All Gays Are Promiscuous

• Main
• Laconic
• Playing With
• All Subpages
• Create New

The homosexual version of I'm a Man, I Can't Help It and All Men Are Perverts.

Alan is gay. Alan loves Bob. Bob may or may not be gay (or bi) and may or may not eventually partner with Alan; the story needs more time to bring that out one way or the other.

Alan, meanwhile, happens across a good-looking guy; blushes; and, within the space of a night, is picking up his clothes from the guy's floor. He may then go on to do as much with half a dozen more guys before the story gets around to answering whether or not he can hook up with Bob.

If this were a heterosexual relationship that we're talking about, it would clearly say something about the character of Alan as an individual (can't keep his pants up, even while waiting for his "love" to accept him...let's not even talk about how this would look if Alan were Alice instead).

There are certainly celibate characters who have heterosexual urges that they choose to control. Gay characters who choose to be celibate for any significant length of time are almost unheard of. If they're celibate, it's because they can't find a mate, or because they are forced into an abnormal situation.

This trope has some interesting historical basis, in that many gay and lesbian writers post-Stonewall (and a few queer theory writers more recently) advocated emphasizing difference from heterosexual and normative life. This difference included denigrating marriage and monogamy, thus strengthening the link between homosexuality and promiscuity in the eyes of those who viewed all homosexuals as sick sexual deviants.

No real life examples, please; This is a trope about how characters are depicted in media.

Examples of All Gays Are Promiscuous include:

Anime and Manga

• Gilbert in Kaze to Ki no Uta. Although this may be less to do with being gay and more to do with him having some serious unresolved issues.
• Possibly both of the characters from Kuso Miso Technique but certainly Abe, who sits outside the public toilets, asking good-looking men if they "want to do it" and then shows them his penis.
• Yandere Kanojo: Shuuei Mori. In his introductory chapter, the first thing he says to every guy he meets is "Hey, wanna go to a hotel later?".
• Prince Charming: Mostly Kagami, but Asahina is tempted to invoke this trope.

Comic Books

• Unfortunately, this trope is played completely straight in Associated Student Bodies, a furry comic about a young lion who discovers his homosexuality while living in a nearly all-gay dorm at college. While the story is presented, and usually marketed, as a more or less "realistic" story about gay issues, pretty much all the gay characters are presented as feverishly sex-obsessed, having polyamorous relationships with each other and just generally banging each other at every conceivable opportunity. The trope reaches its apex in issue 5, where it is revealed that the gays at Daniel's college organize a huge orgy every New Year's Eve at his dorm.
• Averted in the Furry Comic Circles though, unlike the other dozen or so gay furry comics, it hasn't yet devolved into this.
• Chelsea Boys plays it straight with some characters, and averts it with others. The main character's best friend pretty much says that this trope outright, and that the main guy is going against all common gay logic in wanting to be monogamous.

Fan Fiction

• Jim Bond in the Glee fanfiction series, Spah Verse.

Film

• Sacha Baron Cohen's character Bruno is pretty much every negative gay stereotype rolled into one person. Cohen apparently considered it homophobic to find this caricature unappealing, even though most real life gay people wouldn't want to be around a guy like Bruno, either.
• Wallace Wells, Scott Pilgrim's cool gay roommate, is characterized with this trope, even going so far as to lampshade it when chastising Scott for infidelity.

Scott: Double standard! Wallace: Hey, I didn't make the gay rules. If you don't like it, take it up with Liberace's ghost!

• Guy Bennett in Another Country has apparently seduced anyone and everyone at that college, and probably their brothers too.

