Hometown Hook-Ups

As you may have gathered, I live in a large Eastern city, and I live in its Gay Village.  But previous to this, I lived in a small city near the Rocky Mountains, and I’m writing to you from there now, visiting on vacation.  My family picked me up at the airport early last week, and as we drove into the downtown core, I spotted a place that caused my soul to lurch with a wave of sentimentality.  The place?  The Holiday Inn Express Hotel.

We kept driving towards my family’s apartment building located on the fringes of downtown and we passed The Westin, The Coast Plaza Hotel and the Carleton Hotel.  As we drove, I did my best to chat and play the role of “son”, but seeing those hotels recalled a part of me perhaps more authentic than that of “son”.

In each of those hotels, I recalled a hook-up.

And it wasn’t just hotels.  I had lived in this backwater city for a decade, and had had hook-ups in homes and apartments dotted across town.  On this trip, there would be no time or opportunity for men.  I was here to see parents and friends, whom I hadn’t seen in almost two years.  On the plane, I had already begun to slip into the roles that I would play – that of son and buddy.  It wasn’t until I saw the Holiday Inn Express Hotel that I realized that the role I felt most authentic in was the one I played when naked with a man.  I looked forward to talking with my family and friends, but I longed even more to be back in room #212 in the Holiday Inn Express, where words weren’t always necessary.  Instead, I and another naked man with a matching need would communicate on a visceral level – with words, if necessary, but also with taste and touch.

We continued driving, and passed the apartment complex that I had lived in while residing here.  I thought not of the parties with friends, or the meals I’d burnt in the kitchen, or the view from my 23^rd floor window.  Instead, I remembered the men I’d welcomed over – some of whom I’d connected with, some of whom I hadn’t really, but respected all the same.  Respected them for skipping the niceties of normal society and baring their need to me.  They would leave and I’d be left to wonder what their “real” lives were like, the life in which they had to put a mask on and return to being a son, a brother, a friend, a banker, a waiter, a doctor.

During a hook-up, I was so unmasked and authentic, that I could also be terribly vulnerable.  I would sometimes say goodbye to a hook-up, leave his place, and feel that I’d left a part of my soul behind on his bedside table.  There would be times when I wouldn’t really connect with someone I was hooking up with and feel dirty afterwards, as if I had raped myself somehow, my emotions shaken and stirred.  But that feeling would subside, and I’d be online again, looking for the next hook-up.  

Because often I would luck out and really dig the guy I was hooking up with.  Yes, I realized that even during the hook-up, I was playing a role (that of sex buddy).  But the role did away with worldly pretense and most of all, hypocrisy.  Thus, the role felt authentic, at least to me, and the by-product of that was that I felt alive and realized.

Living here, I had felt so isolated as a gay man that I believe I hooked-up sometimes for the wrong reasons in order to just feel noticed.  Now, living in a Gay Village, I am no longer isolated and therefore less inclined to hook-up out of desperation.  I used to think that hook-ups were just about getting off.  But if that were so, we could all just jerk off.  No, we hook-up because we need to be seen.  We need our authentic sexual needs acknowledged and accepted.  Even if we like being single, and feel that we are not the marrying kind, we still need to be touched occasionally (touched gently if you wish, or slapped hard by a gorgeous dom Master).

The new trend for gays is to resist being ghettoized and to not live in a Gay Village.  But here I am in my old town, and the world feels and looks so straight that I feel like a ghost walking through it. I feel a void here that cannot be filled by terrific parents and loving friends.  I feel castrated and lonely, and I would sleep with just about anybody just to be recognized as a fellow gay traveller. 

I’m ready to go home.

Anonymous Sex and Soccer Moms

Religion screwed me up about sex.  Celibate priests and sexless saints.    Feeling compelled to wash my hands obsessively just at the thought of arousal.  Terrified because I found Jesus attractive.  The lessons I learned in those days led me to see the sexual realm as somehow “dark”, while religion was supposedly the bastion of “light” (and therefore necessarily divorced from sexuality).  I recall reading a book that told me that masturbation was an affront to god, and that the only sex deemed holy was that had in the sanctity of marriage.

I got to thinking about the soccer mom who might, on a Saturday night, accidentally stumble across my blog while looking for a blog on knitting.  What would she possibly make of it? Would she cluck her tongue at male sexuality, especially gay male sexuality and its supposed excesses?  And on Sunday morning, as she sings “Alleluia” from her pew, does she silently pray for me, that I will turn from my sinful ways?  Does she pray that I’ll recant?

What would she think if I told her that I’ve seen videos on Xtube of anonymous sexual encounters?  You know the kind – someone posts an ad on craigslist and waits, ass up, for a stranger to walk in and fuck him.  When I clicked on these videos, I expected something dark, something frightening, but found them often...friendly.  It often started with a Hello, and ended with a Thanks (and sometimes See You Next Week).  Does our collective conscience deem such an experience as dark only because it falls way out of the realm of “normal” sexual contact?

Because what about our soccer mom, who after church, comes home where she and her husband have loveless sex.  Loveless because of twenty odd years of emotional wounds inflicted and resentments harboured.   Her husband hired a new, young secretary two weeks ago.  She’s noted that he takes longer in the morning to get ready for work and she is not a stupid woman.  And now, with her husband on top of her, she prays again, just as she did at church, but this time for him to climax and just be done with it.  But it’s all within the sanctity of marriage.  Am I supposed to see this as “light”?

Am I promoting anonymous sex, like the kind I described above?  Absolutely not.  It would be irresponsible of me.  I was robbed once by a trick.  I’ve had friends who have invited strangers over for play and ended up physically assaulted.  What I am suggesting is a paradigm shift, an awakening to the idea that if it’s safe, sane and between consenting adults, we might find sexual beauty in the unlikeliest of places, scenarios and kinks.  Alleluia indeed.

