Friday, August 5, 2016

Fred and the Teenager Downstairs

Omaha, June 1980

In the spring of 1980, during my sophomore year at Augustana College, my boyfriend Fred the Ministerial Student ended his internship and landed a job as a youth minister at a church in Omaha -- actually Gretna, a small town about 20 miles south.

Great -- my first boyfriend who knew that he was gay, and after five months, he vanishes!

But what if I moved with him?  We could rent an apartment together.  I could transfer to the University of Nebraska to finish my degree, and meanwhile get a job to help out with the expenses.

Fred and FriendIt doesn't sound like a great idea, in retrospect, but I was 19 years old, and getting my own place with "my lover" sounded very grown-up and romantic.



Fred agreed, but with some ground rules.  He was closeted -- Methodists were more liberal than Nazarenes, but they still found being gay "incompatible with Christian practice."  So:

1. I was to introduce myself as his "cousin" staying with him while going to college.
2. I couldn't go to the gay organizations in Omaha, where someone might identify me and it would get back to the church.

I told my parents that Fred found me a summer job, and on June 7th, 1980, packed two suitcases and a box of books and drove out to join him.

We lived together for about six weeks, until July 20th, 1980.

There were lots of problems:

1. My job, Assistant District Circulation Manager at the Omaha World-Herald: a glorified paperboy
.

2. College: I would have to live in Nebraska for a year to get in-state tuition.

3. Fred had never had a live-in boyfriend before, and he soon became controlling and weird.  He cooked occasionally, but he never did any cleaning or laundry.  As the "preacher's wife," that was my job.

4. The small town on the prairie, with a Watermelon Feed, a Fourth of July Parade, and a Town Dance.  Do you have any idea what a Watermelon Feed is?  It doesn't often involve high school jocks.


5. The high school boy who lived downstairs, who Fred took under his wing, always inviting him to tag along when we went to dinners or movies.  I found some shirtless photos of the kid, which made me think that they were sleeping together (years later, Fred admitted that I was right).

The only bright spot was Michael, a high school boy from Fred's youth group who came over for my first three-way.

Then my friend Tom, called.  "You know, Omaha is halfway to Los Angeles.  You might as well come the rest of the way and pay me a visit."

So that Sunday, July 20th, I waited for Fred to go to church.  I packed while he was gone, got into my car, and drove cross country 24 hours to Los Angeles.








Nearly the minute I left, Fred found a new lover, a University of Nebraska freshman.  They were together for two years, introduced to parishioners as a "college kid I'm helping out."  Then Fred moved to Kansas, and met Matt, his partner for the next eight years.  They got along better.

Fred and I stayed friends.  Eventually he moved to California.

See also A Ginger Boy for Christmas; My First Three-Way

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

20 Plains Pick-Ups, Hook-Ups, Dates, and Boy Toys

Guys in the Straight World hook up a lot more than we ever did in gay neighborhoods.  We had sex at the end of dates or parties, and hooked up only very occasionally.  There was too much else going on: cruise bars, dance bars, leather bars, restaurants, churches, community centers, bookstores, theater.

None of that on the Plains, nothing gay at all except for the gay-friendly coffee house, so your usual evening entertainment is Netflix and hooking up.

But only with teenagers and twinks: the older men moved to gay neighborhoods long ago, or are "bi-curious" and terribly closeted.

Here are the 20 top pick-ups from my 3 years to date on the Plains.

1. The Straight Boy  It was kind of flattering to be asked to be the "first time" for a so-called "straight boy," until he started laying down the requirements: no real names, no face pics, don't tell anyone, I don't want to do anything I don't want to do, and what if someone sees me coming in?

2. My Platonic Friends and their Boy Toy.  One of my few attempts to hook up with someone close to my age: a couple in their 50s from the gym.  Instead I had to endure two nights of horribly boring conversation about room additions and car models.  But I did manage a date with their housemate, Jimmy.




3. Nguyen the Gym Rat.  At a conference in St. Peter, Minnesota, I picked up the Vietnamese guy who worked in an art gallery, but got a date with Nguyen the Gym Rat instead.

4. My Dad's Navy Buddy.  Weird story about a guy who looked and acted like my Dad's old navy buddy from the 1950s.  Could have been his grandson, I suppose.














5. The Dakota Boy.  At least I thought he was Dakota: we met at a Pow Wow, where he was staffing a booth that sold corn on the cob as a snack.  Turns out he was a white boy cruising for Native Americans, and thought I was Dakota.

6. The Biker.  When the chunky guy with the beard, redneck baseball cap, hairy chest, and thick Bratwurst showed up at a bear party, I figured he was in his 30s.  Turns out he was only 23.

7. The Guy with the Professor Fetish.  The youngest person I ever dated (up to that time), a 22-year old theater major who wanted me to "keep him after class."

8.The Guy with the Daddy Fetish, who I picked up at a comic book store.  He had cerebral palsy and a Daddy fetish.

9.The Teenager at the Bear Party.  Joey was 19, but wanted to come to a daytime bear party to hook up with the over 40 crowd.











10.  The Waiter at the Pizza Place.  A Protestant fundamentalist pizza place that played Christian music and had Bible verses on the walls.

