Introducing ‘Into It / Not Into It’, a Column Exploring What’s Actually Good for Us

*photo credit: Ian Kumamoto

Nobody taught me how to be gay. Or if they did, they probably had ulterior motives, like the guy who swore that anal was easier than I was making it out to be because, well, he wanted to f*ck. My queer teachers were “Professor Pornhub”, “Dr. Grindr”, “Sir Seedy East Village Bar”, and “Miss Buzzfeed Quizzes”. 

It’s not difficult to imagine all the problems that can arise when we, as queer and trans people, get most of our opinions from other queer and trans people who are also trying to figure things out. When we are part of a circlejerk of recycled opinions—mostly informed by a cishet, white-centric society—we get messy answers that don’t always serve us. What’s worse is that we begin to think that there’s something wrong with us when we aren’t expressing ourselves, sexually and otherwise, in the ways that we are told queer people “should.” There’s no template for being queer, but it would be nice to get some informed guidance around here. 

This longing for a little bit of informed guidance was the idea behind Into It / Not Into It, a column all about queer discernment. I’ll be talking to real-life experts—doctors, sociologists, and others—and delve into the things that queer and trans people are talking about now, like straight men as besties, remote control dildos, taking PrEP in a monogamous relationship when neither partner is HIV-Positive, with the ultimate goal of sussing out what’s good for us and what isn’t.

At the end of it all, we’ll reach a final verdict: are we Into It, or Not Into It?♦