Apology

Dear (Unknown Name):  I was sitting on the edge of the pool table at the Eagle and I was in full hunting mode.  I was horny, and feeling aggressive about it – I wanted to get laid.  You saw me and recognized me from a fetish event a while back and reintroduced Yourself.  And I wasn’t interested.  And because I sometimes think the world revolves around me, I assumed You wanted to sleep with me.  Because I was thinking only with my dick, it didn’t dawn on me that You were genuinely just trying to be friendly.  And friendly You were.  You were kind, witty and had a gentle aura about You.  And because You are a sensitive human being, You sensed my reticence, looked at the floor, and quietly said “Well, have a good night” and walked away.

Then Paul walked into the Eagle.  Paul, my dream man, popular in the community.  I had met him at his fortieth birthday celebration a year earlier and we had kissed.  Subsequently, when running into each other at the Eagle, we would find ourselves in a dark corner.  He would spit on my chest and we’d kiss and swap horny energy.  But he was always somewhat out of reach – he never came home with me, no matter how much I tried to get it to happen.

Paul entered and I walked up to him and hugged him and the flirting dance began yet again.  But Paul noticed a friend behind me and said “Hey (Forgotten Name), how the hell are you?”  I turned around and it was You, the kind, polite man I’d just rebuffed moments earlier.  This time, You did not acknowledge my presence, and rightly so.  A group of men formed at the bar, with Paul the center.  We joked and talked, and I looked at You and smiled.  We were all friends, weren’t we?  But You looked down and away.  You had seen me preen my peacock feathers in front of Paul.  When you avoided my smile, I felt hot with shame.  My flirtatious dance with Paul now seemed pathetic and sad in light of how I’d treated You, Paul’s friend, so indifferently a few minutes ago.  You had class.  I had none, and I left the bar, without saying goodbye to anybody, not even Paul.  I was not worthy of Paul, and certainly not worthy of You.  I am sorry that still can’t remember Your name and I am so very sorry for my arrogance.

Dear Manuel:  Who says you can’t meet a great person at an orgy?  We met at 6 am at the end of an orgy on a Saturday night/Sunday morning.  When the party at the hotel dispersed, I took you home.  You were a stunning example of male beauty – latino, gorgeous muscles, an ass that wouldn’t quit, nipple piercings and a tattoo on your right hip.  Days later you emailed me pictures of yourself that you’d sent to PlayGirl Magazine.  There was no doubt in my mind that you would get a response from them.

I began to learn about you.  I held your naked body in my arms as you cried about the painful relationship you had with your father.  I felt you melting into me.  I listened as you earnestly looked me in the face one night after making love and whispered “No more hunting men online, no more orgies – just you and me.”

But my heart couldn’t crack open.  For whatever goddamn fucking fucked-up reason, I couldn’t feel what you were feeling.  And I so wanted to.  On paper, you seemed perfect – gorgeous, sensitive, loyal.  What kind of fool would bolt from this?  Only a fool named Jason.

Again, like the man at the Eagle in the letter above, you were sensing my reticence.  I could see it in your eyes.  You even had the balls to ask me if you were causing me stress, and I lied and said “No, no, everything is fine, everything is good.”  One morning, you woke in my bed and gently nudged me.  “Jason, let’s get up, go get some coffee.”  “Five more minutes,” I mumbled.  A half an hour later you said “Jason, honey, it’s a beautiful day, let’s make something of it.”  Again, I waived you away for another “five minutes”.  I never heard you leave, you crept out of my apartment so quietly.  We never spoke again.

We saw each other weeks later at the club.  You were with a new lover.  We smiled at each other and waved, but you looked wistful and sad at seeing me.  Your new boyfriend is a very lucky man.  What was wrong with me?

Dear Alanis Morissette:  You sang the line “What was wrong with me” in your song “Unsent”, from which this essay is inspired by.  In the song, you wrote unsent letters to men with whom you had some unfinished business, or something you wished you could have said to them.

Alanis, your album Jagged Little Pill was a seminal record for my generation.  Everyone could relate to you, as you discussed how men had disappointed you, hurt you, misunderstood you, or took you for granted.  How awful then that I should admit to often relating more to the men of whom you sang about.  Men whose hearts were un-open, or worse, empty.  Men who couldn’t connect.  Men whose emotional maturation was stunted.  I’m the guy that everyone always refers to as a “nice” guy, but evidently, I fail myself sometimes.  To know that I’ve caused pain to another man, especially one who has allowed himself to be vulnerable with me, is a jagged little pill to swallow.  And an apology seems hollow.  But, an apology this essay is.

On Broadway

Finally, my trick returned to release me from his bedroom, which had become my hiding spot.  “Okay, the coast is clear,” he whispered.  He lead me to the apartment door (fortuitously positioned near the bedroom), opened it for me, and whispered a quick “thanks”. Whether he was thanking me for the fun we’d had, or for leaving so quietly and quickly, I’m not sure.   I turned back to say thanks as well, but as I did, the door closed quietly in my face before I could utter a word.  And so I did another about-face and turned to leave the building.  It was an unexpected ending to an unexpected hook up.

Rewind by forty-five minutes.  The first character is this story is me at age twenty-seven.  The place:  New York City.  It’s a bright, mid-week afternoon and I’m heading down Broadway towards Citibank.  As I approach the Citibank doors, out comes a handsome stranger, about my age, with sandy-colored and curly hair.  We notice each other and The Cruise begins:  Our pace slows and we make eye contact.  We pass each other and I head for the bank’s doors, but turn to look back.  He has cleverly headed to a pay phone and picked up the phone as if to make a call.  But he is not making a call.   Our eyes lock once more and his grin at me tells me that he will wait for me at the pay phone until I finish my business in the bank and return to him.  This non-verbal interaction took eight seconds.  God, we’re good.

