Wednesday 29 May 2013

Talk Dirty to Me

When I log on to a porn search engine, I love to enter the word “verbal” and then click the search button.  If I am watching a guy in Alabama jacking off, I want him to talk to the camera and tell me to “suck it, ya fuckin’ whore”.  Guys who are good at dirty talk are gold.  But there have been times during sex that fear has clamped my jaw closed wire-tight.  Am I good at dirty talk?  Do I have the voice for it?  Does it seem authentic coming from me, or studied?

Not long ago, shortly before starting this blog, I posted a video of myself jerking off on Xtube.  (It’s a piss-drenched, cum-play jack off, with good old Rob Zombie playing in the background.  One commentator called it a masterpiece, thank you very much). On the video, I talk dirty.  But I was very self-conscious about it.  Thankfully, one commentator said that hearing me talk was hot.  I’m not so sure.  I have had well-meaning friends tell me that I have a lisp, while other friends have said that that was incorrect.  A lisp cuts to the heart of a gay man, since it makes him question the authenticity of his masculinity.  But what makes a man a man?

I have a dear, straight-laced friend named Kenny, and when we are talking about sex and he uses words like “cock” or “dick”, he says them in a funny voice, as if to put imaginary quotations about the words.  He seems uncomfortable verbalizing dirty words.  The polar opposite scenario played itself out in the movie “Sophie’s Choice”.  In the movie, the character Stingo meets a hot girl with a real filthy mouth.  She has no trouble verbalizing – fuck me, fuck you, fuck fuck fuck.  But when Stingo attempts to do what she verbalizes so well, she balks.  Nearly in a panic, she explains that her therapist has helped her with her fear of sex by teaching her to verbalize.  She can now say “fuck”, but she can’t actually do it.

As a society, we become completely tongue-tied when it comes to sex.  Sex is something we all do, but we are loathe to admit that we want – hell, need – it.  My colleague Jennifer was recently dumped by her girlfriend of a year.  She told me that friends and family had comforted her for losing a companion, but because she knows I write a sex blog, admitted that she could share only with me that she was deeply upset about losing their sex life (apparently so intense, they would weep afterwards.  I should be so lucky).  She felt that her friends and family would find such an admission as trite.  Jennifer felt the sex was so good, that it made the relationship worth fighting for in spite of their differences.  Whether that’s true or not is beside the point.  The point is that if we can’t verbalize how important sex is to us, how can we even begin to say a word like “cock” with conviction?

The path to successful dirty talk is the same as the path to Carnegie Hall – practice practice practice.  You don’t need me to tell you that the best way to try something new with a partner is to try it alone during masturbation first.  Nothing is hotter that saying the words “nut sac” while grabbing your own.

I recently decided to take this practicing of mine a step further by attending a workshop last week entitled “Talking Dirty: From Mild to Wild...and Beyond”.  Picture it: me and four straight women in a room at an upscale meeting spot downtown, a spot so upscale that we were advised to wear business casual.  Our host was the amazing Katrina McKay, the founder of Ohhh Canada (check out Katrina's website here).  At first, I felt horribly out of place, the lone gay man amongst four very beautiful women.  Part of the workshop would entail actually talking dirty and my throat began to clench tight.

But as the evening unfolded, I developed a rapport with Katrina and those beautiful women.  Having a gay man in the mix actually seemed to add a twist to the evening that wouldn’t have been there had I not come.  I shared my feelings that while it’s pretty acceptable these days in Canada to be gay, god forbid you should be gay and sexual.  It’s fine if you want to get married, buy a house in the suburbs and adopt a foreign baby.  Some gay men may see me as a throwback to the 70’s where sex was a central feature to being gay.  In these politically correct times, I’m an outlier.  But one of the women said she could relate.  She was a mom now, and she said that people tended to de-sexualize her, which she resented.  It was as if having a baby had rendered her sexless to some.  I told the group how I love to be called a whore during sex.  I wondered if they, as women, resented that term, but to my great surprise, they quickly shooed that concern away as they too loved the word in a role-play scenario.

