Most gay men have heard of — if not clicked their way through — Manhunt, the ever-popular cruise site. Tens of thousands of men across the globe are online at any give moment, looking to make good on the site’s promise of “get on. get off.”

Who knows? You might even find a boyfriend there. If it’s true — and everybody says it’s true — that sex is the gay handshake, then one of these days maybe you’ll hit the jackpot. Thus, even many of the most overbearingly erotic profiles also haltingly express a dream of emotional connection. The headline of one man’s ad, next to a big close-up of his butt, asks, “Are you The One?”

Out magazine contributer Michael Joseph Gross takes a provocative look inside the site to explore this question: Has Manhunt destroyed gay culture?