When I exit Citibank, I see that he is still holding the phone.  As I pass, we lock eyes and he hangs up.  We fall into step with each other and now shyly smile at each other. “ Hey” I say, and he responds with “Hey”.  “What you up to?” he asks.  “Not too much,” I reply.  And with that, we are headed to his place which he tells me is nearby.

Once inside his apartment, we head to the bedroom, and he is on his knees.  My cock is released from my jeans and he goes to town on it.  My fingers comb through the gorgeous curls on his head and he expertly gives me head.  He’s working it as if my cock owes him money.  He hasn’t released his own cock from his pants and I ask him if I can give him a hand too – fair is fair.  But he looks up at me and smiles and says he’s doing just fine.  So I relax and let myself be served.  I’m a man in my prime, and a beautiful man whom I’ve just met wants to take me in his mouth.  I don’t yet know his name, but who’s paying attention to details at this point?

I’m ready to cum, and I tell him so.  Will he take it in his mouth, or let the cum fall to the floor?  I don’t remember which option he chose, I just remember the flood of pleasure mixed with guilt, since he’s done all the work, and I’ve just lain there and been served.  Is this how he likes it though?

When I return to earth after the orgasm, we look at each other and smile.  He is really beautiful and we sort of laugh, partly because we’ve been so daring, and partly because we are thinking “what now?”  And that’s when we hear the lock to the apartment door click and the door open. 

“Hey Paul, I’m hooooome!” a female voice sings.  “Are you here?”  My trick (so his name is Paul, is it?) drops his smile and a look of terror takes its place.  I know instinctively not to say a word.  “I’m in my room, just changing, be right out!” he bellows.  He pleadingly looks at me and places a finger to his lips, but I don’t need to be told to keep quiet.  He leaves me in the bedroom, closing the door behind him, and I hear “Hey Claudette, what are you doing home so early?” 

With an overly dramatic flair, I decide that this is how Anne Frank felt hiding in the attic and wait until Paul eventually finds some way to release me.  He returns shortly.  “The coast is clear.”  His friend Claudette (roommate? wife? sister?) is chattering from another room as a frazzled Paul fumbles me to the door, opens it and with a quick “thanks”, gently pushes me out.  A narrow escape, but I’m out.  Dear Lord, I hope I didn’t drop my wallet inside.  I check and see that I have everything I came with and turn to go.  When I get back onto the street, the sun is still out, and New Yorkers are still scurrying everywhere.  Nothing stopped while I was playing Anne Frank.  And so I blend in with the crowd on the street and continue on my path uptown on Broadway.

Self Love

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

That's Life!

1)      You’re sitting back in the tub and a hot guy is standing above you, trying to piss.  He’s a bit piss shy, but you’re an expert at this.  You talk dirty to him, goading him to release his golden shower on you because you want it oh so bad.  “Mark your territory, man.....I need it....right on my fuckin’ face.....fuck man, I can’t wait to see that piss shoot outta that hot dick....”  And on it goes.  But there comes a point when you just run out of things to say.  You’re spent.  Even you can only manage “I’m your cum eating whore” so many times with feeling.   So you fall silent.  And lo and behold, he pisses!  Eureka!  That’s when a troubling thought hits you – he was probably just too polite of a fellow to tell you what he was thinking – to shut the hell up.

 

2)      Speaking of piss:  You get a text message from a guy asking if you’re free tonight for a hook-up.  You have no idea who this person is, and ask for his name.  He texts it and still, you are stumped.  You text back, saying sorry, the name isn’t ringing a bell.  He texts back with “You pissed on me and then fucked me.”  You’re still stumped because, hell, that could be anybody...

 

3)      Speaking of piss some more:  Carter and you have played and gone to bed (you’re letting him stay the night because he had too much to drink and he lives far).  In the middle of the night, he stirs and gets up and wobbles.  “Carter, are you ok?” you ask, but he doesn’t respond.  He lurches forward and winds up on the couch, which faces the bed.  He is looking in my general direction, but not really at me, and I realize he is sleepwalking.  He stands again, and I know very well not to startle a sleep walker, so I say gently, “It’s ok Carter, come back to bed, come this way...”  He gets off the couch clumsily and stumbles near the bed and then stops.  And pisses, all over the carpet.  I just watch with resignation – there is nothing I can do.  When he goes in the morning, I will be on my knees scrubbing.

 

4)      Speaking of my carpet some more...Ok, so you have a cold.  Is that going to keep you from an edging session?  Hell no!  Because tonight is special.  You’ve saved up a week’s worth of loads in a pill bottle and you’re going to play with it.  A strange fetish?  Not on Xtube!  You’re hard, you’ve had a drink, and this is the moment.  You open the pill bottle and take a whiff of the cum.  The smell is both that of bleach and manhood, and it smells divine.  The trouble is, the smell prompts a sneeze, during which you lose control of the pill bottle and the contents go flying onto the carpet.  My poor, beleaguered carpet – how much more can it take?  There is nothing hotter than watching a grown man with a hard on sniffling and scrubbing cum out of a carpet.

 

5)      You’re at the bathhouse, feeling like a million bucks.  You walk the halls and you know everyone there wants you.  Even the hot guy you just passed who didn’t make eye contact with you at all – he’s just shy, poor thing.  You ponder how he was probably intimidated by your sexual energy.  Thinking this, you suddenly feel your footing lose itself, and you realize minutes too late that you didn’t notice a step that was in front of you, and you trip.  Alpha male becomes bottom bitch in two seconds flat!