Literature

• Inverted in Joe Haldeman's award-winning SF novel The Forever War. As a population-control measure the Earth government in the future encourages homosexuality. When the hero and his girlfriend, a hetero couple, are hospitalized together their gay doctor teases them with this trope. "Still in separate beds?"
• Vanyel is practically celibate when he doesn't have a lifebonded partner, but it takes his father most of his life to get over the knee-jerk assumption that being gay means being not only promiscuous but also a pedophile.
• David Reuben, the author of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask, sincerely believed that this trope was inviolable law. Along with the perpetuation of the myth that Coca-Cola made an effective spermicide, the preaching of this stereotype was what made the book infamous after its initial popularity died down.

Live-Action TV

• 13 on House: almost immediately after she was revealed to be bisexual, she started picking up one-night stands, and eventually became involved with Foreman. This behavior stemmed from the knowledge that she was slowly dying, and eventually accepts her shortened lifespan. She is later shown settling down with another woman by the time she leaves the show for good.
• Jack on Will and Grace (Arguably every character on that show. Even the straight ones. Then again, it is New York.)
  • Lampshaded in this exchange from an episode where Will's in a small town, looking to buy a home:

"Me and the guys were wondering... being gay and all, since there's no women around to say no... you must be just doing it all the time, right?" "Oh, nah. I'm sure I don't do it any more often than you do, probably. "Well that sucks. Pfff, why be gay?"

• Stuart on the original UK version of Queer as Folk even told Vince he wasn't really gay, but "a straight guy who has sex with men", because he preferred monogamy to sleeping around.
  • It's even worse in the American version, where there are two monogamous couples, and the rest seem to wake up in a new bed every day, and in one of these couples the term "monogamous" has rather wide definitions. And any gay couple who chooses to settle down is seen to be conforming to heterosexual norms by the rest of the cast; they are also accused of turning into "lesbians" on a number of occasions.
• Inverted with Barney and his gay brother on How I Met Your Mother—at first it appears that his brother is as much of a hedonistic swinger as he is, but then Barney finds out that he's settled down and engaged to be married. Naturally, Barney is horrified that his brother has gone monogamous. It's probably no coincidence that Neil Patrick Harris, who plays Barney, is gay and in a committed relationship in real life.
• Noah's Arc: Played straight with Ricky, though some Character Development over time helps to give him a bit more depth.
• Played with in Six Feet Under. David and Keith were not above giving their plumber a blow job just because, and the local gay men's choir is used basically as a sex club. Further, when Keith has a security job that takes him out of town, they mutually agree that each may have unlimited one night stands as long they don't sleep with the same guy more than once. They eventually change their minds by the end of the series after deciding that the lack of monogamy was doing more harm than good to their relationship and become completely monogamous.
• In one episode of Sex and the City, an Australian gay guy explains that he's in an open relationship with his partner, the rules for pickups being "no last names, blow-jobs only" on the basis that it's "unrealistic" to expect monogamy from a gay guy.
• Dante's Cove is made of this trope. Kevin and Toby are probably the most monogamous in the cast, with only a couple of "slips" from each of them.
• The L Word gets accused of fostering this image despite having a few committed couples considering how much bed-hopping goes on, with Shane having the most. As a result there's a fair number of real life lesbians who despise the show for it, among other reasons, and it doesn't help that by the end of the show nearly every relationship was ended.
• An old MTV late night series called Undressed had one gay character (who seemed to be trying to "convert" his roommate) explain this as something of a perk for being gay. His logic was while women are conditioned from a young age not to put out, guys are conditioned/encouraged to be more promiscuous and thus have less reluctance to sex in general, ergo it's easier to have sex if you're a gay man than a straight man because the target is more willing.
• Inverted on Stargate Universe. The straight characters have a fair amount of relationship drama, and the sole gay couple (Wray and Sharon) have the most stable relationship on the show.
• Inverted by The Real World's Hawaii season. Justin was openly gay and the only roommate who wasn't a drunken hedonist. He actually left the show because he was sick of their crap.
• Several variations show in up in Glee:
  • First there's Kurt, who was the only one of the New Directions boys who as still a virgin until early third season. He lost it to Blaine, making them the last ND boys to lose their virginity until Rory joined.
  • Played with in Santana's case who slept her way through the entire football-team before coming to terms with the fact that she was gay.
  • Britney's situation was also similar to Santana's. It's been indicated that she's been with just about every guy in school before she settled down with Artie. Unlike Santana, though, she's not fully at terms with her sexuality. She herself still doesn't know whether or not she likes girls.
    • She does.
  • Played Straight with new character Sebastian Smythe

