Am I An Addict?

My interest in sex and sexuality is so acute that it was just a matter of time before I asked myself that dreaded question:  Am I a sex addict?  And since I like to throw back some beer while being sexual, am I an alcoholic on top of it?

Here’s what my sex life is like:  I like to masturbate every single day, and usually for at least 3 hours at a pop (pardon the pun).  This has been my pattern for years.  As for sex with others, for a long time it centered around internet or bar hook ups, just on weekends.  I had no desire for a relationship, lived alone and liked it (still do).  Interestingly, now that I live in a city where sex is easily accessible, I’m less compelled to hook up.  There are more enticing ways to be with men, such as the monthly orgies that I have been attending.  The more the merrier! 

So if masturbation is my most regular form of sex play, could I be addicted to it and its accoutrements (porn and booze)?  One could be, yes.  One definition of sex addiction I read was that sex becomes a problem if you are using it to avoid issues in your life that need to be dealt with, or if you are trying to mask pain you’re feeling through sex.  It reminds me of the movie Shame, in which the main character uses sex in this way.  But I conversely can’t be sexual if I have an outstanding issue in my life that needs resolution.

Here’s how it works:  I get home from a job where I give my best, and come home and deal with laundry, dishes, grocery shopping and making calls to loved ones.  On a weeknight, I try to have this all accomplished by 7 PM.  Then I unapologetically turn off the phone, turn on some music and allow myself to get turned on.  It’s Jason time.

Tell me something:  Should this be pathologized?  Is it because it’s about the oh-so-scary topic of sex that we pathologize it?  Is it not pathological to watch a movie every night?  To read a book in bed for hours at a time?  Why is your hobby ok and mine a sickness?  Are we pathologizing our behavior based on cultural norms and cultural fears only?

I researched further and found that some types of sexual addiction include:  compulsive fixation on an unattainable partner, compulsive love relationships, even compulsive sexuality within a relationship.  Well, this is everyone I know except for Sister Helen at the local parish.  Behavior that signals sex addiction is usually of the sort that goes against your values.  In one article I read, it said that many clients seeking help for an addiction to masturbation "report that their internal beliefs about masturbation are that the act itself is dirty, shameful, or sinful".  But as you can tell from my writing, I value my sexuality.  I had to fight hard to get here.  To get to my current worldview of sexuality, I had to unravel all the things I was taught (explicitly and implicitly) around sexuality.  Do I feel distressed about my sexual behavior?  No.  I feel distressed, though, by the opinions others might have about it.

Is it not possible perhaps that at least some of those who seek treatment for so-called sexual addiction are simply those who unnecessarily feel guilty about sex, masturbation and porn, and would benefit more from learning to accept that they are highly sexual and see it as a gift?

I am not at all disregarding the fact that sexual behavior can in many instances interfere with a healthy life.  As in the movie Shame, if sex is the recourse taken to avoid dealing with personal issues, then “Houston, we have a problem”.  At the same time, what if your edging sessions are done after you’ve attended to your emotional and literal responsibilities?  What if the three hours you would spend to go out to the movies is replaced by going online for some sex chat?  There are a lot of bad movies out there, folks.

The sexual addict often must lie or sneak in order to act out sexually.  I lie and sneak a bit too because as open as I am, I’m not open enough to say what I really want to say to friends and family: “Listen, I’m going to be self-pleasuring between the hours of 7 and 10.  The phone will be off.  But I will get back to you first thing in the morning.”

So I had to ask myself, am I in denial?  A few months ago, I tried a little experiment:  I decided I would try for two weeks to not drink during masturbation during the weekdays.  I would only drink on a Friday or a Saturday night bate session.  The first night, without booze to fuel my bate, I just couldn’t be bothered.  I bated for two minutes and gave up.  Instead, I transferred my desire and went to McDonald’s.  Not good.

The next night I tried masturbating again, without booze, and it was pretty terrific.  But porn fueled the event.  I wondered if I now needed to try bating without porn because maybe I was a porn addict.  Sigh.  How far would I go with this thinking?  Would I no longer be able to bate in front of the mirror because maybe I was a narcissist? How much would I have to take away, how short would my bate session have to be to not consider myself addicted.  There is a saying that a slut is anyone who has more sex than you do.  How would I ever know when too much was too much?