 

6)      You know you live in a gay village when you move into a new apartment block find out that your neighbour is a past trick.  A trick that called you for more and whom you never responded to.  A few nights later while out at the bar, you meet a hot guy who asks to take you home.  You discover that he lives in your block, and not only that, in the suite above you.  So you’re the guy who flushes at 3 AM on the dot each night!  You hesitate about going to his apartment for fun, because, after all, you shouldn’t shit where you eat, right?  But then you consider that the walk of shame home will be very short so what the hell....

 

Tattoo

With this essay, I know there is no middle ground – a reader will find this experience I describe as soulless and sad, or else a sexy, dark gem.  Which is accurate?  You decide.

It was the early 2000’s.  I was on gay.com when a guy messaged me.  He had one picture, just his flank showing off a cool tribal tattoo.  He said he was straight, and wanted to get blown, pure and simple.  But without a face pic, I declined and that was the end of that.  Fast forward a year later.  I get a message from the same guy, and he has the same picture.  But this time he asks to send me a face pic by email.  I give him my email and get a face pic in my inbox.  A blond stud in a ball cap, late twenties, kind of rough, a hard-working guy.  I say yes and he gives me his address, saying the door will be open.  He lives not far from me and I hopped in the cab to get there.

I buzz him and he buzzes me in without saying anything on the apartment intercom.  As is the norm for me with regard to a hook up, my heart is in my throat.  I know I will soon have a dick in my mouth, but will that dick be connected to a psycho?  How will it start?  Will he chicken out at the last minute, being, as he says, straight?  I approach the door, and can’t bring myself to knock.  I hear the TV on inside, and nothing else.  Crossing myself, I remember he said the door would be open.  This is even more terrifying, to simply open the door to a stranger’s home.  But I do.

I get inside and he is sitting, fully clothed on the couch watching the TV, on a low volume.  He is in that ball cap, a flannel shirt and jeans and he’s got a beer in his hand. I say hello and he barely seems to register my arrival in his home – he keeps looking at the TV.  I remove my boots and wander over to the couch, where, almost as an afterthought, he unzips and pulls out a tremendously beautiful cock and balls.  Needing no further instructions, I kneel in front of him and take his cock in my mouth.  The thing about it was that he smelled like – nothing at all.  Very clean, well trimmed.  I watch him alternately watch me and watch the TV.  Out of the corners of my eyes, I take in the apartment.  Somewhat messy, but with a great, tribal looking piece of artwork above the TV.  He takes repeated swigs from the can of beer, and proceeds to unbutton his shirt.  And I see the tattoo that I witnessed for the first time a year before on gay.com.  And me?  I’m in heaven, devouring his cock to the base, wanting to give him the time of his life.  Emboldened, I ask if he’d like to fuck my face, and without a word, he moves off the couch to let me lay on it.  He straddles my face and begins facefucking me, but I can tell that he doesn’t really want to do any work.  And he wants to watch the TV.  So we go back to him sitting on the couch and I kneeling between his legs.  Being so quiet, he also fails to tell me that he is going to cum.  In those days, I didn’t swallow, so at the first shot of cum in my mouth, I relax my mouth on his dick to let the cum dribble back down his cock.  My instincts tell me that he wanted me to swallow, but this is just the way I rolled back then.  Spent, he grabs some paper towel and wipes off his dick, still saying nothing.  And he keeps watching the TV.  He doesn’t say to leave, he doesn’t say to stay, just watches the TV.  There’s not much more to do now than to put my boots on and go, and as I grab the door handle, I turn back for one last glimpse of this silent guy.  He doesn’t look my way, still staring at the TV, so I quietly let myself out, relieved that I wasn’t hacked into pieces or sold into white slavery.

So what happened here?  I am not interested in reading my own essay.  I know what was going on in my head.  For me, this was a bizarre, illicit, on-the-down-low experience.  Whether he was straight or not, his claiming so was an aphrodisiac and a challenge.  His trust at letting a stranger into his space was wild to me, as wild as it was to open the door to a stranger’s home.  His crude level of social skills, I’m afraid to admit, lent him an air of mystery.  He seemed unattached from what was happening, and that mystified me.  So no, I’m not interested in reading my own essay.  What I want to read is his essay about the same experience.  His dick stayed uniformly hard the whole time, so on that level, he was aroused.  But if he was going to be that seemingly uninvolved in his own experience, why not just jerk off?  Could it be as simple as liking a mouth on his cock, and women proving too hard to get it from?  Could it be that he was gay, but disliked the idea of being gay so much that he nearly disassociated from the experience?  Finally, I wonder if I didn’t turn him on, in the end.  I messaged him once after to say thanks for letting me over, but he did not respond, nor do I recall seeing him online again.

I have trouble remembering what he looked like, but the memory of his tattoo is clear as if it was yesterday.  I wonder what that tattoo on his slim flank meant, just like I wonder what the meaning of the tribal artwork above his TV meant.  I wonder if it would provide a clue into the mind and heart of this man. The two of us, completely of different universes, met and had an extremely close physical moment.  But mentally, he was miles away.  I did not feel slighted by this, but rather intrigued, marvelling at the many ways people seek sexual release, for a myriad of reasons.  And like an anthropologist coming up short, I have no answers, just questions.

Hey Dude, Where's My Sex Drive?

The strangest thing happened to me this week – I rather lost my sex drive.  The idea of having a cock in my mouth is about as exciting to me as having one in my ear.  Now, I still masturbated.  It’s what I do.  But the frequency was less, the length of time it took was less, the pleasure was less.  Last night, in an attempt to get back into my usual sexual gear, I drank a ton of beer, but did not get drunk.  I watched a ton of porn, but didn’t get excited.  Dear reader, how lame is it that I have to tell you that I took a Viagra – just to masturbate alone.  I got off, but with a thud rather than a grand slam.

