“Watch enough movies with gay characters at the center of the plot, and you’ll become convinced that the closet is, to put it in video game terms, a gay person’s final boss. But one of the hardest things about gay life in a flyover state in the 21st century for me had little to do with coming out. It was a problem of volume. There weren’t many meet-cutes in the course of my day-to-day life. The chances of the handsome guy at the gym, the charming barista working behind the counter, or the Clark Kent lookalike who came to fix my work computer being available were slim.
“There’s a saturation point you reach when, putting yourself out there as a gay man in Little Rock, you begin to recognize the same profile pics across dating apps. A fierce, animal loneliness kicks up, and you begin to wonder what will even become of your appetite for companionship. Will it become feral, romping through your insides while you careen from bar to bar, or will you stay in, taking your discontent out on yourself?
“Thus the need for something like the Arkansas Queer Men’s Social Club, a group founded by Paul Whannel in 2024 as a way to combat loneliness and isolation among queer men in Little Rock.
“Though the club doesn’t blush at members hooking up, Whannel is frank about the intention behind the group being beyond sexual desire.
“We have this goody two-shoes, Pollyanna feel that we’re very wholesome. But we’re a sexual people, and that’s not a bad thing. We should have a place to embrace that,” Whannel said. “But some people see there’s a social club and think that’s another name for sex club. People would come in and they had never been to an event. And they’re like, ‘Hey, who’s here that’s my type?’ And we’d have to shut that down and be like, ‘Listen, there’s a time and a place. But this is for friendship.’”
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