Gay men will have sex anywhere, anytime, anyplace. They do not have the usual moral concerns associated with the heterosexual majority. But this can cause problems of its own. Longer relationships between individuals that require an intimate understanding of your partner may be substituted for repeated intimate casual sexual encounters at the local sauna or beat. Here the revealing of intimacy may be a different form (of communication) than those intimacies revealed in a longer relationship but they are no less revealing for that. These encounters can be exciting & rewarding but after they finish they could possibly leave a gay man feeling more lonely than before, lacking ongoing emotional connection and friendship with other men.

Friendship between men became a problem, according to the French philosopher Michel Foucault, with the rise of the power of the police and the judiciary in the 18th century. By the time the sexual identities of homosexuals were named by the scientific community in the late 19th century, sex between men had become a problem. Once named by heterosexuals as a deviant class of citizen they became seen as 'other'. Foucault says it was their [the identities] discovery which actually helped to construct these social identities and sexualities. Identification and re-presentation became power in the hands of the dominant hegemonic group.
Power produces a reality that is a particular version of life. Homosexuals stood outside the reality that was acceptable to society in that era and were persecuted for it. They chose to have sex in unusual places, such as in public toilets, beats or brothel houses probably because this was one of the only way for them to meet others interested in having sex with men. They often paid heavily for their perceived moral misdemeanours. Having sex with another man became an expression of their difference from the 'norm'. Perhaps today that difference has been turned into (s)express - quick byte gay sex, a constant and much repeated search for intimacy and connection.