Point and Lick
New York Press | November 11, 2003

In a column last Saturday headlined "Love, Internet Style," the New York Times' new conservative op-ed columnist David Brooks explained why he believes the internet is bringing back dating and courtship rituals from some bygone era. Since couples can "exchange e-mail for weeks and months" rather than hop in the sack right away, he explains, the internet is providing the "restraint" we so desire. Hawking online dating services such as eHarmony, Brooks declared that, "Online dating puts structure back into courtship."

Curious about that structure, I clicked over to eHarmony, only to find that they don't serve my kind.

"eHarmony does not offer same sex matching services," the site explained. "Our ongoing research has examined thousands of married couples to determine what factors predict the greatest degree of success in the marriage relationship...This unprecedented research into compatibility has been conducted with the goal of lowering the rate of unsuccessful marriages and divorce by providing singles with a tool for finding truly compatible matches with whom to pursue a relationship. With this goal in mind, eHarmony's research has only examined heterosexual relationships."

Since when did dating services have such high-minded goals as "lowering the rate of unsuccessful marriages" rather than simply trying to make some money? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that eHarmony's co-founder is Neil Clark Warren, PhD, a psychologist and author whose books and services are heavily promoted by religious-right groups like Focus on the Family.

Few conservatives are better than the eloquent David Brooks at making an agenda seem like an organic, ideology-free trend. But this was a tad desperate, since the way the internet really seems to be shaping sex and marriage is enough to send Jerry Falwell into yet another fire and brimstone tirade.

Lately, I've noticed the rise of what we might call the Kinsey ones and twos. Take Matt, a masculine, good-looking, 36-year-old New Yorker, at the top of his profession. He has the accomplished, attractive wife, to whom he's been married for 10 years; the two adorable young kids; the townhouse in Brooklyn; and yeah, the place in the Hamptons. And, in his spare time — and when his wife is busy at work, tending to the kids or asleep — Matt chats up other married men online and meets them for sex, usually in hotel rooms during the day, or sometimes even in their offices.

He calls these men his "buddies," and views his encounters mostly as good, clean fun. He's quick to add that he's not "cheating" — at least, not with other women — or falling head-over-heels in love with anyone. (And at least one state Supreme Court seems to agree with him; New Hampshire last week ruled that same-sex screwing outside of marriage is not, legally, adultery.) What happens between him and his buds is just a once-in-a while "guy" thing. Sort of like playing golf. Or bowling.

"Technically, I guess I'm bisexual, but I just don't feel that, since I've not really thought about men all of my life the way I've thought about women," Matt explains. "This just sort of happened."

Deluded gay closet case? Not exactly. "Nothing beats my wife," he says enthusiastically, describing his bedroom activities. "We have sex four or so times a week, which is less now because of the kids. It's as hot as it always was. But every now and then I enjoy playing around with a guy."

From the looks of things on America Online, Gay.com and dozens of other sites where "bimarried" and "bicurious" men congregate, Matt's got a lot of company these days. In sex researcher Alfred Kinsey's famous zero through six scale of sexuality, number one is described as "predominantly heterosexual, incidentally homosexual" and number two is classified as "predominantly heterosexual but more than incidentally homosexual," as opposed to number three, which is "equally heterosexual and homosexual" (and zero, which is "exclusively heterosexual"). The ones (and twos) have of course always been around, but in the past 10 years, their time may have finally come, as their "incidentally homosexual" side has a new forum in which to emerge.

These are guys who'd rarely if ever thought about coming on to other men in a steam room, let alone ventured into a gay bar. If not for the web, which many of them with whom I've chatted say facilitated their "first time," a lot of these men believe they'd not have ever done it with another guy — and they have no plans of ever coming out as gay or even as "bi." Unlike those of us who are, for lack of better terms, totally gay or totally straight — or totally bi, for that matter — these men's desire for same-sex action decreases as the cost increases. Besides, women turn them on big-time. They're cruising into gay chat rooms online, sometimes inadvertently, and discovering that safely exploring a vague sexual taste they might not have previously realized is now only a click away.

"I found an e-mail in my box, some gay-related promotional mail," one guy told me, a 51-year-old married man who has only been meeting other men online for the past six months, and says he'd thought about sex with men just a few times in his entire life prior to now. "It made me curious, linked back to something else, which I pressed, and before I knew it I was in this chat room and found the conversation fascinating. As they say, one thing led to another."

Online, there are now countless sexual identities — making Kinsey's seven types seem primitive — between and beyond straight and gay, most of which people can wear for the night and shed later on, like any drag queen peeling off a ball gown at the end of the evening. On AOL there are chat rooms with names for every particular kind of taste and then some, from "BiMarriedItaliansNYC" and "WifeSleepingNextToMe" to "LosAngelesStr8M4M" and "Str8GuysLookToo," where men swap photos and cell phone numbers.

Some of these guys are even open about their buddies with their wives, though they never thought it would come to that. As long as there's no deception, they say, what's wrong with it? Sure, it may not be as easy at that, nor problem-free. But the internet does have more and more people finding themselves in creative situations when it comes to marriage, dating and getting off. I don't think right-wing-supported dating-service campaigns like eHarmony are likely to reverse that.