But desire doesn’t disappear entirely.  It’s a matter of transference, and I transferred my desire to something equally as addictive as sex – I turned to food.  I have just eaten a Big Mac, fries, and a junior McChicken from McDonald’s.  But a diet coke!   McDonald’s is my guilty pleasure and it was fucking delicious.  I orgasmed with every bite.  I brought it home so I could enjoy it like a pig in private (similar to my piggy conduct while masturbating).  I avoid McDonald’s at all costs, but tonight, I gave in.  It was the substitute for masturbating.

Where did my usually dependable sex drive go?  True, there are always worries swirling in my head – money trouble, conflict at the office, and so on – but that usually doesn’t get in the way.  Rather, masturbation or sex is the reward for making it through the day.  But this week, when I sat at my computer for my nightly, ritualistic jerk-off scene, I was listless.  And the porn seemed inordinately boring.  A cock goes in and out of a hole – big whoop.  Oh look, that dude in Minnesota can suck himself off – how nice for him.  Oh look, yet another gang bang.  Are there any cookies left?

However, I’ve gotten so much more accomplished this week, what with the extra time on my hands since my hands weren’t on my cock.  Even the fact that I am now writing rather than jerking off is a fine example of time well spent.  But if this lack of libido goes on for too long, this series of essays will come to an untimely end.  Will my libido come back?

Well, it’s gone and come back many times before.  There are times for even the horniest of us when we don’t want to be sexual, but to curl up in ugly pajamas in bed with a good book.  Or when illness, be it mental or physical, is knocking at the door, the libido takes a holiday.  And it can be freeing, not to be ruled by my dick’s every whim.  I can think about other things – world peace, getting my taxes prepared, trying a new recipe, searching for an old classmate on Facebook.   However, world peace is just too much for my pea-sized brain to comprehend, doing my taxes is as fun as having dental work, I hate cooking, and I could care less what my old classmates are up to.   Those alternatives just brought my sex drive back a nudge.

I think it might be a matter of my masturbatory routine getting a little....routine.  So I`ll shake it up a bit.  Maybe I’ll try dressing up, something I haven’t done in a while.  By this, I mean trying on my leather and my sexy underwear and parading myself in front of the mirror, doing a strip tease to Slayer playing on the computer.  But even that can turn on its self and feel ridiculous when your libido is low.  It becomes comical instead of hot.  So instead of forcing it, maybe I’ll just ride it out, put the ugly pajamas on and snuggle up with a good book – and a bowl of ice cream.

Masturbation

They say that for a drug addict, it's never as good as the first time.  Try being addicted to masturbation - it's always like the first time.

Everyone has a hobby.  I have a buddy, who, after a hard day of work, loves to come home to a bowl of popcorn and hours of taped TV shows.  Another friend takes her dog three times a week to the agility barn to watch Buster jump through hoops.  All very socially acceptable.  When I am asked what my hobbies are, it’s easy to spout out the usual – “I love to read!  I go to museums!  I play scrabble!”  But you, dear, lucky Reader, get to hear the truth.

I can out-masturbate anyone anytime anywhere.  I’ve got it down to an art, and Dear Reader, at present I’m finding that sex with another can’t compare.  My jack-off sessions are so fulfilling, that another person in the room would just be in my way.  And I need minimum three hours or else I won’t bother.  During sex with myself, I have no inhibitions, no qualms about what someone will think of me, I can be a total freak, I can be completely unselfconscious.  I can dance in the mirror for hours with my hands down my pants.  I can look in the mirror, one hand holding a Jack and Coke, the other a cigarette, and call myself a fuckin’ cum-lickin’ whore.  You know that pill bottle full of saved cum in the fridge?  Pour it on yourself.  Drink a glass of piss.  Sniff your pits. Spit on your chest.  Love the fact you’ve got a full bush when gay magazines say to trim it.  Be the cock of the block and do things you’re not sure you could really pull off with someone else watching.  Consume major amounts of porn.  All the while amazed at the gift that sexuality is.  There is a narcissistic element to this kind of self-love, but it makes up for all the times I doubted myself or felt inferior (or...does it stem from that?).  And it’s not a substitute for the “real thing”.  This is real. It always feels like the first time. It’s a date with myself, wherein I shower first, turn on the music, dim the lighting, set up any sex toys I might want to play with.  To me, it’s a valid as any other date I’ve ever been on.  Except I never get stood up this way.

Why can’t I just do this in private and shut up about it?  Why do I have to write about it for god’s sake? Why write this blog at all?  The answer is simple: Anger.  I’m angry that as a religious teenager, I used to masturbate for 10 minutes and then pray for forgiveness for half an hour afterwards.  The fear I had about sexuality in my youth was abominable.  Masturbation is not self-abuse, the needless guilt is.

I’m angry that some people would think a three-hour jack off is time wasted.  Is self-love a waste of time?  I think it beats Scrabble any day.

I’m angry that we all masturbate and can’t talk about it except through jokes.  But why must I share the dirty details?  Because we need to know that we’re not alone in our kinks.  Secrets lead to shame.  This blog is an attempt to shatter the hypocrisy around something that is a gift to be celebrated.  I’m also just plain curious – I like to know what gets other people off.  If it’s safe and sane and between consenting adults, how did it come to be that we can’t talk about it?  Why, after eating the apple in the garden of eden did Adam and Eve clothe themselves for shame?  I was not explicitly taught that masturbation was wrong, but as a teenager, I inferred it.  How did that happen, I wonder, just as I wonder where our fear of spiders, most of which are harmless, comes from?  And look at what repression does:  My adolescent guilt has spawned an adult that writes a sex blog.

