Recently, I was standing in the middle of a queer day festival, surrounded by thousands of LGBTQIA+ people where the theme was love, unity and self-expression. The banners promised connection. The DJs were spinning anthems about togetherness. Everyone looked fabulous, liberated, self-expressed.
And yet, I could feel it… that familiar undercurrent of disconnection, fear and nervousness. The furtive glances from behind the sunglasses that assessed everyone else around them.
The way conversations happened around each other rather than with each other.
The invisible barriers that kept us all performing.
The feeling that guys were looking for something other than who they were already with…
I could see it happening. I could feel it.
How?
Because I slipped into it myself!
I’m not immune. It’s a serious spiritual practice to keep bringing ourselves back to love, connection and presence in these environments. I’m better than I used to be, and by no means perfect.
I know what we’re capable of when we actually come together in care, kindness, connection and openness. I’ve seen it and felt it at Pleasure Medicine, my conscious connection workshop and ecstatic dance for gay men. And I’ve witnessed the profound transformation that happens when gay men stop competing with each other and start caring for each other instead.
The Cost of Our Cruelty
Let’s be brutally honest about something we rarely discuss: gay men can be incredibly cruel to each other. We’ve internalised decades of shame, rejection and judgment and we’ve turned those weapons on our own community (and even more sadly on ourselves).
Gay men can be guilty of discarding each other based on age, body type, shape and size, sexual currency and social status. We reduce complex human beings to profile stats and performance metrics. We ghost, we block, we swipe and we dismiss, often without a second thought about the person infront of us or behind the screen.
I’ve done it. You’ve probably done it too. And every time we do, we perpetuate the very system that wounded us in the first place.
Think about it: we spent years being rejected, judged and ridiculed by a heteronormative world. Then we enter gay spaces and what do we do? We continue to reject, judge and ridicule each other!
We’ve become our own oppressors…
The Armour We Wear
At that festival, I watched men who should have been celebrating together keep each other at arms length instead. The eye contact was brief and strategic: “I won’t give any more if you don’t. I won’t smile if you don’t. I won’t move closer if you don’t”.
We’ve become experts at looking available while staying completely protected. We have mastered the art of being seen without being known. We have learned to perform desirability while desperately craving genuine acceptance.
The tragic irony is that we’re all wearing the same armour, for the same reasons, against the same fears. We’re all terrified of rejection, judgment and not being enough. But instead of recognising this shared vulnerability and finding comfort in it, we use it to push each other away.
Now, it wasn’t all like this…
I met some great gays and some wonderful humans. Playful, impish, cheeky, up for the joy, laughs and banter. But I will be honest and say they were the minority whereas they should be the majority! And I think if everyone was more honest with what they really want, most people would be that way; free, self-expressive, joyful, care-free about what everyone was thinking.
What True Power Looks Like
Here’s what I’ve learned through my work with Pleasure Medicine and countless conversations with gay men who are brave enough to drop their masks: our greatest power isn’t in our individual achievements, our sexual conquests, our social media followings, or our topless clenched photos.
Our greatest power is in our togetherness and in our ability to see each other fully. To love and appreciate what we see. We don’t all have to be best buddies, but we do need to be kinder, more compassionate and understanding.
So how?
We need to create more spaces and places where every gay man, regardless of age, body type, relationship status, sexual preferences, colour, race or religion, feels valued and welcomed. The feedback that I’ve had from gay men who come to Pleasure Medicine is that this space truly creates this.
When we truly come together this way, we become impenetrable because we’re so rooted in genuine love and appreciation for each other that external judgment, ridicule, rejection and hate loses its power over us.
Hatred and division is so powerful in our world because it is strategic and organised. If we were as dedicated to love and unity, we could truly live beautiful and exquisite lives together.
I’ve witnessed this transformation in our twice monthly gatherings in East London. Men who arrive guarded, nervous and performative gradually soften into authenticity. The competitive edge dissolves into collaborative care and the sexual assessment transforms into human appreciation. We become friends, mates, brothers…
It’s magical. And it’s possible on a much larger scale too.
