Omar Ayuso Talks Sex, Love, Dating & Grindr Toxicity

Omar Ayuso stole our hearts in his role as Omar Shanaa in Netflix’s Spanish drama, Élite.

In a recent interview with GQ España, Ayuso discussed everything from Grindr to dating while being famous in an exclusive look into his life.

On the topic of Grindr, Ayuso’s movie, On the Go, sees his character Jonathan seeking solace within the app and becomes addicted to it. The theme of turning our anxieties and validation needs into sex is also a theme shared with Élite and one that affects the gay collective as a whole.

“There is a collective trauma, right?” he said. “I’m not a sociologist, but I think there is a collective trauma, a bad relationship with sex, with the concept of sexual freedom, with the concept of pleasure, with true desire.”

He said he thinks sometimes we use sex as a form of self-punishment and gay men in particular have a “validation relationship through the flirting, the physical, and that is so.”

Noting that gay men in particular can be very cruel and social media is just as much of the culprit, Ayuso said he’s also working on making his own relationship with sex healthier. “My personal process is aimed at relating to sex through desire and not lack,” he said.

When it comes to his status as a celebrity and finding love, he said it’s something that very much scares him. “I always have this fear of power difference,” he said. “I am very obsessed with consent. I would not like anyone to do things that they did not want. All of that haunts me a lot.”

The pressures of fame have Ayuso trying to verbalize “a lot with my sporadic sex, or with my already deeper relationships.”

“I thought that it did not affect me so much when I found love and lately I am realizing that yes, that I am very closed because of that. For other things, too, but that makes me very closed.”

Élite season seven premieres October 20 on Netflix.