What's Your Type?

What kind of man do you lust over?  Is it a smooth, buff gym bunny, or a hairy bear?  Do you like twinks or daddies?  Or does your type not fit easily into any one box?  You like a hairy twink?  Well, I think those are called otters.  So what would you call a smooth, hairless daddy?  When I hit the bars, I tend to go to the leather bars, under the (usually true) assumption that these men will be kinky.  But what of the college jock who likes to be tied up?  So often I judge a man’s sexual tendencies by his outward appearance.  But, perhaps that’s a fox in sheep’s clothing that you’re looking at.

I’m finding that my so-called type has more to do with what’s in a man’s head than the body that head is on.  Meaning, are we on the same page sexually.  But when I watch porn, it’s so often of the thirtyish year old muscle bear variety.  Coincidentally or not, that is the type that I would fall into.  And yet...

Today I took my sister to a theater production celebrating International Woman’s Day.  I wouldn’t have thought that there I would find myself sitting behind a startling attractive man, sitting alone.  He was not a muscle bear.  He was a clean cut jockish type who frighteningly reminded me of my first love.  In high school I’d fallen for Jack.  Jack was straight, voted MVP on any sports team he was on.  He was also extraordinarily nice, and we developed a slight friendship, though he was a grade ahead.  The man in the audience today threw me back to high school with a velocity that bit me like a snake.  I felt lust mixed with two other emotions: a need for love and a sense that I would never have it because I was somehow unworthy.  I felt both propelled toward him and away from him at the same time, because my heart sensed danger.  In that moment, I wanted the pure lust of my pornographic muscle bears where sexually I was free and emotionally I was safe.

I began to wonder how I would behave sexually with a man like the one I saw today.  I began to wonder if I could fuck the one I love, or are the two notions divided for me in much the same way some straight men suffer from the Madonna/Whore syndrome (ie. they want the mother of their children to be pure and chaste, and to have a hardcore slut secretly on the side whom they would never marry).

The trouble for me is that when love begins to enter this heart of mine, I begin right away to fear its loss, leaving me feeling ungrounded.  How then, could I play the dom and sexually assert myself with a beloved when it would appear that he holds all the cards due to my ingrained insecurities?   And at my age, without a true relationship already under my belt, just a few short affairs, has the chance for love passed me by?  I tend to see myself as a lone wolf, but that house of cards comes tumbling down when I see a man like the one I did today.  But let’s be real:  I don’t know the man.  Perhaps he is a jerk, perhaps he has kinks that would never click with mine.  What I felt today was what our culture refers endearingly to as love at first sight.  How is it that the molecules that make up that person can cause my own body’s molecules to frantically start rearranging themselves?  How do we develop a type in the first place?  I try to ape the type of guy that attracts me (again, the muscle bears).  What of the men who are interested in types directly in opposition to their own?

“He’s not my type.” “What’s your type?”  Statements and questions such as these are short.  The answers are not.

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.

Fetishes: PISS

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Poz Friendly

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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

Death, and Rebirth

The plane to my new home of Montreal couldn’t fly fast enough.

A year and a half before that flight to Montreal, I had visited Montreal and Toronto on vacation.  But it wasn’t really a vacation – I was scouting out the two cities in an effort to decide which one I wanted to move to.  I was living in a small city in Western Canada, and I was dying from the sense of isolation I felt there.  Isolation from men like me, isolation from the creativity that is borne of shared sexuality.  Yes, I had gay male friends in the West, but the dating (fucking?) pool was small and incestuous.  The two small gay bars were emptied out, ravaged by the internet.  Online, on Manhunt or Squirt, there were hardly any men in my city online.  The city had two bathhouses, and this presented a problem.  Which one will have the most men?  I always assumed that the one I chose for the night was the wrong one, since I often was the only man there, wondering lost and alone in a towel and a bad mood.

It was not a city for a slut like me.

