOT solely function of how old they are. Yeah, guys my age can be ageist, we don’t have a lock on that…there’s plenty of middle aged guys who like guys my age and won’t even consider an older guy. That’s not excusing it, but that is lying it bare. I’ve been called horrible racist names not just by older guys, but by middle aged guys, and guess what…guys my age too! Do I criticize only older gays for being racist? No. Only Anglos for being racist? No. I criticize racists for being racist. Just like I criticize fat shamers for being size-ist. Criticize the haters for their hate. Don’t criticize an age cohort for being ageist, criticize the conduct and behavior. Not all guys my age are ageist…some are into older guys. We’re not all needy mindless shallow guys too absorbed in TikTok wanting participation ribbons for everything we do. Because you know what you did? YOU were ageist…guilty of the very same thing you complained of. Shame on you.

[ckt]

5 hours ago, AirmaxAndy said:

Once you're practised at making anxious 'straight' but bi-curious guys comfortable...

Any wise words on that subject?

On 8/22/2021 at 12:26 PM, PhoenixGeoff said:

Now it's not everyone.  There are some awesome pigs in the 20- and 30- something set.  They are my hope for the future of gay men.  But they seem few and far between.  They certainly aren't the role models they should be.  For fuck's sake Pete Buttigieg is apparently who the next generation wants to be, Dog help us all.

I found your post funny with some truth, but on the other hand I don't think the option of suburbia being open to the younger generations is necessarily a bad thing. The difference being that now the young pigs are role models on social media rather than going out and seeing these guys as role models in the flesh, and possibly participating. It's sexuality behind a screen, for better or worse. The older gays I know have fun stories of adventures in the bushes, and being chased by the police. The idea sounds fun in theory, but then that was their only option, it was 'take it or leave it'. At least now you have more choices.

[Syracuseboy]

14 hours ago, BlackDude said:

I actually see the opposite at times. A lot  young people want to fuck, they just aren’t into the group thing as much. 

It’s the “older” (35+) are the ones who are acting uptight about sex. They are the ones still thinking they are 20, sitting around waiting for another 20 year old. I can’t count how many times at the local cruising spot or sauna I seen middle age guys sitting around holding out for that perfect 25 year old jock, when it’s dozens of regular guys ready and willing to fuck. Or show up at a local motel for a Cumdump only to say “sorry I’m saving it for later.”
 

Then they’ll scurry off in their little mini coopers, mad, bitter but pretending like they have action somewhere else. When u had all the chance to fuck right there.

I mean if you want to hold out for a specific type of guy fine, but that’s basically the same thing guys are accusing younger folks of doing. They are just choosing to move into together and buy a dog and have a relationship in between sexual exploits. 

You so right I 100% agree with you. 

[blackrobe]

 I don't think generalizing does anyone any favors. It's really hard to be *in a cohort* and also an observer and critic *of that cohort*. We fall into well established "in group/out group" dynamics quite naturally. The dynamics, pressures, and incentives of different times produce altered patterns of behavior quite naturally too. We tend to self-sort into skewed convenience samples in our social engagement. 

Our experience is always going to be anecdotal and just a part of a picture. That's not going to stop people trying to make sense of it and *make meaning* from it. 

I can't be the only one who got the irony and self-mocking humor of the thread title being essentially "Hey, you kids! Get off my lawn!"

[analluv27]

16 hours ago, BlackDude said:

I actually see the opposite at times. A lot  young people want to fuck, they just aren’t into the group thing as much. 

It’s the “older” (35+) are the ones who are acting uptight about sex. They are the ones still thinking they are 20, sitting around waiting for another 20 year old. I can’t count how many times at the local cruising spot or sauna I seen middle age guys sitting around holding out for that perfect 25 year old jock, when it’s dozens of regular guys ready and willing to fuck. Or show up at a local motel for a Cumdump only to say “sorry I’m saving it for later.”
 

Then they’ll scurry off in their little mini coopers, mad, bitter but pretending like they have action somewhere else. When u had all the chance to fuck right there.

I mean if you want to hold out for a specific type of guy fine, but that’s basically the same thing guys are accusing younger folks of doing. They are just choosing to move into together and buy a dog and have a relationship in between sexual exploits. 

Admittedly I'm late to cruising, started in 93. But the whole I'm waiting for that perfect guy to stroll into the ABS and grace them with dick or ass was prevalent during that time. And watched as these dudes sit down one guy after another and then bitch about how horrible the cruising is there, while their blowing guys off I'm actually blowing those same guys getting dick and enjoying myself.