 So now that I've done a little bit of rebranding and I'm focusing a tad bit more on social commentary, I've had some people ask me to discuss the James Charles situation with Gage Gomez, because people are asking, is James Charles a predator for going after straight men? And originally I was going to stay away from this, but I've been watching videos and it seems like people lack two things, two major things, an open mind and life experience. And I literally, I literally just made a video about how YouTube is hurting your mental health because the way the algorithm works, it creates this echo chamber. So I felt that it is my duty to make this video to offer a different perspective and also offer some facts. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, sometimes what I do is I'll pull different topics from the YouTube community and I try to take this mess and turn it into a message. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. All right, real quick story, but the chances are if you're watching this video, you're caught up, but I'll just bring you up to speed. All right, so James Charles had a bunch of his text messages leaked. All right, and basically this guy Gage Gomez, he went with James Charles to Coachella and James was attracted to Gage, but Gage identifies as a straight male. Gage ended up making some videos about the situation with James. James's text messages just randomly got leaked. And it's like pages upon pages upon pages of text conversation. And as I watch these other videos on this situation, like I just, I almost feel like other people read a completely different conversation than I did. All right, but as always, I want you to look at this situation and think about how it applies to your own life and mainly to also think about, I don't know, your own life experience and what you're lacking in the time that we live in and everything like that. So anyways, like to start this off to start this whole thing off, let's get to some facts. Okay, there are gay men who are attracted to straight men. Okay, there are lesbian women who are attracted to straight women. There are straight men who are attracted to lesbian women. And there are straight women who are attracted to gay men. Okay, there are four different categories here. And all of these people exist. All right. And I'm not saying like, oh, you're like so sheltered, you don't know this, but like, we're living in a really interesting time. And like, sexuality is just like this huge spectrum now and everything like that. But like, I just want to present the fact that like, James Charles did not invent this thing. This is something that's actually pretty common. All right, is it too common? Maybe I'm going to circle back to that topic towards the end of the video. But the fact of the matter is, there are many people, there are many people where their sexuality and what they're attracted to kind of doesn't mix. All right. But the second fact is that if you read those text messages, it does not look like even from Gage's point of view that there was anything done without consent. Okay, James Charles is a screw up. James Charles thinks that he is way more mature than he actually is. Based on brain development, you can only be so mature at that age. You know what I mean? But like, I don't know. I also feel like I had to make this video because these are very serious allegations. All right. Like something that was tossed around in those text messages was, you know, like a me too situation. And in my original video, like, this is just a messy situation that a lot of people get in. Even if it's not, you know, gay man going after a straight or, you know, by curious guy, like, this is just a mess all around where both people were kind of using each other for different reasons. You know, Gage was using James's emotional attachment and attraction, whereas, you know, James was probably somewhat using his position and his power and his money. You know what I mean? Like both are pretty much at fault. But based on those text messages, you saw that there was consent. Okay, there was kissing. There was cuddling. There was his arm around James. There was all sorts of stuff. So it's not like James Forks himself upon him. Okay. But the next thing I want to talk about when it comes to life experience is I'm not sure if the comments and the videos being made are by younger people because I'm 33 years old now. And it's been pretty well known since I was, I don't know, a teenager that around that time, people experiment with their sexuality, right? So we're looking at two young men here and people are flabbergasted that maybe people are experimenting with their sexuality. But don't take my word for it. I actually pulled up a study to discuss this. So this is an article from thecut.com. I will link the full article down below. It says, in an interview with the science of us, Twinge, a San Diego State University professor, and the author of the book, Generation Me, revised and updated why today's young Americans are more confident, assertive, entitled, and more miserable than ever before, said two things about the numbers reported in her study that jumped out at first. First, the sheer magnitude of the increase in the percentage of people who said they had at least one same sex experience. And second, the specific pattern of increasing acceptance of same sex behavior she and her colleagues observed. First, behavior. The key finding in the study is that the number of Americans who self reported having had at least one same sex encounter since age 18 jumped significantly from the early 1990s to the early 2010s. For women, the percentage more than doubled, increasing from 3.6 percent to 8.7 