These women began to dispel my notions about women not being as animalistic as men.  One type of sex talk could be referred to as “Exclamations”, and one woman offered “I want you to blow your load inside me!” as an example.  Other types of sex talk could include “The Tease” (sending a sexy text hours before the scheduled play time), or “Instructional” sex talk (“I love it when you suck both my balls at the same time”).  We talked about having prepared catch phrases.  Preparing for sex talk is actually the only way you can feel free to improvise when actually in the moment with a partner.  We talked about a whispered command sometimes being more powerful that the full-throated command.  We even learned that nervousness about talking dirty can be endearing (“You are so hot, I can’t even speak!”). 


 It bothers me that we call them “dirty” words, when in fact they are fucking beautiful words.  And yet the sense of the forbidden gives them a power that both tantalizes us and at times paralyzes us.  But the late, great comedian Lenny Bruce taught us that words are just...words.  He laced his act with strings of profanity to reveal that words only hold power when we endow them with it.  So tonight, when I masturbate, I’m going to talk dirty to myself, loud and proud.  I will own the word “cock” and “cum” and “suck”.  I’m proud that I have the mouth of a trucker when I masturbate and have sex.  Where’s the parade for that?

Monday 20 May 2013

To Be Or Not To Be....Slutty(er)


Am I the best slut I can be?  That is the question...

When you’re a sex blog writer, and your blog depends to a degree on your identification as a proud slut, these are the types of questions you ask yourself.  Even with all my constant self-analysis, I still, on some deep level, harbor some crazy notions.  Here’s one crazy notion:

I might meet the man of my dreams at a sex club or bar or bath house.  But if I act too slutty, he won’t think I’m relationship material.  So there I am, in a sexual environment, and I’m holding back, especially if I think a certain guy in particular is amazing.  What do I mean by acting too slutty?  How do you act too slutty at a bath house, for god’s sake?  Is jacking it in the XXX room too slutty?  I’ve gone to bath houses and acted almost demure, as if I accidentally wandered in and don’t really know where I am, because I’m such a good boy.  Almost as if I was above it all.  At sex parties I frequented in Montreal, I would never be the first to unleash my dick and start jacking it, or be the first to go down on someone, because what would people think?  Instead, I’d wait for those men with no social decorum to start the night off and I’d join in since I’m there already, so I guess I’ll try....

Just who the hell do I think I’m fooling?  Would anyone believe that because I hold back and am not the first one to whip my dick out at a sex party that I am somehow better relationship material?   There is no logic here.   This is extra super insane since I don’t think I’m necessarily looking for a relationship anyway?  So what is holding me back from my slutdom?

What’s holding me back is Josh.  And Brokeback Mountain.

Josh was my first love, at sixteen.  He was straight, a year ahead of me in high school, a distant friend, but treated me like gold when our paths did cross.  It was unrequited love, but it opened my flood gates, a true watershed moment, with my tears over him shed at a rapid rate.  In spite of everything, I’ve searched for Josh in every man I’ve met since, to no avail.  I don’t know if he exists.  I don’t even know if the Josh I put on a pedestal exists.  In my mind, he was perfect.  Perhaps he’s not.  I did not know him well enough to ever find out for sure.

Brokeback Mountain did to me what I think Titanic and Harlequin romances do to girls.  They all create a mystique around finding “the one”.  I wanted to find a Jack or an Ennis while herding sheep.  I saw the movie seven times, each time alone, to revel in the fantasy of true love.  But after seeing the movie for that seventh time, I had a dream one night in which I saw the faces of Jack and Ennis.  The two faces merged into one, and then transformed into my own face staring back at me.  And I realized that possibly, just possibly, the greatest relationship I may have is the one I’m having with myself.

My true self wants to free my inner slut.  Does my need at times for hardcore sexual degradation stamp out the possibility that love could be found there as well?  What if my dream man (if such an animal exists) is a slut aficionado?  Because whether you are the type who is the first to brazenly pull your cock out at a sex party, or the shy last one, it won’t make a shred of difference as to whether you are this so-called relationship-material type person. 