When Friday and Saturday hit, I let myself do my usual thing – I poured myself some whisky and bated away.  It felt odd to be under the hypnotic trance of booze combined with horniness again after a few days of sober jacking.  I felt that with booze, it was almost as if another force was driving my sexual car rather than I.

Then it unraveled.  Sunday night I was not intending to drink while bating, but I did.  On Monday, feeling guilty (there’s that word again) for drinking while jacking on Sunday, I didn’t jack or drink at all, but was oh so productive.  I read in bed, but had that feeling of “isn’t there something I should be doing?”

Since I wasn’t drinking as much, my liquor supply was stretching.  I began to worry that the cashiers at the liquor store would start wondering if I was ok or had been in a terrible accident.  I wasn’t buying as much liquor and began to worry about the economy.  I questioned myself:  Had I ever been arrested for public intoxication?  No.  Had I ever pissed the bed because I drank too much the night before?  Yes, but I’m a watersports lover, so I’m not sure that this is such a bad thing, especially when you have a fantastic mattress cover that you bought online from Fort Troff.  Had I drunkenly phoned anyone late at night and started the conversation with “...And you know what your fuckin’ problem is?”  No.

Suffice to say I threw the whole experiment out the window, continuing though to wonder if I had a problem.  I had read an article on sex and masturbation addiction and it was there that I’d gotten the idea to at least scale back my edging.  The article had suggested that one try to abstain from sex and masturbation for a month and to note the feelings one had had.  I couldn’t carry out this experiment for a week.  But fast forward to my present situation...

As of this writing, I have been living in Toronto for two weeks, having moved from Montreal.  And I am not living alone.  My sister and I have temporarily moved in together, to split costs, and I am sleeping in the living room.  I am living the movie Shame wherein the protagonist’s sister comes to stay and interrupts his sex habits.  I have no privacy whatsoever.  Now, her work often takes her travelling, and I’m longing for that work of hers to begin, but in the meantime, there is no jacking.  Why don’t I quickly rub one out in the shower you ask?  It’s just not my style.  If I can’t edge for a minimum of three hours, I won’t bother.  I’m just not satisfied with a quickie.  Sometimes me and my sister will share a bottle of wine, but that’s a far as the drinking goes.  My feeling is “Why drink?” if it’s not going to be accompanied by my hand (or someone else’s hand) on my dick.  The move was costly, so I can’t just hit the bars or bathhouses to pick up a trick.  I have to make do.

So how am I doing with this abstaining from lack of sexual activity?  I’m a bit grouchy but try not to let it show;  otherwise, I’m holding out until my sister starts travelling for work.  I’m getting more writing done and working out more, which admittedly makes me happy.  Today I’m going to sort through receipts since it’s tax time.  How exciting!  I’m more caught up with emails than ever before.  My friends have no idea why.

And so it goes. In the future, I will continue to keep one eye open for signs that I’m taking it too far with my sexual behavior.  On the other hand, perhaps a sense of humor about it all would be a nice change from the constant self-analyzing.  I did the online research for this essay on sex addiction hours before going out the door to the above-mentioned orgy! 

So for now, this is my message to You:  It’s 6:30 PM.  So if You want to chat on the phone, best call me now.  You’ve got until 7.  Then I’m going to have to excuse myself to spend a little time with myself.  I’ve spent all day attending to others, attending to the necessities of life.  But now Jason needs a little attention.  I’m not going to get all high and mighty on myself about this.  I’m the kind of guy who likes to throw back a beer and get naked – sue me.  One man on Xtube writes in his profile “I am a cock worshipping sex addict and fucking happy to be one.”  I laughed so hard in recognition and thought to myself that if I and he are sex addicts, oh well...forgive us.

Interview About This Blog

Hello Dear Readers, below is a link to an interview about my blog by Toronto sex journalist Jon Pressick.  His blog Sex In Words is a masterpiece of sex positive information and entertainment.  Thank you Mr. Pressick for the fun interview!

http://sex-in-words.blogspot.ca/2013/02/the-hook-up-hunting-for-sex-cautionary.html

Booze

“One last drink, please.”  Last words on deathbed, Jasper Newton “Jack” Daniel (1849-1911, American distiller and founder of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey Distillery).

The orgy was BYOB.  And so, at home, I located three empty Gatorade bottles and filled them with Jack Daniels and coke, my absolute favorite drink.  I put them in my back sack, along with the other things one should always bring to an orgy: condoms, lube, poppers, some water, a tab of Viagra, and tic tacs to be oh so fresh.

