Fruitbowl: An Oral History of Queer Sex

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About

First person stories about queer sex. First times, worst times, best moves. All the stuff we wish we knew when we first came out. https://www.fruitbowlpodcast.com/

Notes from the Spaces team

Pop culture has been serving up an over-sexualized portrait of gay men for decades. Yes, gay people have sex. But is a gay sex life really that different than a straight person’s? Well, maybe so. Of course, it all depends on the individual in question, but just because we tend to think that gay people have a lot of sex doesn’t mean it’s true. Casual gay sex has seemingly become ubiquitous in today’s culture, while plenty of LGBTQ people abstain from sex altogether. Now, with apps and technological innovation in the realms of gay sex and dating, LGBTQ people have instant access to a world of options. It's now easier than ever for queer people to connect, or even find the perfect mate. The world of sex is completely different than what it was 10 years ago, and it's still changing all the time. Find out just how the complicated topic of sex is changing for the queer community in this Space.

URL

https://linktr.ee/fruitbowlpod

Hashtags

#podcast #sex #history #lgbtq

#sex #queer #gay #fruitbowl #episode #thanks #years #space #️ #night #school #relationship #question #podcast #seattle #next #fun #guy #men #pretty #spaces #family #place #coming #interview #shot #talk #ask #last #sharing

What you can see in this Space

Hi Scott! Welcome! This room is a safe place to talk about sex, especially how it relates to our development as queer people during our coming of age years. I have a podcast that features a different queer person in each episode describing their sexual discoveries.

I love that y’all are sharing your experiences and have found some common ground! Identifying with other queer people’s experiences with sex and learning about different kinds of relationships is basically the whole point of Fruitbowl. It’s the kind of resource I wish I had when I was a baby gay, trying to figure out my tastes and preferences.

I am a gay man, but I do say queer more often than lgbt. On my insta every day I ask a question. Once upon i asked about queer vs lgbt. 120 responses - most notably my step mom (55 years old) quickly responded and said no one should ever be called queer and firmly stood on the side of it being a very awful term. I love it. I think LGBT+ is too limiting and confusing. Queer gets the same point across without having to define myself further.

Roll call! Tell us your name, pronouns, current city, year you graduated high school and how you identify within the queer community. I’ll go first: I’m Dave, he/him, Seattle, 1991 and I’m a slightly kinky cis gay dude / hairy bearish guy.

The Gayish podcast episode featuring moi is available today! Link above. We talk about the project and a few things I’ve learned about queer sex, intimacy and coming of age…

Hey folks, I’m a recently out gay man and I’m listening to fruit bowl a lot. what other queer sex positive podcasts can you recommend?

I first realized gay people had sex by reading bathroom walls and I would eventually start cruising for sex in public places. But my first glimpse of what queer romance could be like was the movie MAURICE.

No - actually the opposite. I have a hard time fitting into any of these groups. I’m not particularly sex or kink driven, I don’t drink or use substance or any kind (short of coffee), and I aim for a monogamous relationship. So most of the mainstream groups of gay sub classes aren’t really spaces I fit into. Gay nerd? Not so much a gaymer… I mostly just kind of am my own gay. I am just Derek.

Wow. Thanks for sharing that, Michael. I wish more Christians acted like actual Christians and had more empathy and compassion for queer people instead of judging and condemning us. I didn’t mention this in my intro of Puddin’s episode but the preacher of my church who spoke out against the sin of homosexuality? A year later he ran off with his secretary and left the church. I think it’s the hypocrisy that makes me the most annoyed at judgy Christians. They rarely apply their own high morals to themselves. It’s everyone else who’s a sinner.

Hi Dave, I heard you on the recent Gay-ish episode (GREAT EPISODE BY THE WAY!!) asking for stories from Bisexuals. I’m not quite comfortable with the standard interview process, but I heard you’re also open to shorter stories. Is that right? Is there a prompt or a couple guiding questions? What’s the best way to submit a story? Can it be written instead of audio? I think you said we can submit via Spaces? Should I just write it in the group chat?

Pretty vanilla and feel like I haven’t explored gay sex enough to fully understand what my kinks are lmfa I’m sort of a late bloomer gay (mid 20s) and even when I became a full-time gay, there was still so much shame and honestly fear (after hearing about how AIDS is a punishment for being gay) associated with sex that I automatically defaulted to strict monogamy lmao

Also, not to spam the space too much haha, but something else I have recently been thinking about: you know how different cities have different “sexual vibes”? Or, I should ask, do y’all agree? I feel like, especially when it comes to queer sex, different cities have a different vibe.

Okay! Next question I ask my Fruitbowl interviewees: How do you define your queer identity? Anyone can join in and answer! For me: I am gay but I also sometimes just say “queer”.