I realize that I am both a victim of and a perpetrator of slut shaming.  I have avoided men who seem to be having “too much fun” at the baths, making all kinds of assumptions about them (“too easy” “probably doesn’t play safe” “probably this” “probably that”).  Conversely, I envied the freedom of those men with every pore in my body.  I could offer a course in hypocrisy 101.

Men who have moved past shame are my heroes, because of the courage is takes.  For some reason, I’m afraid to let other men see my unbridled sexual desire, even in environments where it is damn well expected!  I hereby declare that I am taking the shackles off.  I need to amputate that shame so that I can be open to the joys such sexual openness might bring.  After all, who the hell is being served when I shackle myself?

Tuesday 14 May 2013

Thursday 9 May 2013

Jason and Jon - Together Again!

Hello Readers!  This post is a little different from the rest.  Mr. Jon Pressick is an award-winning sex journalist here in Toronto.  He hosts a radio show called Sex City on CUIT 89.5FM (which airs at 11PM Tuesday nights) and I had the pleasure of talking about my blog with him recently.  Click here to hear us banter about the blog and sex!

I met Jon when I found his blog Sex in Words and reached out to him about my words in this here blog of mine.  There is not a sexual stone unturned on his blog and you have to check it out.

Beyond that, Jon has written an essay entitled "Holy Fuck: The Fourth-and-Long Virgin" for the collection on shelves now entitled Best Sex Writing 2013: The State of Today's Sexual Culture. (There will be an interview with the editor, Ms Rachel Kramer Bussel, in an upcoming post as part of a larger blog tour to promote the book).  Jon's essay dissects the brou-haha surrounding   football-player Tim Tebow's announcement that he is a virgin, and the meaning it has for us watching on the sidelines.  It's a stellar piece of sex writing.  I got to turn the tables on Jon and interview him about his contribution to an amazing collection...


1) How did "Holy Fuck: The Fourth-and-Long Virgin" come about and how did the essay find its way into "Best Sex Writing 2013"?
I like to think that Holy Fuck was good kharma coming back to me for years and years of free writing for others. I'm a big fan of Rachel Kramer Bussel's writing and her anthologies. I'd seen the calls for submission for the Best Sex Writing collections in the past, and just like in other years, the deadline passed without me putting fingers to keys. My writing runs in cycles—sometimes I can come up with topics and write freely and other times I can basically only write when I'm given an idea to explore. 
In this instance, Rachel posted on Facebook that she was particularly interested in a piece on Tim Tebow for the anthology and I jumped at the opportunity as quickly as I could. It was just chance that I even saw her request and I'm glad the internet was smiling on me that day.

2)What was your initial, gut reaction to football player Tim Tebow's admission that he is a virgin?  Did your reaction shift during the writing of your essay?
Quite honestly, his virginity ranked pretty low on the "oh my" factor of this dude. He was a legend in college football with a whole mythology created for him by a rabid fan base. Tim being a virgin just fed into that. 
Now, it is a surprising thing, a pro athlete who isn't out fucking whoever he can find. Athletes usually only come in "married, family man" version or "who's up next" version. Not many athletes, or guys in general, will come out as chaste. As I wrote the essay I did actually gain a bit of sympathy for the man. But just a bit because he uses his untouched status as a marketing ploy. If he were just a humble dude who chooses not to get any, I'd have more respect for him. 

3) You reference Dr. Don Sabo's essay "The Myth of the Sexual Athlete".  I can see how athletes exist in a competitive culture, and by extension a sexually competitive culture.  That in turn can lead to a sense of being "detached from the idea of sexual and emotional committment."  How might we explain the same phenomena of sexual detachment in gay men who perhaps didn't involve themselves in a sports environment in their youth?
I think this idea of detachment can exist across many spectrums. Musicians might feel the same way. Authors might. Academics might. Where there is success in competition, that detachment from commitment can grow. 
But you bring up an interesting idea here, that gay men might experience sexual detachment. Do you mean that this could happen just by virtue of them being gay? If so, then I think sports or music or any other outside factor is secondary to the "otherness" that queer people can feel. And when you've been deemed an "other" or different from the norm, I think it is only natural to develop a differing sense of commitment. 