The Inner Work We Must Do
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: this level of collective healing requires each of us to do our own inner work first. We can’t create healthy community from unhealed individuals.
We have to face our internalised homophobia and the ways we’ve absorbed shame about our own queerness and how we project it onto others. We have to examine our ageism, our body fascism, our classism, our racism. We have to get honest about how we’ve been complicit in creating the very culture we complain about. Almost everyone gay man I talk to has the same issues with the queer community.
This isn’t about blame or guilt. It’s about responsibility. We must recognise that every interaction we have either perpetuates the old patterns or creates space for something new.
When I catch myself making snap judgments about another gay man, I pause and ask: “What would it look like to see this person with love instead?” When I feel the urge to dismiss or categorise, I try to get curious instead. When I notice myself performing, I practice showing up authentically.
It’s not easy work. I fail often. I try my best. But it’s ingrained in us. But it’s the most important work we can do.
The Tipping Point
I believe we’re closer to a cultural shift than we realise. In every gay or queer space I enter, I meet men who are hungry for something deeper than what we’ve been offered. They’re tired of the superficiality, the commodification, the endless performance of perfection.
They want real community and authentic connection. Spaces where they can be fully themselves without fear of judgment or rejection.
The challenge is that creating this requires critical mass. It takes enough people willing to model a different way of being for others to feel safe joining them. It’s the classic collective action problem: everyone wants things to change, but no one wants to risk being the first.
But what if enough of us took that risk simultaneously? What if we reached a tipping point where authentic connection became more and more normal
The Pleasure Medicine Model
This is what we’re experimenting with at Pleasure Medicine. We are creating a container where gay men can practice being real with each other. We do it through a conscious connection workshop and ecstatic dance. Something magical opens when music and movement enter the space.
It starts with our opening connection practice, where we look each other in the eyes without agenda. Where we share what’s actually happening in our lives. Where we offer physical comfort and emotional support without it being sexual or strategic.
Then we dance together. We drop out of the performing for each other, and step into moving from our hearts and our joy. Bodies of all shapes and sizes, men of all ages and backgrounds, cultures and colours. We are creating beauty through collective expression.
The transformation is profound. Men who arrive disconnected leave feeling seen, appreciated, part of something larger than themselves. They take this experience back into their daily lives, their relationships and their other communities.
The Call
So here’s my challenge to every gay man reading this: what would it look like to be part of the solution instead of perpetuating the problem?
What would change if you offered genuine appreciation to your fellow gays? If you made space for vulnerability? If you chose curiosity over judgment and inclusion over exclusion. What if you chose love over fear?
What would our community look like if we treated each other with the same care and respect we demand from the hetero world?
This is our moment. Our opportunity to create something unprecedented: a gay culture based on genuine love and mutual support.
But it requires each of us to step up, to do our healing work, to risk being the first person in the room to be real and to choose connection even when it’s scary.
The revolution won’t happen through protests or politics alone. It will happen through all of our individual acts of courage. It will happen through gay men choosing to see each other with love, to treat each other with kindness, to create the community we all desperately need.
Are you in?
About Gary
Gary is a therapist, embodiment facilitator, somatic erotic bodyworker, award-winning music maker, conscious DJ and writer. He’s the creator of Pleasure Medicine, a bi-weekly sensuality workshop and ecstatic dance for gay men in London that blends conscious movement with intimate, embodied connection.
With over a decade of experience as a therapist, Gary is devoted to helping gay men unlock their pleasure centres, soften shame and rediscover joy, intimacy and sensuality through dance, touch and celebratory sexuality.
He is a guest columnist for queer culture magazines and writes personal essays, opinion pieces and cultural reflections—always from the perspective of being in the waters with the reader, trying to work it all out together.
Connect with Gary:
Book your ‘Pleasure Medicine’ ticket: www.pleasuremedicine.co.uk
Join ‘The Pleasure Portal’, weekly conscious self-pleasure practices, sexy soul notes, soundtracks and general spiritual gay stuff going on in your inbox: www.pleasuremedicine.co.uk/pleasure-portal
Connect on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pleasuremedicinedance
