I met a gay couple at the weekend that got me a-thinking. It was in one of the earthier clubs that London can produce – grotty, sexy, friendly, unpretentious.

They were splendid to watch – one of them was a big six foot five blond smooth tank of a man in his twenties, his lover shorter, stouter and slightly older, swarthy and hairy. They were tattooed and cropped and gym-built and at it like billygoats. I got chatting to them and the younger man turned out to be Irish, his lover Australian. They had been together for five years, met in a leather bar in Sydney. They’ve lived in Australia and now live in England. They tried living in a provincial town in Ireland but couldn’t hack it – they felt confined, bored, trapped. Their relationship is primarily, obviously, indulgently sexual. Speaking of his lover, the Irish guy said, “He’s horny, he’s sleazy, and he shags me every day. What more could you want? Oh, and he’s a very decent guy, too”. He looked at me with pride, and grinned, showing his baby teeth in his big ruddy country-boy face. He was happy. I felt a mixture of envy and pleasure. Of course, like all relationships, theirs must have their problems, but five years is five years.
There is a model of thinking I came across recently which helps me understand sexual relationships more, not only gay male ones, and I’ll try to explain it here. The words subject and object have particular meanings which, in this context, need a bit of explanation. To objectify, to make someone your sexual object, is to project your own desire onto someone else, to get aroused by what you sense and imagine about them or their body. It’s a creative act, and it’s largely visual, conceptual, and quite basic – it’s what gets your heart racing, makes you hard or moist, often in an instant. It’s about potential. It may be related to a “type” or a culturally defined, almost archetypal image, a fashion, a look. It’s what feminists have been complaining about for decades – men’s capacity to reduce women to sex objects, most especially in pornography and prostitution, where the drive is to make someone a mere thing, an object for one’s pleasure, is taken to a commercial level. Things can be bought, fucked, used. Objectification blows hot and cold. It is adolescent, intense, aspirational, motivational. It can be exhausting, depleting, addictive. But it may be when we feel most alive, daring, fun. And single.
To be a subject of someone else, in these terms, is to be related to emotionally, intellectually, and physically as a known person, someone whose personality and character are appreciated and valued. It is an expression of affection and is probably closest in meaning to making love. This is when the reality of someone is being seen and appreciated, not the fantasy. It’s not quite the unconditional love and acceptance that often we crave, but it’s darn close, as it’s the sharing of pleasure in a friendly mutual act. Conservative moralists and matriarchal cultures would have us believe that this is the only way we should relate to each other sexually – in the institution of marriage. Subjectifying is warm and steady, solid and containing, based on firm knowledge of a person. It can be encouraging and supportive. But it may leave us feeling smothered, dependent, and unable to stand on our own two feet. But it’s necessary to glue relationships together.
This model of sexual relationships proposes that in any healthy couple, of any combination of gender, both partners have a “subject” and “object” part in them that needs acknowledgment and acceptance. They manage to negotiate with each other, directly or indirectly, how much each can express the subject and object parts of themselves to each other. Some couples, like the guys I met in the club, relate to each other in primarily objectifying terms – both of them derive great pleasure from being sex objects for each other, and for other men. But they have managed to build a relationship that is solid enough to contain that fire without getting burnt by it, based on subjectivity and mutual respect: “Oh – and he’s a very decent guy too”. For many gay men, staying single is a way of ensuring that objectifying sex is their main activity, and many manage to perfect it as a sport, not wanting to go down the committed subject-orientated relationship route.
At the other end of the scale, there are lesbian couples who, after a time, stop having sex, and find it a relief not to have to perform any more. If one is largely subject-identified, then objectification gets in the way of the sort of emotional closeness and stability that both partners desire.
And, for most of us in the middle, we’re a bit of both. We want both emotional intimacy of love-making, and the spark of sexual play to enliven and invigorate us. The age-old split between madonna and whore that women have had to contend with in men’s projections for eons is explained by this model – but it also suggests that women, too, have their own capacity to objectify and take gratification from their partner, that needs to be acknowledged more.
This area is often incredibly painful to work through, for traditional society tends to favour the more subject-orientated way of relating, placing objectification in the shadow – thus making it more darkly attractive/compulsive. For women especially, if they are sexually objectifying, or enjoying being sex objects, they are seen as slappers or bad girls or tarts. For men who want more subject-orientated, intimate relationships, they can be seen as soft not “real” – men, if they eschew shagging around. This is particularly true on the gay scene, where instant objectification is the rule rather than the exception. “Let’s get to know each other first before we have sex” – a valiant attempt to go the dating romantic route – is often heard as, “I’m not into hot objectifying sex, I like it comfy and boring, and you can be sure if you choose me it may be safe but it will be dull.” Next!
I used to be miserable when I was younger, being objectified by older men – for I sensed/believed that the attraction wasn’t to me, it was my youth that was being desired. But I now see I wasn’t comfortable with my own sexual nature at all. Who teaches us about this when they’re growing up? Never mind anything relevant to gay relationships. When I was younger, I was quite prissy and controlling in relationships, insisting on only subjective relating. But my sexual fantasies would be quite the opposite, and I acted them out in furtive (so Catholic) cruising sessions at night, getting sensuous pleasure from being objectified, gloriously. Repeatedly. But I couldn’t ever manage to be both “slut” and partner with one person. This is one of the hardest things to achieve, in my opinion. The worst thing is that popular culture tells us it’s supposed to happen all the time, the Hollywood Dream Lover, Happy Ever After and all that shite.
This split between subject and object in our psyches is really important to understand. When it’s too wide a split, we may find it impossible to ask our partner for one or the other – the jaded leather guy, a master of objectification, may not believe he can be related to on the inside, be made love to and cuddled. The mother of three may be desperate to feel like a sex object again, and dream of shagging the stud she married in the back of the car like they used to when they first met. But she may not feel able to turn him on in that way anymore, and he may find the idea of the mother of his kids playing the tart for him repugnant. Every couple is different, and it’s not always the man who objectifies, the woman who is the object; increasingly, gender roles and expectations are changing, and making it all even more confusing.
Bring back family values, I say, put sex back in the box and lose the key. Much simpler.