What we know is that when we stop and pay attention, most of us want something much more deep than this, but we don't know how to go about getting it. So we keep acting addictively. It's that old adage about never being able to get enough of what you don't really want. I think, really, gay culture has always been dominated by commercialization. If you are over the age of 35, it's almost certain that you came out in a bar.
Bars are in the business of selling alcohol and fun, keeping things light.
I have repeatedly found that this is a volatile issue for gay men. Any time I have suggested in this column that we commercialize the queer body as an ideal icon of hairless musculature in order to defend against deeper truth, I receive nasty, personal letters. There is so much unconsciousness about this and the way gay men wound one another by not learning to speak from their hearts, just to lash out. Yes, I'd say the obsessive armoring of the body with muscles is a way of defending the heart. When the armor is chinked, the wearer becomes enraged.