My Top 10 Turn Offs

You already know the characteristics that I find attractive: short, dark, massive, gifted beneath the belt, and so on.

Almost every guy I have been with has had at least two, usually three of the characteristics.

But some characteristics are immediate turn-offs.

One or two might be ok, if you happen to also be a short, dark, muscular, gifted-beneath-the-belt Mormon missionary.

But three or four, and dating is out of the question.

Five or more, and we won't be hooking up, either, and sharing is out of the question, breach of etiquette or not.

Again, this is a matter of personal taste.  If you like these traits and I don't, that doesn't mean that I am bad, wrong, or stupid.    Everyone has different tastes in men, and that's fine. 

1. Tall and thin  Who wants to hug a telephone pole?  Who wants to hug a skeleton?

2. A long, narrow face, especially with a goatee, like a Disney villain.

3. Long, slender fingers/finger rings/tattoos/body art.  

 I hate long, slender, feminine fingers -- "nimble," like Tolkien's hobbits.  And jewerlry in a man is gross, except for dogtags or a pendant around his neck.  None of those plastic bracelets, and especially no rings.

If you ever want to get out of the mood fast, just imagine those long, slender, feminine fingers festooned with gross rings wrapped around your penis.  Instant shrinkage!

Same thing with body art. A small, tasteful tattoo that is easily ignored, ok, but plastering your body with ink like the Illustrated Man?  Your skin is perfectly attractive as it is.

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4. Outdoors Nut/Sports Nut.  The outdoors is not a place; it's something you travel through to get to places.  You don't eat there, or sit on benches there, or hang out there. Spending time outside for its own sake is just nutty.

There is nothing more boring than listening to who won what game with what strategy in some sports match.

5. Fan of Horrible Music.  This includes country-western music, of course, but also whiny female vocalists, and especially torch songs.

The night is bitter
The stars have lost their glitter
The winds grow colder
And suddenly you're older

Yeah, I'm getting older by the minute, listening to this drivel.

6. Relationships with women/discussions of feminine beauty.   Long, long ago, some men didn't figure it out until after they obeyed the societal mandate to marry women, but not anymore.  If you're under 50, you have no excuse, except you were too scared to come out.

I know, it's possible to appreciate beauty in men and women, regardless of your sexual orientation, but after hearing "That woman is so hot!  There's not a man alive who wouldn't want to be with her!" constantly, hour after hour, day after day, I don't want to hear it from a guy I'm dating.

7. Alcohol, tobacco, or drug use. Raised Nazarene, I can't stand the sight or smell of beer, wine, or liquor. If you drink a beer in the bar occasionally and use mouthwash afterwards, ok, but I won't have it in my house.

Tobacco just smells gross.

And drugs -- who wants to be with a guy who's high?

8. Feminine Traits.  Politically, I'm a strong supporter of your right to be as butch, femme, or androgynous as you want to be. Work the room!  Sashay!  Say "Oh, Mary!" and "Puh-lease, girlfriend!"  But it's not going to get me romantically interested.

9. Elitist.   Rich is ok, celebrity is fine.  Well-read, multilingual, world traveler, no problem.  But don't throw your book-larnin' in my face and ridicule my plebian amusements:

"How can you watch television?  It's so mindless!"
"Science fiction?  All that Buck Rogers stuff?"

Or look down on the Midwest.  "Oh, you're from a dreary Ma and Pa Kettle state!  What did you do for fun, tractor pulls and cow tipping?"

Really, should someone who knows about Ma and Pa Kettle be criticizing me for growing up in Illinois?

10. Sleazoid.  Leering, vulgar language, aggressive cruising, constant double-entendres and dirty jokes.  Leave it in the cruise bar.  For that matter, it's annoying there, too.

See also: My Top 10 Turn-Ons

My Top 10 Turn-Ons

Why do we like what we like?  Gay men get asked that question every day, mostly phrased like "How could you possibly be attracted to ugly, hideous, disgusting men instead of gorgeous, beautiful women, like everybody else who has ever lived?"

But once you walk them through the concept of same-sex desire, they still balk: "Why would you like that kind of guy? He isn't attractive at all!  Only an idiot would be into him!"