Theatre

• A variant in Rent, as of the seven main characters, three are heterosexual and...flawed in their own ways, three are homosexual and capable of deep love and commitment, and one is bisexual and will snog anybody at any time. Being in a relationship with her is described as "The Masochism Tango Maureen" ("Did she moon over other boys?" "More than moon!")
• Angels in America has Armored Closet Gay Roy Cohn, whose many sexual encounters with men are the reason he's dying of AIDS. It also contains an aversion, in that we are never told much about Prior's sexual history despite him being who has AIDS but is implied to have been faithful to Louis (except for the one time that was supposedly when he got infected), but Louis is said to have played around in the past. It's later implied Prior has been letting Louis screw around ever since he got AIDS, which is made all the more heartbreaking when Louis leaves him.

Video Games

• While not involving sex specifically, Oshare Bones is rather flirtatious despite claiming to be waiting for a reunion with his long-lost lover. One of his victory quotes against Ocean Prince in Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary asks for the prince to "invite a lot of nice gentlemen" to the ball he would be hosting; in the same game, Oshare also expresses interest in Lemres, Satan, and Zoh-Daimaoh, even suggesting that he and Zoh go out on a date sometime.

Web Comics

• This is a big part of Blur the Lines. Though the main characters, Rick and Drew, are partners, they frequently seek out sex with other men. They are also both OK with the other's promiscuity, leading to a My Girl Is a Slut scenario.
  • Subverted Trope, though, when Rick refuses to feel up a man because he thinks the man's bitter ex-boyfriend may be watching them.
• A minor example from Questionable Content - one character lives in a girl's liberal arts college dorm with high concentration of lesbians, who exist in a state of constantly shifting Love Dodecahedron. She is also part of it, but later on expresses reservations about being that situation. Later on, Marten's gay father is introduced and actually proposes to his long term boyfriend, so it seems that not all (or even most) gays are promiscuous in the QC verse.
• A great running gag of this trope is Batuo the main gay Asian in Tales of a Gay Asian though he tends to like big fat meaty...White guys.

Web Original

• Complicated in the Whateley Universe. Poe Cottage, which is the LGBT dorm at Super-Hero School Whateley Academy, does have some gays who are taking advantage of this. But they're teenagers who have only just been allowed to express themselves, and they have a like-minded roommate. On the other hand, other gay kids are refraining from sex completely, or staying in monogamous relationships. Saladin, the only gay boy who has a point of view storyline, is strictly monogamous and seldom even sees his boyfriend.

Western Animation

• Parodied on The Simpsons when Homer, as a love counselor, advises the men who want to break up with their dance partner in a gay club to simply turn to their right.
• As mentioned elsewhere on this wiki, used to terrible effect in a Family Guy episode where Peter is given an injection that makes him gay. The supposedly pro-gay rights episode presents the injection as making him hyper promiscuous and being even less interested in supporting his children than usual, which is saying something.
• One episode of Drawn Together had Xandir go on and on about having had a LOT of gay sex in his life, even though he had only been out of the closet for a season and was not shown to have had many partners. Less Egregious than other examples since Drawn Together has next to no continuity anyway and everyone is a massive pervert except (sometimes) Clara, so it has less to do with his sexuality and more the everyone is a sex fiend.
• In the South Park episode "D-Yikes!" Mrs. Garrison thinks this is true of lesbians and tries to hit on one who's clearly spoken for.
  • Played straight with Mr. Slave, who managed to out-whore Paris Hilton.