by Eby Lane

Created on: February 19, 2009   Last Updated: February 21, 2009

Debating about how much sex is quantified in a minority group over the majority only serves to marginalize and diminish the plight of the community as a whole. It makes it easy to dismiss a groups claims for acceptance when they are perceived as nothing more than sexual deviants. Shocking, it would seem, to learn that there are gay men and lesbians who live mundane lives in the suburbs, tending to their families or careers while living with their longtime significant other. But since this is the question at hand, it deserves an answer.

To answer this question, it would be easiest to look at what is considered the norm. Particularly in the United States, it appears that where ever you look, sex is an intriguing topic. From private conversations with your best girl friends, to the attractive, half-naked men and women in advertisements selling everything from tennis shoes to hamburgers. At the checkout counter, magazine upon magazines offer advice on ways to surprise and titillate your lover, men are given tips on how to make women go wild in bed. Television shows and movies offer sensuous love scenes, for romantic dramas and soap operas they're mandatory. Even for people who don't put much importance on it in their relationships, they like to talk, read, see, and hear about it.

GLBT people are no different, there are more who would rather have nothing more than a meaningful relationship than to those that you see portrayed in film or on the news. Not every gay man or lesbian woman rushes out to the clubs to find a bedmate or looks at any member of the same sex with the idea in mind of having sex with them. At least, not as much as their heterosexual counterparts. Media portrayals, in the news and in fiction, does make it appear as if sex is all that matters to homosexuals. However, that contradicts the hundreds and thousands of gay and lesbian headed families.

The activists who are demanding rights are not going for status symbols or to be just like everyone else, but to make sure that they will be able to live with loved ones without unnecessary hardships. So many things fall through the cracks due to technical loopholes, and exceptions are rarely given because of misconceptions like these. Why should your lover have custody of your children or visit you in the hospital? Would it seem right to allow your same sex spouse into the country? It's all for sexual gratification between the two or more people anyway, right? If only it were so.

Make no mistake, sex is an important part of any relationship. It is just as important as communication, trust, companionship and love. People desire that as much as they do to human touch. To say that is all that gay people, especially singles, want nothing but sex an unfair generalization, especially when the same could be thrown at heterosexuals using the same qualifiers.

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