11. . The Boy Who Had Never Been Kissed.  He had been with guys before, but never been kissed.

12. Ricky with a Y.  A crazy date with a rich kid whose parents owned half of the state and criticized everything I did.













13. The Adonis.  He burst into the gay-friendly coffee house and ignored me, no matter how enthusiastically I cruised him.

14. The Boy at the Farmer's Market.  He was selling homemade pickles.

15. Freshman Orientation.  An Asian guy who was playing volleyball at the gym, and got stuck in my office during a tornado warning.









16. Bastian, an 18-year old high school senior who my friend Gabe dated.  I came along to "share."

17. The Teenage Boy and His Mom.  We hooked up at the gym.  I thought he was bringing his hot friend along, but it turns out he was bringing his Mom.













18. The Deaf Guy who was into BDSM scenes, but couldn't be blindfolded or gagged.

19. The Tourist Brothers.  The Plains is apparently a tourist destination, and a heterosexual nuclear family was checking out the sights while their teenage sons were checking me out.

20. My Host's Son.  Picked up at a heterosexual party.  We dated for the next six months.





Tuesday, August 2, 2016

A Guide to Physique Watching

There's nothing like a bulge, or better yet a sausage sighting, but have you ever seen a picture of a penis without the guy it's attached to?  Or gone down on someone in a darkroom without seeing or feeling his body first?  Boring!  We're attracted to everything that makes a man a man, the way he moves, the way he sounds, his clothes, his face, his physique.

Especially his physique, the front of his trunk, his chest, abs, shoulders and arms.

There are eight main types of physiques, dependent on genes and your exercise routine.  Each has its attractions.










1. I like a Bodybuilder's Physique: well-defined, thick muscles, especially triceps (very hard to develop) and abs (a six-pack suggests very low body fat).  The muscles stand out better with dark skin and a shaved or bare chest.

A Bodybuilder's Physique requires a strict diet, a dedicated personal trainer, and at least four hours per day in the gym.  It's physically impossible for many of us, and beyond the emotional and financial reach of most.










2. But not to worry, two hours per day at the gym and a reasonably healthy diet can produce a West Hollywood Physique.

Tight and firm, a v-shaped torso, a flat belly rather than a six-pack and big pecs and biceps -- muscles that are easy to bulk up, and stand out the most when you're dressed in street clothes.  This guy looks like Troy, my boyfriend in Upstate New York.

He's actually pumped up from a recent workout. His usual appearance is somewhat more manageable.









3. The Swimmer's Physique can be had with even less gym time, an hour a day, concentrating on cardio.  The chest and biceps are smaller, lean and hard rather than exceptionally big, and there's more attention paid to the abs.  This works best with an outtie belly button.















4. The Slim Physique comes from minimal weight training and a lot of cardio.  It emphasizes long, smooth lines, with little arm and shoulder development, though there still should be some abs work.    Sometimes it's nice to be able to fit your arms around the guy, and a Slim Physique shows off the penis better: less fat around the pubic mound means that it hangs all the way down.

If you were hung to begin with, a Slim Physique can give you a monster.









5. Since hair tends to decrease definition and draw the eye away from the muscle, a hairy chest works best with physiques that don't emphasize pecs:   The Mediterranean  Physique (because it is commonly found in guys with ancestry from Italy, Greece, and the Balkans) develops the pecs just enough to produce some hardness, and allows a little belly fat over developed abs.  


















6. The Bear Physique, only for guys with a hairy chest, comes from weight training without any dietary restrictions.  It results in pec and bicep development plus a layer of fat, a pleasant sense of massiveness.  Very nice for hugging.  This guy looks like Alan, the ex-porn star, except Alan's penis was a big longer.
















7. With a Chubby Physique, weight training and cardio should be the minimum necessary to maintain health. You can develop chest and arms if you want, but no one's looking at them: it's all about your belly, which extends at least an inch beyond the waist, a symbol of raw masculine power.

You can't get a chubby belly without accumulating fat in your pubic mound, which encases your penis and makes it look smaller.  Obese men can see it shrink down by half.  So if you are small to begin with, a Chubby Physique is probably not the way to go.









Pop Quiz: Which type of physique is this?

Don't be fooled by the fact that he's supine: in that position much of the belly fat recedes into the abdomen. When he sits up, you'll see that he has a Mediterranean Physique.


Sunday, July 31, 2016

Nude Photos of Don Johnson

You probably know Don Johnson as the irreverent Sonny Crockett on the iconic 1980s buddy cop show Miami Vice (1984-1989), or as irreverent detective Nash Bridges (1996-2001), but in the 1960s and 1970s he was a slim, androgynous icon of the hippie movement, starring in such far-out movies as The Magical Garden of Stanley Sweetheart and The Harrad Experiment.



Plus the stage play Fortune and Men's Eyes (1969), directed by gay icon Sal Mineo, an early play about the gay experience in prison.  
















A nude photo has survived from the production, showing most of Don Johnson's physique and a full frontal.



















This undated photo is reputedly of Don Johnson also, but the model looks a little too buffed.


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