But what is a slut?  A slut to me is a person who needs to connect with more than just one person, and on multiple levels, and that connection is borne through the conduit of sexuality.  It’s a polyamorous notion.  It’s not negative in the least, and neither does it negate the fact that I may choose monogamy at some point.  I’ll leave it at that, since I don’t wish to defend myself any longer on the issue of sluthood.

And so after visiting Montreal, I headed to Toronto, and sat in a Starbucks in Toronto’s Village, and made a list of pros and cons regarding the two major centers.  Almost all the pros favored moving to Toronto, because ultimately, Montreal is a French-speaking city.  I speak French (as one person put it) like a third grader with head trauma.  But Montreal is also a dirty, sexy city light years ahead of the rest of North America in its openness to sex.  I was intrigued.  I was ignorant.  I was naive.  Most of all, I was hopeful.  I chose to move to Montreal.

A year and a half later, I landed in my new city and in the cab, I wept at the first sight of Montreal’s downtown skyline.

It is now three years later, and I have just left Montreal.  Guess where I moved to yesterday?

Toronto.

My job paid shit in Montreal, and layoffs were being announced.  I never did master the French language.  A job offer presented itself in Toronto and I took it.  Last Sunday, I stood in my emptied-out apartment in the Montreal Village, and I sobbed.  The sobs echoed in the empty space.  I sobbed because in spite of the fact that I, an Anglophone, had no business living in Montreal, Montreal had opened its arms to me and healed me.  That healing began on the stages of comedy clubs.

At work one day, a co-worker laughed at my impromptu jokes and said I was funny.  Then, she dared me to write my jokes down and create an act for a comedy club.  I took the bait.  What was born was an act that centered around being a horny, thirty-something man living in Montreal’s Gay Village.  I would hit the stage, telling the audience that “I never remember a face unless I’ve sat on it” and close with this:

“I’m a horny guy, as you can tell, but the strangest things happened to me this week:  I lost my sex drive.  But you see, when you lose your sex drive, that passion doesn’t just disappear, oh no, it just finds a new way to flow.  And for me, it flows right to the fridge.  When I lose my sex drive, I want to EAT everything in sight.  Like, have you ever had the experience where you’re being gangbanged by four guys, and all you can think is “Gee, I’d love a jelly donut...”

I won a few contests and some money.  My friends and family who came to watch my act gently suggested that I might want to broaden my comedy horizons and write jokes about something other than gay dating and sex.  I adamantly refused.  I couldn’t make a political joke for the life of me, and didn’t want to.  There are two great moments in one’s life:  The moment you are born, and the moment you know what you were born for.  I felt that I was born to communicate my experiences as a gay, sexual being.

Less than a year ago, I gave birth to this blog.  When I was doing my comedy act, my sister would listen and say “It’s good Jason, but go deeper.”  I never could figure out how to fully flesh out the difficult parts of my sexual journey and still be funny.  But with this blog, I didn’t have to worry about getting immediate laughter from a crowd.  I didn’t have to be a dancing monkey on a stage.  I let the comedy act go and focused on this blog.

Men - men like You reading this - began to write to me or comment right on the blog, and it cracked me wide open.  There was this frank, honest dialogue about our respective sexual journeys.  I felt nothing less than honored and humbled by the messages I received.

Last Saturday, my dear friend Alex threw me a going away party.  Alex had recently had a stroke and had fought his way back, regaining his ability to speak and walk after much arduous therapy.  He’s a slut too, and he said he had to get better – “There are men still to fuck!”  After the ordeal of being in a rehabilitation center for four months, he was able to return home, and upon doing so, slowly walked himself to a tattoo parlour and had the word “Courage” tattooed on his forearm.  Courage is, to me, the hottest thing about a person. 