percent. For men, it nearly doubled, going from 4.5 percent to 8.2 percent. The increase appeared consistently across all age groups to those in their 50s and inconsistently for those in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, the researchers right. All right? So to kind of break that down a little bit, it is pretty common. Like this is a study from I don't know, four or five years ago, I believe. But it is pretty common for people in this age group to have at least one same sex encounter. Like they said, it more than doubled for women and it almost doubled for men. So this narrative created that James is this awful human being. Like again, he's done plenty of bad things, but again, these are serious allegations. We need to understand that in those text messages, Gage admits that he was curious, he was confused, he wanted to see, he wanted to test things out, and it sounded like he wanted a free Coachella ticket. All right? So now, the story time. So just a real quick on my end story time. Like these are things that happen. So back before I got sober, many years before I got sober, I was probably like 19, 20 years old. We used to have parties at our house all the time. And we had a group of friends, we had parties every single weekend. And one of our friends was a lesbian young woman. And one day when I'm walking up the stairs, like at our party, just doing my thing, she's like, Hey, Chris, I'm like, Yo, what? She grabs me and starts making out with me. I'm like, Okay, that was weird. And I walked away. So there is an instance of a lesbian woman grabbing a straight man to make out with her. All right? But I also asked one of my friends. So I asked one of my friends who identifies as a gay man. And I said, Yo, have you heard this story about James Charles and this guy Gage and these like accusations, you know, about James being a predator? I was like, How common is it for gay men to be attracted to straight men? And my friend, you know, he's not old, okay, but he has he has some years, okay, he's a little bit older than me, not too much older than me, but he's been in the scene for a while. So anyways, he texted me this story, which he gave me consent to talk about in this video. But for privacy reasons, I'm going to edit out some of the names and words and things like that. All right? So first, he starts out with his opinion on the situation. So referring to Gage, he says, this dude knew exactly what he wanted. He's a hustler. And he hustled James end of story. I know straight guys that straight up turn around and let him for months and years on end just to be taken care of. One of my friends hooked up with this attorney, let him and do anything he wanted with him just so he could live with an attorney and get taken care of. It happens all the time. It's nothing new. Gage is a hustler. All right. So that's his opinion. Okay. And this is not saying that all gay men do anything or all straight men do anything. But like I said, one of the reasons I made this video is just, I don't know. I don't know if the internet has created a culture where I don't know people don't go out as much if they don't meet as diverse of a group as before. Like I said, the way social media platforms work, they create this kind of echo chamber. And when I was 19, 20 years old, early 20s, like social media wasn't really a thing, right? Like my space was around. Facebook was just getting started. So all of the stuff that's happening today was much different when, you know, 10 years ago when I was 23 years old, right? So I met more people. I knew more people. I got to understand more people. I got to talk to other people and understand what happened and what went on in their lifestyles and things like that. So again, like I said, I was going to circle back to that topic. Like is it right? Is it right for a gay man to primarily be attracted to straight men? Or is it right for, you know, lesbian women to primarily be attracted to straight women? To be honest, I'm a straight dude. I don't know the answer to that question. All right? Like if I want to get down to the root and core of all these things, it's like just morals and ethics on a human level. Okay? It's, it's about consent. It's about communicating. You know what I mean? But I am a very open-minded thinker and like all the stuff going on with like gender fluidity and sexuality and stuff. If it's not hurting me, it's none of my business. Okay? So I don't have like this like staunch like opinion on that subject. All right? But it seems to me and in my personal opinion, the whole situation with James Charles and Gage was just messy, but it doesn't seem like anything was done without consent. Both of them screwed up, just move on. That's the way it is. All right? But this is not something new. This has been happening for years. It's not new. James Charles did not invent the gay man being attracted to straight men. It's nothing new. All right? But anyways, let me know your thoughts on this topic down below. Let me know if you think that, I don't know, people are sheltered. Maybe some of my older audience here, you can have my back on this because this seems like something that's been going on forever where people experiment and things like that. I don't know. Maybe I'm nuts. All right? Anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos and a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You're all amazing. And if you like what I'm doing here and want to help support the channel, you can click or tap on that Patreon icon and you get your name on the credits right here and some other perks and benefits like our monthly Q&A. All right? Thanks again so, so much for watching. I'll see you next time.