The orgy was invite only.  I’d been to one of them before, the month previous.  It had been held at a bathhouse in the Village, where they had cordoned off a section for the orgy invites.  But tonight, for the first time, the organizers had found a space in a warehouse for the party.

I showed up at 11:30 PM and was greeted by Dominic, one of the organizers, who gave me a kiss and to whom I paid the $20 entrance fee.  Dominic, a bearded leather dude in his thirties, had flogged me at the previous orgy – something I’d never before experienced.  He promised to give me some new experiences tonight and pointed me in the direction of the coat racks.  To my surprise, just left of Dominic, were two men from a local safe-sex organization, standing at a table filled with safe-sex brochures and lots of condoms and lube.  They were there to answer any questions we might have about how to play safe and I thought, This is damn well organized.

At the coat racks, I hung up my winter coat and started to undress.  This orgy had a strict dress code: leather, rubber, jocks or you could be completely naked (“No deodorants or cologne please!”).  Tonight I would be wearing a leather jock, a leather ballcap, army boots and my black rubber wristband that sported two yellow stripes indicating my penchant for watersports.

I grabbed the first of the three bottles I’d brought of Jack and coke and headed into the main area.  It was tricked out with BDSM equipment I don’t even know the names for.  The room was dimly lit with a red sleazy glow, and a blue strobe light flashed psychedelic patterns along the far wall.  A cage was set to the right.  The room was already populated with about eight men, and we each found a spot to pose and preen, to eye each other and sip from the drinks we’d all brought.

I stayed that night for three hours.  The room only filled to about a maximum of twenty men, and I regret to inform you that I didn’t really feel attracted to most of them.  In attendance was a slave owned by the organizers.  He wore a sign that said if we wanted to play with him, we needed permission from the organizers.  Dominic’s partner, Cory, gave me this permission.  I approached the slave and...we talked.  I have a distinct need to know that my sex partner is attracted to me in order to have fun, and I felt that if I played with the slave, he would be doing it out of duty rather than pleasure.  In hindsight, perhaps that’s the key:  perhaps his duty was his pleasure.  But instead, I interviewed him about what it meant to be a slave, what his life was like.  Our conversation intrigued me, though I wonder if he questioned who let this leather-wearing Barbara Walters into the party.

By the second Jack and coke, I was sufficiently inebriated enough to doff my leather jock and enjoy the sensation of simply walking around naked, save for the leather ball cap and boots.  I watched men get fisted and fucked.  I dipped my toe in the water by letting my hands caress men as they caressed me.  But it was Dominic who came through for me in the end.  At my third Jack and coke, Dominic found me and led me to a separate room where he tied my stiff cock and balls up with a soft, forty-foot long rope.  Once it was completely tied, he pulled fast on the rope and it quickly unravelled, which set my cock bouncing and vibrating.  The sensation was one of pleasure and pain.  The slave joined the room and Dominic slipped on a condom and began to fuck him, while I sat on the floor licking the slave’s balls (his cock was locked up in a chastity device).  After a moment, I stood and the slave took my cock in his mouth.  Dominic pulled out of the slave, took off the condom, and made me suck him off.  With his cock in my mouth, he let go a stream of piss.  Like a champ, I devoured every single drop.

I left soon after.  I had to walk home, as the subway had stopped running by that point, but I didn’t live so far – just the equivalent of three subway stops.  When I reached home though, did I go to bed?  No sir, I did not.  I poured another Jack and coke.

At the orgy, I’d taken half a Viagra, just for insurance against nerves getting the better of me.  I’d also brought my trusty pill bottle filled with a week’s worth of cum, in case I had a notion to play with it at the orgy.  But that didn’t happen.  So now at home, I decided to continue the party alone, downed the second half of the Viagra and started to edge, pouring the cum over my face and pits and cock.

How many drinks did I consume before I finally hit the bed?  I don’t know, but I do know that in the wee hours of the morning, I was lying in a wet spot.  Evidently, I’d pissed the bed.  Tragic?  Not so much.  I have a cover for the mattress for piss play anyway.  I had been having erotic dreams, and only half awake, my hard dick made its presence known.  I lazily rolled onto my stomach, pressing my cock into the wet sheets.