At this going away party, Alex’s many neighbours showed up.  I drank myself silly and necked with two of the guests before stumbling home.  In the morning, my mattress was wet with piss.  No biggie, the mattress was going in the trash, and truthfully, that was an appropriate ending for this piss pig.  After my aforementioned sob in the empty apartment, I moved my luggage out into the hallway, and looked at that apartment one last time.  I breathed in the beginnings that had occurred while living within those four walls.  I silently thanked Montreal for the gift of life, for the men I had known in its wonderful Village, for the return of a creative life.  I said thank you, and then closed the door.

And so, tonight, my first night living in Toronto’s Gay Village, I am back where I started, writing this at the Starbucks where I had once made my list of pros and cons about whether to live in Montreal or Toronto.  We are not born once, nor do we die once.  Life is a series of births followed by deaths followed by rebirths.  What sexual journeys will I encounter here in Toronto?  Will you, Dear Reader, continue to share with me your sexual journey so that I may learn from you?  Toronto, will you welcome me as I, a gypsy at heart, start anew?  Men of Toronto, will the encounters I have with you illuminate our sexual lives, will we connect?  Sexual attraction can bring together disparate people who might never otherwise have met.  Who will I meet and how?  Most importantly, will I meet myself more fully in the process?  Hello Toronto.  My name is Jason Armstrong.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam.   The city famous for its red light district.  However, one lane over, and you are in the blue light district – the gay section.  Picture it – Summer of 2002.  I was wrapping up a three month run in a production of “Singin’ in the Rain” at a theatre in Western Canada.  Just the chorus, nothing to get excited about.  I decided that I was long overdue to have a Summer (or at least three weeks) in Europe.  (My last time in Europe was at age 16 as an exchange student in France.  This time, I would be seeing and experiencing it through adult lenses).   Being the slut that I am, I was going to hit two of the biggest gay meccas Europe had to offer – Amsterdam and Berlin.  From the tour guides that I read, it seemed that every bar in those two cities had backrooms, and I intended to get to know each one.  So I packed my sexiest clothes, my leather, and those tour guides, and flew across the Atlantic.

In Amsterdam, I had booked a bed and breakfast, The Golden Bear (men only).  I was staying on the top floor, and like you see only in Europe, I had to ascend up the narrowest staircase I had ever seen.  After freshening up, I headed out on to the street to get acclimatized to my new neighbourhood, where I would be staying for a week.  I found a quaint cafe nearby and had dinner on the patio.  Next to me sat a gentleman of Arab descent, and seeing the tour guide in my hand, asked me where I was travelling from.  He himself was a student in London and said that every now and again he took the short flight to Amsterdam to have a good time.  Did he have any advice on where to have a good time? I asked.  He pointed across the street at a bath house, saying he’d had many a good time there.  And so I thought about it:  I was really keen to hit the blue light district’s bars and backrooms and dungeons, but evening was upon me.  I hadn’t yet figured out how to get to the blue light district, and so, even though a bath house wasn’t new for me, it seemed right for tonight, at least, to stay close to the B&B.  I thanked my first of many angels on this trip for his advice and excitedly went back to the B&B to get ready.

As I headed to the bathhouse, I felt like Dorothy in Oz, and I knew that this was the beginning of some type of sexual adventure.  Who would I meet, both tonight but also throughout this European vacation?  What would happen?  Would it all be sunshine and lollipops, or was trouble lurking?  There is no walk longer than the walk to a bath house.  You are filled with a mixture of excitement, embarrassment, dread, and again excitement.  By time you reach the door, you are often whacked out with panic and a racing heart.  If I can just get myself through the door, I’ll be ok, you tell yourself.  And once you’re in the door, you feel as if you’ve reached Everest.  And to reference Oz again, I felt like the cowardly lion approaching the door to the bathhouse.  I had come to Europe to experience sexual freedom.  Was I going to abandon that goal due to nerves and just visit museums?  No.  (Well, I did visit the torture museum, so there).