But I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t admit that, after I cum, a touch of the old-brain guilt slips in.  And then I wonder if three hours jerking off isn’t excessive.  Am I addicted to jacking?  I’m a responsible person, working and caring for friends and family.  Can’t I have this without guilt?

Writing this blog entry is the last task of a long day for me.  It’s almost time to reward myself with my nightly jack-off ritual.  But a worrisome thought nags at me:  Why do I seem to believe that I can’t be as uninhibited sexually with another person as I am with myself?  What would it take to be that free with a man?  The joy with masturbating alone is that my happiness, fulfillment and self-esteem doesn’t depend on another.

After I post this, I will, in four hours, be a puddle of sweat, piss and cum.  What are YOU doing tonight?  Playing Scrabble?

New York Nights

I don’t know if it’s still there, but just before the turn of the millennium, there was a leather bar in New York called The Lure.  On Wednesday nights, usually a slow night for a bar, The Lure had the smarts to make that night their Pig Night.  You would see the ad in the gay magazines of a pig in fetish gear, underscored by the tagline “Men Are Pigs”.  Enough said.  Wednesday night is the new Saturday night.

Entering the Lure was like entering another universe – one filled with the smell of poppers and sweat, the sounds of thumping music, the feel of hot air, the sight of gorgeous leather men, and if you stayed a while, a taste of them too.  You could check all the clothes you wanted to check at the coatcheck (where do I put the coatcheck tag when I’m half naked?).  With all the bartenders dressed in leather and/or fetish gear, I decided to order from the one with huge muscles and nipple clamps.  Not intimidating in the slightest, he proved to be sweet and smiley. 

Two drinks later, I’m still not ready for a trip to the backroom, so I cruise the place.  So many dark corners.  In one, I chat with a guy who eventually moves behind me, wrapping his arms around my chest.  We keep talking and his hands slide slowly to my pants, and then in them.  And this is how I know that part of being a homophobic straight male comes down to jealousy, since this welcomed groping could never happen in a straight bar between a man and a woman (or could it? does it?).

This groper was the opening act, and now, I think I’m ready for the main act – the backroom.  An area of the bar is partitioned off, and almost dark, with just a few dim red lights to cast an appropriately sleazy glow.   What time is it?  It must be late, because the backroom is at its peak, packed shoulder to shoulder, cock to cock, with men touching each other as they squeeze by.  Along the walls, men are on their knees, servicing others, some of them being fucked.  I watched two men playing and they notice me and beckon me to join them.  They are standing, and I fall to my knees to worship both their cocks at once. When I glance up, they are either smiling at me, or kissing each other, both beautiful sights to behold.  This communion makes me cum.  I’m not sure if the two guys I’m servicing even know I have.  I release their cocks and smile and say thanks, and lead my dizzy self out of the darkroom towards the light of the bar, itself still so dim.  I’ve cum, I can still taste two men on my lips and am ordering another drink from the same nipple-clamped bartender.  He knows I’ve been around the world and back in the backroom.  He smiles knowingly at me.  Is he at that stage in his career as a bartender where he thinks this is heaven, this den of lust, or is he at that place where he’s seen it all before and longs to leave the bar and find romance rather than pigs?  I know both feelings are possible, and valid.  I too have been a bartender in a gay bar.

I get back what clothes I’ve left in the coat check and ready myself to leave the bar and enter the real world.  It’s dark still, and I leave a bit of my heart and soul in the bar.  I feel more naked in the real world, even though I’m fully clothed.  On the subway platform, waiting for the train to come, I steal glances at the few people around me.  Can they smell the sex of the night on me?  Can they sense it?  Being New Yorkers, they probably don’t care if I smell of sex.  At this hour, they probably do too.

I crumple into a seat on the subway and look up to see an attractive man across from me with eyes closed, sleeping.  It sounds like a good idea and I too close my eyes.  But when I open them again, he is eyeing me.  He grins slightly before closing his eyes again.  We pass this flirtatious ball back and forth until I realize that I’m coming to my stop.  At my stop, the door opens and I take a last look back at my sleeping beauty.  As I step off the train, he jumps up and leaps off the train just as the doors are closing shut.

Sleeping beauty is a dancer with an esteemed dance company, and he was heading home, but up for hanging out.  He follows me as I lead him up the steps from the subway into the street, and in the time it took to get home, a miracle has occurred.  The light has arisen on the city, and it is that holiest of moments in New York, when the streets and even many of the pigeons are still asleep at dawn and it’s just you and the City.  And in this case, a beautiful dancer.

In my single-room-occupancy room, the dancer undresses and lay on the bed.  His balls are hairy, a rare gift in this waxed age, and I cup them in my hand.  He breathes deeply and teasingly shows me how flexible he is by stretching a leg so far back that his heel nearly reaches his head.

My cock is done – what happened at the Lure was all it had the energy for, but I do have the energy to worship this dancer with my tongue, all over his body until I reach his cock and take it in.  When he cums, we lay together silently.  His energy is at peace and I instinctively sense that he is a nice person.  This is meaningful to me.

When he goes, I lay down, placing my head into the indentation on the pillow where the dancer had rested his head moments before.  My window is open, and I hear the sounds of civilians starting their Thursday.  As I lay there, I don’t worry that straight people, and many of my gay brethren, would think that I’m a stereotypical example of the promiscuous gay male.  I don’t worry whether I’ve got an STI.  I can worry about that tomorrow – and I probably will.  I don’t worry that I was seduced by men and booze.  Instead, as the machinery of capitalism begins to churn on the streets below, I simply fall asleep.

 

This Is Horniness

This is horniness.