But this is the turning point.  When you wake up soaked in your own piss after a bacchanalian night of revelry, you have to decide whether to feel shameful about it, or to feel that you’ve simply had quite a wild night.  I chose the latter and fell back to sleep.

When I awoke at three in the afternoon, I was hung over, but not of the headache variety.  I was rather still drunk.  And more to the point, I was intensely horny.  I got up and put on the kettle for some coffee to bring me back to the sober Jason that had to return phone calls and iron his work clothes for the week.  But while waiting for the water to boil, wearing only my underwear, I pressed my cock against the edge of the kitchen counter and I knew that my ironing would have to wait.

I was in a delicious booze haze and my cock wanted my full attention.  Now I was the slave, and rubbing my cock felt like an emergency.  I checked the fridge – all out of cola.  But I had lots of Jack.  Jumping in the shower, I rushed to ready myself to go out into the world for a brief, alcohol-dazed moment.  I ran – not walked, ran – to the grocery store kitty corner to my apartment block and bought cola and ran back to my apartment where I hastily poured a drink, shed my clothes, lit a cigarette, turned on some heavy metal, and positioned myself in front of the mirror.  I had everything I needed to edge, and I readied myself for that first, cataclysmic grab of my crotch.  In a hypnotic state, I rubbed my hand around my crotch over and over and over again, watching this in the mirror, in a state of religious ecstasy.  It was a communion with the earth, with my cock, my brain, my cock, the universe, my cock, my male brothers, my cock, my soul, my cock, my infinity.  Hyperbole, you ask?  If only.   I thought of the events at the orgy and it was as if the memory of the night was more powerful to me than the actual experience of it.

I eventually lost my erection, changed the sheets on my bed and fell into a twelve hour sleep.  Awaking for work the next morning, I felt still a little out of it, but not too bad.  Once again, while waiting for water to boil, I pressed my crotch against the kitchen counter and thought to myself “What a weekend.”

But a lost weekend?  Or did I find something?  What I experienced on that weekend was not a regular event that occurs every week.  Even still, I had to start asking questions (as is my wont).  Am I an alcoholic?  I only drink when my cock is involved.  If I go out to dinner with friends, I have no desire for a drink, since it’s a social occasion and not a cock occasion. 

But alcohol is part of every jack off, every sex experience.  So is alcohol just a tool I use to support my sex addiction?  Sex addiction is too large a subject to discuss in this essay.  I will come back to that another time.  The bottom line is that booze fuels my sexuality.  Why is it that when watching porn sober, it all seems fairly ridiculous.  When sober, I see the performers and wonder if they are happy and safe, whether they are only in it for the money or whether they get any pleasure from performing.  When drinking, it’s all hot and horny.

Years ago, I had sex with a man who was a recovering alcoholic.  He welcomed me to drink until I was hammered, as he put it.  I asked him if he missed drinking during sex and he said that sober sex was so much better.  I’m still not sure if I understand how that could be.  Is it that you can be fully present in a way you aren’t when drinking?  Are you more apt when sober to feel a truer connection to your partner?  Does alcohol give one the impression of loosening you up when really it shuts something down?

Most of the topics for this blog occur to me when I’m having a drink and masturbating.  The little booklet I write my ideas down in is stained with lube, my pens all sticky.  But I always write these essays sober.  Sober now as I write, I wonder if I’m peering into the rabbit hole by letting alcohol be such a steadfast part of my sexual behavior.  Or have I already fallen in?  Addiction, to sex, to alcohol, are topics to discuss later.  For now I leave you with this...

Jack Daniel never married, never had children.  And so I wonder – was he an earlier incarnation of a man like me?

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?

Smokin' Hot Sex

I just bought “the patch”.  I’m a smoker and I’m dreading the idea of giving up cigarettes.  So, in fact, right before filling my prescription for the patch, I bought a pack of smokes – one last hurrah.  The reason that I dread the idea of quitting smoking is that my smoking is directly tied to sex.  I didn’t start smoking until I was about 33 years old.  So I didn’t start because of peer pressure in high school.  I didn’t start due to stress.  I started because I happened upon videos on youtube of men smoking.  Hot men, putting dick-substitutes in their mouths and then blowing the smoke at me through the camera lense.  For all purposes, this could very well have been a turn off (“ew, gross!  Get rid of that cancer stick, your mouth probably tastes like an ashtray!”).  But for me, the phallic symbolism hit me right where I live.  And then, I found nastier videos of smoking men on xtube.  Here’s the strange part:  In my twenties, I dated a smoker, and it didn’t once turn me on sexually.  I never once considered trying one of his cigarettes.  If there are any psychologists out there who can explain my sudden conversion in my thirties, I’d be interested to know what happened to me.