Or: "Why don't you like him?  Everyone must find him gorgeous.  You're blind, evil, or stupid if you don't!"

Everyone has their own taste in men, and that's fine.  If I find something attractive and you don't, that doesn't make me bad, wrong, or stupid.  We like what we like.

So here are the top 10 traits I find attractive, and the reasons why.

1. Dark skin.  Black, Asian, Hispanic, Mediteranean.  It must be the exotic factor: I grew up in the Midwest, surrounded by fair-skinned Swedes, Germans, and Belgians,.  There was one black kid and one Asian kid in my junior high.  I didn't meet anyone Hispanic, other than my teachers, until college.

2. Shorter than me.  Maybe a dominant-submissive factor, but looking up at the guy is a turnoff.  I'm 6'1, so anyone under 6'0 is good.  5'4 is ideal.

Little people are a particular interest.  Have you ever noticed that they have very short legs, but regular size penises?  That hang down to their knees!

3. Mass.  Who wants to hug a skeleton?  Muscle, the bigger and harder the better, especially pecs, abs, and biceps.  Chubby/husky/fat is good, too.  Muscular torso with a little belly, ideal.

Since coming to the Plains, I've been meeting lots of skinny twinks, and there is something to be said for being able to put your arms all the way around someone.  Still, I'm going for mass.

4. A round or square face and square, solid hands.

Yes, I noticed the face and hands before the penis in this photo.

A round or square face seems open and friendly.  A long, narrow face seems sneaky, underhanded, or elitist.

Square hands are more masculine than those thin, slender, delicate things.  Also they look better wrapped around a penis.

5. Gifted beneath the belt.  Do I really need to explain that one?

But not super-sized: the footlongs are nice to look at, but impossible to actually do anything with.

I have a definite preference for cut over uncut.  More than once I've pulled back the foreskin to discover that the guy does not clean himself properly.

6. Religious, especially seminary students and clergy.  Any religion: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, pagan, Afro-Caribbean, fine.

When you grow up in a fundamentalist church, you spend countless hours gawking at preachers, evangelists, Sunday school teachers, and choir directors, looking for biceps and bulges beneath their business suits.

7. Business suits.  My working-class relatives never wore suits to work, and academics never wear them, so the exotic factor kicks in.  Besides, they're so grown-up, so formal.  And since they're designed to obscure the body as much as possible, they become all the more erotic.

8. Down to Earth.  Someone who likes "regular" things, like hamburgers and tv sitcoms, who isn't going to judge me for my plebian tastes, or for being from the Midwest. I've been burned too many times by elitists.

9. Health Conscious.  Non-smoker, non-drinker, knows his way around a gym.  The explanation for that is obvious, too.


















10. Masculine.  I get angry when they call masculine "straight acting."  Straight men often have feminine traits: rings, cologne, hand gestures, a swishy walk, a nasal overmodulated voice.  And gay men usually have masculine traits.

Masculinity and femininity are culturally determined, varying across space and over time.  Pink was once a masculine color, and blue feminine.  But, that being said, I am attracted to the traits designated masculine by my culture: no rings, no cologne, the ability to speak with your mouth, not your hands, and a direct style of walking and talking.

If you like other traits, that's fine with me.  I do not pretend that my list is universal.  People like what they like.

See also: My Top 10 Turn-Offs

Sausage Sighting of My Parents' Contractor

Rock Island, July 1989

Monday

My sister has gotten married and moved out, the last of the kids to do so, and my parents are taking advantage of the newly-empty house by remodeling.  Her bedroom will become a tv room.  The kitchen will get new cabinets.  There will be a shower in the bathroom.

First up: the kitchen.  For the next five days, we'll have to eat out for every meal.

But it will be worth it: the contractor is a buffed, tanned demigod named Tyler: about 30 years old, with a handsome model-face: black curly hair, blue eyes, square jaw, unshaven scruff of a beard.  He's wearing a blue muscle shirt that reveals  massive shoulders, a hairy chest, and thick veiny biceps.

His tight jeans reveal a bubble butt and an enormous bulge on the right side.  I'm guessing a Kielbasa.

I try starting a conversation.  He speaks mostly in monosyllables and grunts, but I gather that we went to high school together -- he graduated two years before me (which makes him 31).  He has a live-in girlfriend.  