At the gym, a tall, dark and handsome drink of water is doing bench presses, and every time he pushes up, his dark, hairy pits are on display – over and over and over again.  He’s in shorts, and his legs are hairy too.  You wonder about his bush, and quickly grab hold of yourself before someone catches you gawking.

This is horniness.

You’re at the leather bar, drunk, and pissing into a urinal.  Even though there are lots of urinals, another guy pulls up at the urinal right next to yours and whips it out.  You are two men displaying your manhood and checking out the equipment.  You look up at him and smile, because you are both horny pigs, you “get it”, and you respect it.

This is horniness.

You started a night of edging by stripping and dancing in front of your mirror – just mildly drunk.  By the fifth hour of watching porn, you’re wasted and hunched over the computer, a sad sack of a man beating it like it owes you money.  You edge it really close and then stop.   You think you are amazing and all powerful, even though you are a hot mess.

This is horniness.

You walk by a bathhouse on your way to meet a buddy at a coffeeshop.  The smell of towels being laundered drives you crazy and you know that talking about anything other than sex is going to bore the hell out of you.  Luckily your friend is also a slut. 

This is horniness.

You’ve met a Master, who starts off by only letting you get your face close to his dick and looking at it.  When he thinks you deserve it, you get to kiss it.  The lights are low, and the punk rock music he loves plays.  You start to quiver.  It’s a half hour before he lets you take his dick in your mouth.  When he does, you have a strange sort of body orgasm and beg for more.  After another half hour, he feeds you his cum because you are deserving and he is generous.

This is horniness.

You are chatting online with a guy you once hooked up with years ago.  You are talking about yet another guy that you’ve both slept with separately.  He tells you that he watched that guy get gangbanged bare in the back of a pick-up truck.  Half your brain asks why he took the risk of unsafe sex.  The other part of your brain is jealous.

This is horniness.

You meet a guy online who wants to come over at 4 in the morning.  You know he could be a killer, could try to rob you blind.  But you will risk it to be naked with a man.  So you hide your wallet and wait for him, half hoping he doesn’t show up.

This is horniness.

Nervous as hell, on a trip to Amsterdam, you enter a popular bar with a backroom.  After a couple drinks, you take off your tank top, hook it into your belt, and head to the backroom and proceed to blow a crowd of four men facing you.  Nearly simultaneously, they blow on your chest, each turned on by the sight of the others cumming.  You all say thanks, smile, and you put the tank top back on over the fresh cum and sally on down back to the bar and order up a whisky.  For these few minutes, you are the cock of the block.

This is horniness.

You are dancing in a sea of shirtless sweaty men, lights flashing and music pulsing.  You are on another planet, shirtless yourself, and you instinctively grab hold of your crotch and fall in love with every man on the dance floor.  Yet you wonder if you’ll be going home alone.  You remind yourself to just enjoy the moment, to enjoy the horniness.  You would like to make love to everyone in the club, but doubt that would satiate you.  What would?

 

The End of Bottoming

Writers often fear that they have nothing original to say.  I, on the other hand, steadfastly hope that what I`m writing about is not original.  I want to know that others have tread the same murky waters of sex in all its glory (and unglory).  I don`t want to think I`m alone in my experiences.  An isolation like that would be too hard to bear.  No, I don`t want to be original.  What I do want is dialogue with like-minded travellers on the quest.

This essay describes an embarrassing moment during sex that happened 7 years ago.  It forever changed my sexual behaviour, up to the time of this writing.  Could I ever tell my family, with whom I confide a great deal, about it?  Not on your life. Could I tell my friends, even my closest confidantes?  Never have, and probably never will.  So it’s down to you Dear Reader.  Sorry for burdening you.  The irony is that because we don’t know each other, I can be brutally honest.  I don’t want to write this essay.  And that is why I know I should.

In 1997, I got to know a local gay bar intimately, by working as both the door guy, taking your cover charges, and as the coat check guy, taking your coats for tips.  But it was years later that I met Ethan at said bar, around 2003.  No longer working there, just a patron, I was wearing a sleeveless T, perfect for showing off the biceps.  And it caught the eye of Ethan. 

Ahhh, Ethan.  Unruly auburn hair, freckled, built, about 25 years old, compared to my 29 or 30 years.  He looked jockish.  Our eyes locked and I sidled up to where he was seated.  Imagine my surprise when this jockish guy told me he was in from another province for a month to attend an opera-singing workshop at the university.  He also told me he was imagining what I looked like naked.  We kissed and high tailed it out of there, headed in a cab to his place.

He was staying in a non-descript apartment, sharing it with others attending the same opera workshop.  In his room, there was just a mattress on the floor and his luggage.  I had a soft spot for men just passing through town- no commitments, no fuss, no muss.   We two men stumbled into the ecstasy that two men find when the clothes come off and you begin to explore each other.  That holy moment of first touch.  And coming up for air from between his legs, I looked up at his face.  His eyes were closed.  He revelled in my touch and I looked at that face and thought: beautiful.  I took a mental Polaroid and filed it in a folder in my mind labelled Remember Forever.  To me, he was that beautiful.

 I wanted my hands to touch every inch of his cock, his bush, his balls, and finally his ass.  Eventually, I licked a finger and penetrated his ass.  And my finger was blocked by something hard.  Yes, there was a train in the tunnel.  No sweat, I figured, as I pulled my finger out.  We would forego assplay.  Ethan seemed unaware and continued to revel in the eroticism of our play.

We connected again a few days later, wandering the woods of my city’s river valley together.  And in those woods, he blew his wad on my chin and shirt collar.  He was brave and bold, taking my hand as we walked along the street back towards the university, to search for a cab to take me home.   In the moonlight, I got in the cab, and turned to look at Ethan.  There was the man, smiling at me, whose cum rested on my shirt collar (we’ve come a long way since the 1959 Connie Francis hit “Lipstick on Your Collar”, haven’t we?).  We had made plans to meet again at his place in a day or two.  I couldn’t wait.