At first, I didn’t know what brand of cigarette to buy, and I didn’t know how to smoke.  I learned and for about 3 years, I only smoked while jerking off or having sex, if my partner was so inclined.  So I felt I had it under control – I never smoked otherwise, and never even craved it outside of a sexual situation.  In 2010, on a sunny day in March, I had an enormously stressful day.  I had just moved to a new city, and when registering for a class at a local college took so long that I was nearly late for a coveted job interview, my nerves were raw.  I had cigarettes on me and thought what the hell - I deserve something that will calm me.  That was all it took to transition from being a part-time smoker to a full-time addict.

This year however, I began a thrilling ride into the world of stand-up comedy.  Even if others couldn’t tell, I knew my voice was being affected by the smoke.  And my coughing was beginning to annoy and worry people.   A trip to the dentist got me alarmed, when the dentist said she noticed white patches in my mouth, certainly caused by smoking.  She suggested I see a specialist to confirm whether it was anything serious.  I have yet to contact the specialist, as I feel frozen by fear.  I’m eager to quit smoking for both a better performing voice and to avoid any physical illness.  But, dear reader, I’m totally afraid that my connection between smoking and sex will derail my efforts at quitting.  (Excuse me while I go get a cigarette from this last pack I bought today before starting the patch!)

I can’t light up a cigarette without being made aware of my dick – it goes hand in hand (dick in hand?).  Allow me to get a little graphic with you.  There was a guy I saw for a while, another smoker, and it was with him that I first smoked DURING sex (not just after sex like we always see in the movies).  We’d light up, with me on my back, and he’d impale himself on me, and we’d grab our smokes.  I’d have one arm behind my head, watching this stud ride me, and we’d both be inhaling and blowing smoke at each other.  A little like doing poppers, it was a mutual event that was visually and physiologically a turn on.  On my first encounter with this guy, I remember us stumbling to the kitchen to refill our drinks.  I entered him from behind while pouring us whiskies, and he lit cigarettes for us both, all while he was being fucked.  Who says men can’t multitask?

My experience with cigars is limited, but who among us hasn’t turned to jelly at the sight of a muscle bear in leather chomping on a cigar.  It represents power and strength - a dom top who is going to fuck you hard.

They say that to end a bad habit, you need to replace it with another (hopefully good) habit.  What will this be for me, during sex in particular?  I had a hook up with an out-of-towner over the Christmas holidays, and he said that he only smoked during sex, much like me when I started smoking.  Can I return to that?  Or am I now so addicted that I can’t have any leeway?  There is nothing quite as good as enjoying a cigar or a cigarette while a bud goes down on you for half an hour.  Quite honestly, it gives you something to do other than just lying there.  It adds a different dimension to the blow job, both for the sucker and the suckee.

Ultimately, if I’m playing Russian roulette with my health, I have to stop smoking.  Why is it that the things that give us so much pleasure are often so bad for us?  Apples are good for you and I hate apples.  Apple pie is not so good for you and I love apple pie.  I hear that in spite of the patch, I may still undergo some mood swings linked to withdrawal.  I’m already in a bad mood over this – how much worse can it get?  Wish me luck...

Nick the Trick

It’s Sunday night, I have to work tomorrow and it’s already 10pm, but I’m hunting men online.  There is one guy, Nick*, who has been trying to arrange a hook up with me for three weeks.  “You’re fuckin’ hot – I like your look man,” he tells me.  He gives me his phone number and I text him my address.  He responds by saying he entered me on his phone contacts list as “Stud”.

I moved to the big city from a small town to search for a connection, and I’d be lying if I said that the connection I sought wasn’t sexual.  Whether that connection was to be found with one man, or the whole crowd at the Eagle on a Saturday night, it didn’t matter.  I’m a self-professed sexual adventurer - a nice way of saying I’m a slut.  I never bought into the word “slut” as having a negative connotation.  Was I ever thrilled when those Slut Walks were happening in 2011 all over the world.  Should I condemn myself for seeking connection with others through sexual means?  The world at large would say yes.  But of course that world is all too often hypocritical.  Try looking at it this way: Sex often brings disparate people together in an intimate way, people who might otherwise never have met.