Once safely inside the bathhouse, I noticed that it was A-1 quality – modern and big, with at least three levels.  But unlike any bathhouse I’d been to before, there were no rooms to rent, just lockers.  I soon understood why.  Instead of rooms, there were loads of cabins, with beds that didn’t have sheets, just vinyl coverings.   The cabins had no ceilings, and the walls were so low that by standing on the bed, you could look directly into your neighbour’s cabin and watch them – an exhibitionist’s paradise!  This worked for me, but I wondered about those for whom privacy is a must while having sex.  I assumed that those folks would just not choose to frequent this particular establishment.

After showering and cruising a bit, I met a guy named Marco – a cute blond Italian who had once been to my home city in Canada.  And into a cabin we went.  A great guy, Marco and I talked as much as we had sex.  I topped him, using a condom.  He came, but I didn’t.  I wasn’t ready for the night to end – I wanted more.  Marco seemed disappointed that I didn’t come with him, and I had a hard time explaining that I wanted to stay longer.  I still wasn’t owning up to my sluttiness and couldn’t just be forthright and say I wanted to cruise around some more.  We left the cabin, said our goodbyes, and I showered and carried on.

I headed into the movie theatre, and upon entering, encountered a hot guy with dark, curly locks.  When he saw me, our eyes met and he straightened up, and I knew he was the one.  I sat near him, with just one theatre seat between us, and had one eye on the porn playing on the screen, and him in my peripheral vision.  Ladies and Gentlemen, what comes next is an age-old mating ritual between two men at a bathhouse.  It goes like this:  I inch my foot casually closer in his direction, so casual that it’s almost imperceptible.  Then he does the same.  That is my cue to move my foot a bit closer to his.  And he does the same.  Finally our feet touch.  Then what?  Well, someone has to do something.  And what he did was get up and leave.  I instinctually followed, and hoping he would, he turned back to check if I was following.  Wordlessly, he lead me to a cabin and in we went.

I found this Dutchman incredibly gorgeous, and his soft, curly dark locks in my hands made me crazy.  We rolled around on the bed, kissing, touching, exploring.  And then he turned me onto my stomach and got on top of me.  He began to thrust, but it was simulated fucking – he never entered me.  Really, he just rubbed his cock against my ass.  After we both eventually came, we lay there and talked, stroking each other all the while.  I decided that I loved Amsterdam.

However, do you recall that I said the walls of these cabins were so short that people could watch what you were doing?  Since I was on my stomach with my Dutchman grinding against my ass, I hadn’t noticed that we had a silent audience. Nor did I realize that Marco was a part of the audience.  The trouble with exhibitionism comes when you can’t control who’s doing the watching.  The Dutchman and I left the cabin, and there was a naked man sitting by the door of the neighbouring cabin, and he looked at me as I passed and said “you should use protection”.  Dumbfounded, I carried on, only to be accosted by Marco, who grabbed my arm and berated me for fucking him and then apparently having unprotected sex with someone else, saying that he’d have never allowed me to fuck him if he’d known I have unsafe sex.  I said that he had it wrong, I hadn’t been fucked, it just looked like that.  But he was having none of it and stormed off.

I was due to meet the curly-haired Dutchman on the street to get his phone number, so showered again, dressed and left the bathhouse.  Once on the street, still reeling from Marco and his accusation, I took the Dutchman’s business card.  “Do you really want me to call you at work?  Wouldn’t it be best if I called you at home?” I asked.  But no, I couldn’t call him at home – because his boyfriend might answer.

I went back up the street to the B&B and instantly threw the Dutchman’s business card in the trash.  Was my whole trip destined to be full of this melodrama?  Would this fun frolic through Europe devolve into something negative and difficult?

Three weeks later, after touring Europe, I was back in Amsterdam, just for a night, to catch my return flight back to Canada.  Terribly heartsick over a guy I had met in Berlin, I wandered to a bar for one last taste of European nightlife before I had to say goodbye to the Continent.  And there, at the bar, was the Dutchman, standing with whom I assumed was the boyfriend.  The Dutchman and I awkwardly exchanged hellos and goodbyes. With a plane to catch in the morning, I didn’t stick around to hear him explain me to the boyfriend.