Straight!

I quickly closet myself, saying that I live in "Los Angeles," not "West Hollywood."

That night I look Tyler up in my old yearbook.  He was a jock, a football player and a wrestler.  I worked as an athletic trainer, so I must have seen him in the locker room.  I must have gotten a sausage sighting.

But that locker room was wall-to-wall beefcake. I don't remember Tyler, or his sausage.

Well, maybe I'll get the chance now.  He'll be here for a week --  he'll have to use the bathroom sometime.


Tuesday

I discover that if I sit on the couch in the living room, I can look directly through the dining room into the kitchen, where Tyler is working on cabinets, his bubble butt moving rhythmically up and down, up and down.

I call Anky, the best man at my sister's wedding who I hooked up with a few days ago:  "You've got to see my parents' contractor!  He's incredible!"

An hour or so later, Anky stops by.  We sit on the couch, drinking lemonade, chatting, and gazing through the dining room into the kitchen at Tyler's bubble butt.  Or when he faces us, his supersized bulge shifting and throbbing and....

Once Tyler goes to the bathroom, walking through the dining room and down the hallway.  He says "Excuse me, guys," as he passes.

Anky and I look at each other.

"Should I burst in and offer him a towel?" I ask.

That night I work out and go to the bars with Dick, my old junior high bully. I tell him about the contractor's bubble butt and bulge.

"Sounds hot!" he exclaims.  "Can I watch?  I get off work at 3:00, so I could be there by 3:30."

Wednesday

Anky and Dick arrive at 3:30, with popcorn and a VHS tape. We pretend to watch Beetlejuice while gazing at Tyler as he works on cabinets and light fixtures and wall wainscoting.

He's on a high ladder, doing something in the ceiling.  Anky rushes out and grabs him by the sides, to steady him.

"Thanks, but that's not necessary."

"Oh, I insist," Anky says, grinning back at us.

I kick myself for not thinking of it first.

Thursday

Anky arrives at 3:00 with a college friend, a biology major named Wayne.  Dick arrives at 3:30 with Terence, the theater nerd he's dating.  We sit around the dining room table, where there's an even better view of Tyler's bubble butt and bulge, pretending to play Risk.

Tyler is working on something directly above the refrigerator.  I go in and clap him on the shoulder and say "Sorry to disturb you, but we need more sodas."

"No problem, fella."  He steps out of the way.  I open the refrigerator, lean down to get the sodas, and get a beautiful close-up view of Tyler's crotch.

I return to the dining room.  "Someone throw water on me," I murmur.  "I'm about to faint."

Friday

The kitchen will be finished today.  Tyler just has to do some "clean-up and trim."

Dick takes off work and arrives at 11:00, bringing not only his boyfriend but his boyfriend's ex and a middle-aged queen who I know vaguely from church.  Anky arrives with Wayne.

My mother, getting ready to leave for an afternoon of errands and shopping, looks at us suspiciously.  "Are you sure you boys wouldn't be more comfortable in the rec room?  That's what it's there for."

"Thanks," I say, 'But we're going to have lunch soon.  I'm sending Dick out to get Kentucky Fried Chicken."

She shrugs.  "Ok, but don't leave a mess up here for me to clean up."

After she leaves, the six of us sit in the living room, four on the couch and two on the floor, pretending to talk and listen to music but actually gazing at Tyler's bubble butt and crotch as he...

Walks into the living room and stands facing us....

"I don't charge extra for a show," he says.  He begins to dance to Madonna's "Express Yourself."

The shirt comes off.  We stare at his massive, hairy chest

"You should come see me at Teaser's in Iowa City on Tuesday night,  It's Ladies' Night, but I can get you in."

The pants come off, revealing black bikini briefs.  Then they come off, and his thick, meaty Kielbasa swings between his legs.

I stare, rapt, not sure if I should offer him a dollar or a blow job.

When "Express Yourself" ends, Tyler picks up his clothes from the floor and wordlessly disappears into the bathroom.  He emerges fully clothed.

"You guys have a good day," he says, returning to work..

See also: Picking Up the Best Man at My Sister's Wedding; My Sausage Sighting List