But any realist will tell you that sex, and the hunting for it, doesn’t always bring joy – that’s why this column is subtitled “Cautionary Tales from the Quest”.  First off, hunting for sex is time consuming.  For all the time I spend on line, I could easily do a part-time evening job,  and I sure could use that job to pay for the drinks I consume at the bars.  Whether online, at a bar, at a sauna or at the grocery store, hunting for sex is fun...and tiring...and exciting...and disappointing.  It’s hot.  It’s desperate.  It’s an affirmation of one’s sexuality, but the ego can be bruised faster than it takes to click “send”.  Hunting for sex is a game that has no end.  And would you want it to end?  It can be an addiction.  How far you spiral into that addiction depends on so many factors.  But my question, as I walk down the street and wonder about the sex lives of the non-descript people who pass by, is:  Aren’t we all touched by this addiction in some way, gay or straight?

Back to Nick the Trick.  He’d been eating away his time by cyber-chasing me for 3 weeks, as I mentioned. He suggested that we get to know each other – naked.  My pics are recent and are body and face, me in all my naked glory save for the black underwear (he didn`t request the naked ones).  But I waffled with Nick – was I really attracted to his pics?  But it was time to shit or get off the pot and not be an internet player.  Then he writes:  “Are you masc?”  It should be a rhetorical question, because how else can I answer but with “ Yeah man, masc here”.  I’m pretty built, have facial hair, and like to fuck to heavy metal.  And I think Liza Minnelli is grand.  This can go either way here, folks.  He says he’s on his way.

He buzzes, I let him up, open the door and see it right away.  It’s a look I’ve seen before, and a look I’ve no doubt given before when meeting a trick – disappointment.  Something right away isn’t living up to his expectations.  So before I can decide if I even like him, I am challenged to change the look on his face.  He comes in and I offer him a beer.  I grab one for myself – it’ll be my fourth drink that night (on a work night).  He steers towards my couch which is covered with clothes and newspapers, and says “So, you live in the gay Village”.  Strike one – he is one of those gay men who abhors the Village and what it represents to them.  Undaunted, I suggest that the bed might be more comfortable to chat on.  He doesn’t look convinced but follows me in, where my computer is playing some good ‘ol rock n’ roll.

And we talk.  Or he talks.  Once he gets going, I find it hard to get a word in edgewise.  More to the point, when I do speak he has a tendency to cut me off.  But I’m a pleaser, and so let him have the floor, showing a keen interest, hoping this makes him like me – sad, but true.  But an hour passes and finally – he yawns.  He says that he should probably get going.  In five minutes he is out the door and we both know that that is the end of that. 

The door closes and there is a deathly silence in my head, even as the metal continues to play.  I hold my head in my hands and think these thoughts:  What did I do to disappoint him?  Was I not masculine enough?  I wanted him to want me, but am acutely aware that that is my ego talking.  I was in truth only mildly attracted, but his distance made me want to pounce on him.

At this point, you have two options.  You can turn out the lights, go to bed, curl up like a fetus and feel sorry for yourself, but I chose something different.  After holding my head in my hands for 30 seconds, I decided to reclaim my bruised ego and my sexuality.  I poured myself another drink, opened up a porn site, and proceeded to jack off.  Pathetic you say?  Oh no, dear reader, it’s called reclaiming your sexuality.  If Nick didn’t want me and my sexuality, I would satisfy myself.  My self- worth and vision of my sexuality wouldn’t be extinguished by one guy saying no.  The lesson here was that my sexuality, my sense of pleasure, was in my hands, not Nick’s.  In my late thirties, I was no longer willing to hand over my sexual self-esteem to anybody.  And yet...I run into Nick on the streets of the Village from time to time (he, who apparently condescends about the Village, sure seems to be spending a lot of time in it).  And usually we ignore each other, or quickly nod.  Invariably, a feeling of shame, of being “less than”, creeps up the back of my neck. I valiantly try to resurrect my self-esteem.   Then, an act of God:  The next guy that passes by smiles flirtatiously at me.  I say a little prayer of thanks for this boost from an angel and continue down the street, on a chilly Fall day in the Village.

 *I don`t really remember his name.  How the hell am I supposed to keep track of names?e`sHehHHHHHHjjj