We never know when we are about to face down a game-changing moment, do we?  On the way to see Ethan again, I was innocently oblivious to what would amount to a change in my future sexual behaviour.

It was summer time, so it remained light until late.  I arrived at his place at around 6pm, and we proceeded to get naked, the sunlight streaming through the window.  This time, it was my ass that was played with, and this was no problem – I’d bottomed a fair bit and felt comfortable as Ethan slipped on a condom.  He entered me, and it was no more nor no less challenging than any other time.  What I loved was looking in his eyes, and feeling that maybe this was the start of something good.  Just the fact that we had made it to date three was a near-miracle, given my track record of one night stands that never made it to a second meeting.

But the look in his eyes shifted suddenly.  And then the smell hit me.  It was the smell of certain humiliation.  I evidently wasn’t clean.  Dear Reader, in the many times that I had bottomed before, I had never experienced this problem.  I was so unsophisticated, that I didn’t even know how to douche.  How had I remained so clean while being fucked in the past?  Pure, dumb luck.  I looked down, and saw my mess had even gotten on his leg.  He said “Cum now” and I did and he did, quick and efficient, to put an end to this episode gone wrong.

In the shower, I was speechless.  I began with “sorry about....” and he good naturedly said “ Hey, that’s life”.  But something had shifted.  We didn’t have enough of a foundation to truly process a messy sexual experience, and I instantly became deeply insecure, searching for signs that he forgave me and my body for betraying our desire.  I was deeply embarrassed and was not cool about it.  For someone else, this may have seemed minor.  For me, it verged on catastrophe.  I instantly felt betrayed by my body and cursed my ass, as if it should have known better.  The stakes felt high – I really liked Ethan, and my brain was screaming at me that my ass had ruined it.

My plumbing was fucked up, and I needed to spend time in the washroom righting myself.  When I’d pulled it together, we settled on the couch, and cuddled while making a half-hearted effort to watch a movie.  But I was only half present – my other half was obsessively reliving what had happened in the bedroom.

I saw Ethan once more before he headed back to his hometown.  But I was now coming at him from a self-defeating angle, sure that I had lost his desire.  And indeed the signs were there, though I tried not to see it.  He held my hand, but it felt cold.  We said goodbye and he gave me his West Coast number.

Fucking synchronicity being what it is, I remember reading Dan Savage’s column “Savage Love” around this time.  He casually mentioned that if you have anal sex with a new guy, and you’re not clean, don’t expect to see him again.  And so rather than gather what dignity I still felt I had left, and letting it and Ethan go, I lurched forward and called Ethan instead, saying that I was coming out to his city for a vacation.  Could we get together?  Sure he said, but he had to go, it was dinnertime, his family was calling.  Did he call me back?  No.  Did I take the hint? No.  Instead, I bought a ticket with Masochistic Airlines and flew West as the summer (and my ass) was starting to close.

Ethan worked part time at a sports bar in his city’s gay Village, and upon arriving, I went to find him, and find him there I did.  Walking down to the beach, we made plans to meet that night and spend the evening together.  I remember he kissed me, and took that as a sign that he was into me, into this.  I felt I’d been given a second chance to redeem my wounded ego, and went back to the hotel to wait for his call expected at 6pm.

6pm came.  So did 7pm.  I left him a message – “Hey, just waiting for your call, hope you’re ok and looking forward to tonight”. 8pm came.  9pm came.  Finally, reality came.  I had been stood up.

I hit the streets, determined to salvage this ill-fated trip by going out, drinking, meeting someone new.  But any gay Village is small – I ran into Ethan on the street, completely by chance.  I had nothing to say, and was numb to his excuses for not getting back to me.  I suggested we not draw this out any further.  He agreed and wimpishly asked for a hug.  I declined, asking “what for?”, and we parted.  But fate loves to rub our nose in it, and we actually passed on the street once more, a day or two later.  Our eyes met and we both immediately looked away.  This man, to whom I was very attracted, who had cum on me in the woods by a river, who had told me that his friends liked me, who had taken my hand in public, was now to be treated as a stranger.

Another casualty was my ass, now to be treated as a stranger as well.

I recognize that I may have misplaced my anger about what happened with Ethan, but I blamed my ass.  Looking at things now, could it be that the same outcome would have occurred with Ethan whether or not my ass cooperated with our anal sex or not? I only topped from that day on.  Bottoming left me feeling too vulnerable.  I worked on my ass on my own time, thank you very much.  I was no stranger to my dildos.  So I didn’t completely shut down.  But many an hour was spent wondering what it would take to get back on the horse and bottom again.  In all honesty, I gave it a shot, once, but abandoned it quickly, still not ready to go there.  Topping was easy, no risk.  And so while bottoming might be considered by some as the passive or femme or sub position to take, I know the truth – it takes a real man to bottom.  Bottoming takes balls.  And if memory serves, the rewards are stunning.  The prostate should be celebrated yearly by a parade in its honour.

Regarding my ass, I let a mental block form, but now I realize that, as Ethan had said regarding my messy ass, “that’s life”.   And I very well may be underestimating Ethan – maybe he truly meant it and hadn’t been shocked by my body’s lack of finesse.  In any case, I know how to douche now.  So what’s stopping me from giving it another go?  Ass, it’s time for you to head out into the world again.  Ass, you’ve gone unattended to for too long.  This is an ass manifesto.  “The End of Bottoming”, my ass!  I’m going to get back in the game.  Ass, you’ve been so patient.  Ass, you need to meet a partner who’s going to honour you and enjoy you.

Am I ready to be that vulnerable again?