I have a bit to add to your NYPress contribution (“Smack Time,” Oct. 21-27). Drug use, from my observations, is entangled in the culture of gay prostitution. As a gay male, I have seen a lot in the past 13 years in Chelsea.

I was naïve. I wanted a boyfriend. I’ve been to singles lounges, the LGBT Center and, for about 2 1/2 years, wasted time and money online at gay men’s “dating” websites…only to sadly discover that these are more drug user/prostitution/escort/pimp sites, not sites for serious male singles like me who actually seek, well, a boyfriend/date.

It’s not what it appears to be! The concept of diversity I’m comfortable with, and I support. But diversity can’t include crime. And escorts (massagers, aka prostitutes) are breaking the law. It’s not gay. Gay means homosexual, which means loving one’s own gender. Prostitution and drug use is not gay at all since those behaviors are not by nature or genetic, but of choice.

I see no love here. It’s completely absent in the gay male Chelsea community, which only thrives in porn, prostitution and promiscuous, albeit drug-riddled, behaviors. Love means an intimate bond, a hearts-to-souls adhesion between two people. It means responsibility and caring about one’s life and, even more, about your partner’s life.

How will our government ever then condone marriage for gays when Heritage of Pride promotes floats during the Gay Pride Parade with slutty, near-naked men in jockstraps practically having sex on stage (in front of minors and, like my mom)? Do any other (straight) parades perform XXX crap like that?

Drugs are only a small piece of a larger, lude [sic] picture. It’s time for gay men to grow up and be responsible.Thinking one is “gay” because he is a pimp, prostitute (escort/massager/model) or club-hopping with some overpaid, underage boy from Thailand or India, spending $$$ on alcohol (no love or sex in these “relationships”) is nonsense and stinks of irresponsibility!

We can’t have it both ways. Continue behaving like wild animals (who actually behave with rules and are governed by nature) and don’t get gay marriage rights.Put on a gay pride parade like the Thanksgiving [one] (with rainbows) and maybe we’ll get gay marriage rights.

—J.Winston Brat, Chelsea