I had a friend in New York who didn't like looking at photos of cute guys, clothed or naked. "I'm just looking, not touching," he said. "I have no chance of meeting them in real life, and if I did, they'd never ben interested in me, so why bother?"
I can think of 10 reasons to bother.
1. You can see everything. Every aesthetic experience involves one or more of the five senses. Sex is mostly about touch, with the visual minimal. You often have your eyes closed or the lights dimmed, or you are in a position where you can only see your partner's crotch or his backside.
With a photo, visual is supreme. Look at the pecs flecked with hair, the two-fold belly, the tall, straight cock with the testicles constricted, ready to burst. Take as much time as you want.
2. There are many more choices. If you live in a big city, have a body by Michelangelo, and have the time and patience to spend endless hours on hookup apps, you might be able to have sex with five guys per day. If you go to a bathhouse or sex club, ten guys.
A Tumblr Archive page contains about 20 photos. If it takes you about two minutes to look at them all and enlarge the ones you find particularly attractive, you can go through 500 photos in an hour.
3. The guys tend to be more attractive. You don't meet a lot of guys with stunning beauty in real life, and even fewer are interested in going to bed with you. But those 500 photos got online in the first place because someone thought they were stunningly beautiful. You obviously won't agree with all of the choices, but I'll bet you agree with 10, 20, or 30 of the 50
4. No preparation is necessary. Before I have someone over, I have to shower, shave, clean the house, make the bed, make sure there are enough snacks and something for breakfast. If it's a date, I have to be "on": bright, witty, amiable, interesting, for the next three hours. If it's a hookup, I have to be aroused for the next 35 minutes. That's a lot of trouble. Easier to just click on the computer.
5.It's not nearly as annoying. Dates and hookups often go south. The guy turns out to be a jerk, a wacko, a sleazoid, utterly different from his profile. 8" turns into 4", 37 years old turns into 87. You hear about reptilians taking over the world. He worries that your neighbors might see him and conclude that he's gay. He wants you to screw him after you explicitly say "not into anal," or refuses oral after you explicitly say "I am inviting you over for oral."
With a photo, what you see is what you get. And if someone has photoshopped a few things, who cares?
More after the break
6. It's more diverse. In real life, you're going to get gay men about your age (or here on the Plains, twinks), from the same part of the country. They probably grew up in the city, and know several of your ex-boyfriends. A photo could be of anybody, gay or straight, young or old, from anywhere in the world.
I have very little chance of ever meeting anyone from Turkmenistan in real life, and even less chance of meeting someone from Turkmenistan with six-pack abs who wants to come home with me. But here he is.
7. It's more comfortable. Sure, that penis looks nice, but I know from real-life experience that there's nothing much you can do with it. Anal is out of the question, with oral you'll gag halfway down, and frottage is like rubbing a telephone pole and a popsicle stick together. Better to look at it from a distance.
8. It's permanent. This photo was taken at least 40 years ago. The model's hair has fallen out, his abs have gone to fat, and his cock has shriveled, if he's alive at all. But these pixels will stay on my computer until I decide to erase them, and on a thousand other computers until the end of civilization.
9. It's a way to come out. Putting pictures of cute guys on your Facebook or Instagram page is a perfect way to let visitors know that you're gay without wearing a sign.
Hint: check on the male/female ratio of a new male acquaintance's Facebook friends. More than 60% male, gay.
10. It's a perfect icebreaker. Say things are stalling on a date, or at a party, and you're struggling to move things to a more erotic level. Just ask "Would you like to see my collection of pictures of
Star Trek fans with wavy hair and big cocks?"
Who's going to say no to an invitation like that?
5.It's not nearly as annoying. Dates and hookups often go south. The guy turns out to be a jerk, a wacko, a sleazoid, utterly different from his profile. 8" turns into 4", 37 years old turns into 87. You hear about reptilians taking over the world. He worries that your neighbors might see him and conclude that he's gay. He wants you to screw him after you explicitly say "not into anal," or refuses oral after you explicitly say "I am inviting you over for oral."
1 Photos also offer lighting. Professional photographers can work with this. Selfies...usually don't.
ReplyDelete2 And those ten guys assume you don't have a "real life". Of you're a street hustler or a porn star, maybe ten guys? Your career has an expiry date, though. For the rest of us? There is no way we're going to screw ten people in one day.
5 IKR? Some are even total creeps. Okay, he's in his late forties, fine, but wait, why is the convo all about circumcision?
7 And that's actually why with guys, I don't do penetration. (I'm bi, and I spend months doing "woman on top" positions before I get on top.) Bottoming never interested me, and arousal actually clenches my anus tight. But I'm WAY too big to be a top.
8 This is why I still have physique photos.
10 And the really nice thing about the internet (see 6) is that such a tiny segment of the erotic spectrum is still catered to. Also, my first thought was "No, wait, that guy's too skinny to be Lockstin."
In bar pickups, I've never gotten more than one guy per night (you take him home to spend the night). On social media apps, I might get three, but that takes several hours. At a bathhouse or bar with a dark room, maybe five. The only time I've been with ten is at a party where everyone is expected to accommodate whoever is interested.
DeleteJerkoff clubs, possibly. (Interesting story, they began before AIDS, contrary to popular belief.) For my generation, the downside of jerkoff clubs, bathhouses, and all other sex clubs, if we can even find such a place, is seeing guys old enough to be your dad. (And I don't mean teen dads.) But you can easily organize a dozen men in a circle jerk.
DeleteI'm approached by guys in their 20s constantly, and rarely by anyone over 40. The only problem is, the young guys are mostly into dating rather than hookups.
DeleteWell, maybe not better than the real thing, but a close second.
ReplyDelete