16 Buckeye Boyfriends, Bondage Boys, and Bratwursts

In 2005 after 20 years in gay neighborhoods, I moved to Fairborn, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton.

The Straight World took a LOT of getting used to.

1. You had to drive everywhere.

2. You were constantly assumed heterosexual, asked about your "wife," asked to comment on feminine beauty.

3. There were heterosexuals everywhere.  Even guys who were hot were likely to be straight.

4. All gay people were intensely closeted, not out to anyone, ever.  It was like the 1970s.

Since everyone was closeted, there wasn't a lot of dating going on -- 

"I have a family gathering that night that I can't get out of."

"Someone might see us!"  

"Sorry, I was on my way out the door, when my friend stopped by, so I couldn't make it."

But there was an infinite variety of arrangements:  friends with benefits, internet buddies, bondage buddies, "I have a free hour" boyfriends, shared hookups, parties, pickups, hookups. 

Here are the 16 most creative arrangements:

1. Chuck the Straight Guy, a "friend with benefits" who came over when he had the chance.  When I went to the emergency room and they asked me to call someone to pick me up, I was embarrassed that he was the only local guy on my contacts list.

2. The Bondage Boy in a Wheelchair.  But I cruised online frequently.  One day I drove all the way out to Kettering, 25 miles away, to hook up with an internet guy who said he wanted a bondage scene.  When I got there, he was wheelchair bound.  How much bondage could he get?

3. Clintin was a music major at Wilberforce University, a historically black college about 10 miles from Fairborn.  When one of his friends spent three months in jail for protesting a homophobic skit put on by a fraternity, he transferred to Wright State.

4. The Huber Heights Horror.  What happens when you talk to someone online for two hours, discuss your whole life history, hopes, dreams, goals, and aspirations?  He must be the One, right?  Then he invites you over.  It's 12:30 am, but you're expecting a night of passion followed by brunch and romance.  You drive all the way to Huber Heights just for a 10-minute hookup.

5. The Blind Guy.  Bodybuilder's physique, gigantic beneath the belt, claimed to be able to tell your sausage size by listening to the sound of you urinating.  

6. The Horseman's Little Brother.  At the Horseman's Club in Amsterdam, where the membership was restricted to guys with Bratwursts or bigger, I met a guy from Suriname with a Kovbasa++++.  Turned out to be straight, cruising for a birthday present for his little brother.

7. Charlie and Paul.   Two closeted boyfriends, a high school football coach and an aspiring writer.  Both terrified that someone might find out. Neither out to his "straight" roommate.  Guess what?  

8. Everybody was into bondage.  I just had to drop the "b" word into my internet profile, and the messages would start filling up my in-box.  Most were newbies asking for someone to show them the ropes, but not Roland the Math Teacher.  His wife and kids had no idea that he had a dungeon in the basement.

9. Major Sausage Sighting!  At a spiritual retreat, the Catholic priest in the bed next to me starts to tent.  Wow, what a tent!

10. Visiting Yuri in London, I hooked up with the Emo Boy Who Refused to Leave.

11. And met Farshad, a French Moroccan Muslim, #16 on my Sausage List.  I don't know which I found more attractive, his religion or his Mortadella++++.

12. The Bottom.  A guy in Dayton named Rode (really!). held weekly M4M Parties in his basement.  He was an anal bottom, into nothing else, period.  Until one afternoon we started kissing.  And kept kissing.  And kissing.

13. When friends try to fix you up with someone, they latch onto the most basic similarities in interests.  "Oh, you like languages.  He's a linguist, you'll love him."  Well, Ari was hot, and gifted beneath the belt, but he Wouldn't Shut Up.

14.There was a park two miles from my house with an excellent jogging trail.  Apparently it was also used for cruising, although at the time I was oblivious, thinking that public sex was from the pre-Stonewall era.  Then one day I was Hit on by a High School Boy.

15. Carlos had Two Secrets.  One: he wasn't being entirely honest when he said he had "a few extra pounds."  Two, he had an extremely hot muscle bear boyfriend.

16. My childhood church, the Church of the Nazarene, considers Roman Catholics the epitome of evil, demon-possessed reprobates.  Until the fifth grade, I was sure that Catholics had horns.  We weren't allowed to even walk on the sidewalk outside a Catholic church, lest we be brainwashed from a distance. So what do devout Nazarenes do when their family member gets engaged to a Catholic boy?  What do I do when he has the biggest basket I've ever seen?