4)  Society both upholds Tim Tebow as an exemplar, and also ridicules him for his virginity.  What does this double-talk say about the culture we live in?
It says we, as a society, are still struggling with sex as a whole. The two sides are at loggerheads because there is fanaticism from both sides. We aren't comfortable with an adult who is a virgin because of the massive pressure to pursue sex at all costs. At the same time, we're also not comfortable with someone who does fuck around all the time. There's no middle ground that is acceptable. 

5) You reference basketballer A.C. Green, a player who wasn't a "player" off the court.  His stance seems either-or:  You are a virgin, or you're a promiscuous slut.  Do you think he's missing a middle ground?
Exactly, that's what I was getting at a minute ago. Personally, I don't think there is a need for a middle ground. Instead, I think we need to eliminate the two poles. No more either/or. Neither of A.C. Green's statements are correct. 

6) What is your gut feeling, if it's possible to say:  Is Tim Tebow genuine, or is he a closeted gay man who "doth protest too much"?
As tempting as it is, I don't think Tebow will be claimed by the rainbow elite. I do think he is genuine in his beliefs, I just question how he uses those beliefs and throws the virginity around. 
Through all of his very public trials and tribulations, I do hope he meets someone he loves and who loves him back. 



Sunday 5 May 2013

Sex Obsession


I recently had a reader write to me.  Regarding my blog, he called my essays “good, honest accounts of a sex obsessed male.”  I liked the “good, honest accounts” part, but would you believe it Dear Reader if I told you that I was shocked to hear myself referred to as sex obsessed?  How out of touch with reality could I possibly be?

The thing is, I thought that everyone spends as much mental energy thinking about sex as I do.  I had to wake up to the fact that no, not everyone thinks about it as much.  But I would then go on to say:  Perhaps some people think about it as much as I do, and the others almost as much.

To all you wonderful sluts reading this, you likely think about it often.  But let’s not forget how often the religious right think about it.  We know they think about sex constantly because of the amount of energy they expend trying to keep us from having it.

Don’t we all walk down the street and wonder about the sex lives of the people who pass by us?  Is that person, who at first glance appears nearly asexual to you, really a wolf in sheep’s clothing?

I believed in the beginning that even if the religious right would hate my blog, my gay friends would like it.  This has not proven true.  I’ve shared the link to this blog with only my nearest and dearest friends, but a few have never once brought it up.  Maybe they just didn’t get around to reading it?  Or did it bother them?  In what way?  My goal with this blog is to shed light on things I think are needlessly (and sometimes harmfully) kept in the dark.  Is it possible that even some of my gay brothers want to keep it in the dark?  Or, is it that they just aren’t obsessed with the topic in the way that I am and are not, quite frankly, that interested?

In May of 2012, I posted an essay about what I considered the birth of my sexuality (Times Square).  I wrote something to the effect that I felt something was indeed born that night.  What was born?  I think an essential authenticity was born.   A deeper understanding of myself and how I connect to people.  In the years prior to that, I was obsessed with acting, and the theatre was my lover.  That was authentic too.  My goal as an actor had always been to tell the stories of my gay brotherhood.  But that never came to pass.  Instead I took whatever job I could, and so often it was in productions that had nothing to do with my reality.  There was a dissonance in my head:  An actor is supposed to tell other peoples stories, but I wanted to tell my own. 

But perhaps Mary’s essential authenticity was born the day she became a field reporter at the local TV station.  Maybe Ken’s essential authenticity was born the moment he realized he could make people laugh.  And thus, an obsession – no wait, let’s call it a passion – began.

I titled this blog Hunting for Sex.  I can’t help wondering if what I’ve been hunting for all along was simply myself.