Welcome all you new members! We just hit 500! Crazy. I’ve been asking members the same questions as I ask my interviewees. Some of the more spicy questions I save for the Fruitbowl After Dark space. One question I like to ask is how is sex different compared to when you first started having sex?

Well I’m grateful. I’m learning a great deal from vocabulary to kinks to all the many types…sheesh😊. So much to learn. I was married for 33 years after my wife passed away (she knew I was Bi before we got married) but have been more honest with people in my life, of course some knew, my kids have been amazingly supportive but still hearing others stories has been a great resource for processing the things I’m thinking and feeling. Thanks again for providing this podcast!!🤗🌈🤗

If you’re going to get particularly explicit, I’d recommend doing it in Fruitbowl’s private space. We want to keep the app super sex-positive, but until we have markers on individual spaces indicating they are adults-only or may contain adult content, we need to be careful about what happens in public spaces.

I know I’m jumping mid-stream here. But I agree that monogamy is not a natural state for men. Let’s forget society and norms and “values” for a second. Men are naturally wired to reproduce. They are meant to spread their seed as often as possible to leave a big number of his genes out in the gene pool. It makes sense that men are going to feel the urge to have sex while they are young.

I realize gay men are not going to reproduce when having sex. But they are men first and foremost. And that natural state of wanting to spread his genes are going to betray any sense of monogamy. Same with celibacy. It’s just not a natural state for men. Are those things nice fairy tales? Yes. But I don’t find them realistic when you look at them from the perspective of nature and science.

Hi! I’m new here and new to gay sex as I am in my first same sex relationship! Yay! Our favorite lube is coconut oil!! 🥥. Would love a rec on travel sized as we’re going on vacation next month, tho!

So, not a lot of closed monogamous relationships with fb interviewees. I guess it makes sense because most people who are comfortable talking about sex usually are the ones who have a lot of it with different partners. That is a very big generalization but you might also say that people who are in monogamous relationships don’t have much to gain by sharing stories that might challenge their identity as a monogamous person.

I enjoy telling people I’m as queer as a three dollar bill. I used to conform to peoples expectations. While my mannerisms don’t scream gay, I certainly don’t mind screaming it! I’m closing in on 70 years old. I’ve lived a lot, I’ve lived through a lot, I will hide no more! I love me today! I will shout it from my rooftop if I want. PRIDE

As you might guess, I’m a big fan of public radio and I also work for a public media company and I can say honestly that the health official featured in this critical article is an outlier. I agree he is doing no one any favors by pussy-footing around being explicit about Monkeypox being mostly transmitted by men who have sex with men. I think most news orgs have been stating this explicitly and there are ways of doing that without sounding alarmist or condemning.

and the Gayish episode with Dave will be out tomorrow! topic is, no surprise, “Gay Sex” 😋

LA can get freaky but I think it’s more on the DL. Not as in your face as seattle or sf or even Chicago. People in la play it safe with their public facing image and it’s important not to be perceived as too horny or sex oriented. Which is weird because LA has the most beautiful people in the world. But we all know that often beautiful people are really lousy in bed!

We’re the same generation. I was Methodist so it wasn’t so extreme but i got a false positive test when I was a senior in high school and had no one to talk to about it for the WEEK it took for them to figure out I was not actually positive! That scared the shit out of me and I didn’t really explore much sexually for most of my 20s. Prep has definitely let me relax and enjoy sex more but I still use condoms with partners I don’t know that well…

You might notice that, in their episode summary, Elliott is from Caspar. So why does it say “Portland” on their episode title? My preference is to list the hometowns of interviewees in their episode title, but sometimes that “city of origin” evokes painful memories or it’s a place the interviewees would prefer not to mention. So I give people the option to list the city where they had their “queer coming of age.” In other words, the place where they truly became the person they always wanted to be.

Just realized that we will need to continue the Fruitbowl Questionnaire in the After Dark Space since we will be talking more explicitly about sex… click on the link above if you haven’t joined already and you wanna continue the convo!

Previously, I have used the terms “gay” and “queer” quite interchangeably. However I am finding myself using “queer” more frequently than “gay” now, especially when I am talking about myself in the context of the broader LGBTQ+ community. I think it’s important to identify with the broader community, because there are people out there who are cool with same-gender relationships, but are still entrenched in the gender binary otherwise.

All the names are overwhelming and everyone has their own definitions. Whenever I feel too wrapped up by the endless categorizations and cliques, I always just remind myself that being queer means making your own personal definitions for who you are and how you identify what you like to do with sex partners.

Next question: when/how did you first learn that queer sex (non heterosexual) existed?

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