10 Ethnic Groups on My Bucket List

On The Simpsons, Homer sings "I could love [e.g., have sex with] about a million girls."

A million?

Assuming a 50-year sexual life, that's 20,000 per year, or 384 per week.

That's a lot more than gay men could ever hope for.

If you spent every waking hour in the bath house, and if you were extremely attractive, you might get as many as 10 partners per day, or 70 per week.

But in real life, people have other interests and obligations, they don't have a superheroic physique, and they're usually involved in relationships that require monogamy or "sharing."  They might average 10 partners per year.

Or only one.

Homer goes on to list the various ethnic groups he is interested in: "I could love a Chinese girl, an Eskimo, a Finn. I could dig a Deutschland chick...."

That sounds more promising.  There are only about 6,000 ethnic groups in the world.  Could you "love" someone from each one?

For the purpose of this study, "loving" will be defined as "an event in which you see your partner naked in a private setting."  Clubs, bath houses, nude beaches, and dates that don't end with a bedroom won't count.

An "ethnic group" will be defined as a group identified by a distinct language and culture.  Generic white Americans and African-Americans don't count.

After careful calculation and checking my journals, I find that I've "loved" guys from 41 identifiable ethnic groups.

18 European
8 East or Southeast Asian
5 African
5 Latin American
2 Middle Eastern
2 Native American
1 South Asian

5,959 to go.

If I really want to sample the vast variety of  masculine beauty in the world, there are a few left on my bucket list:

1. Faeroese: from the Faeroe Islands far to the north of Britain (population 44,000).  Like the famous swimmer Pal Joensen (top photo).

2. Yakut: a Turkic-speaking people of Siberia.  There are 478,000 Yakut speakers, including 10,000 in the United States, so there's hope (second photo: a Yakut wrestler).

3.Ainu (left): the original inhabitants of Japan were not of Asian ethnicity, and their language was like no other in the world (there are only about 10 native speakers left).  They liked beards so much that the women got their chins tattooed to make it seem like they had beards, too.  Today there are an estimated 25,000-100,000 Ainu in northern Japan.  The most famous is Oki, who performs electro-pop versions of traditional songs with his Oki Dub Ainu Band.

4. Chukchi: from remote northeastern Siberia, near the Bering Sea.  The 16,000 Chukchi speak a Paleo-Siberian language.  Their shamans change from male to female when they travel to the spirit world.

 5. Hawaiian (left): 400,000 people claim to be part Hawaiian, but only 140,000 claim to be Hawaiian alone, and only about 2,000 speak the language.

6. Jivaro (left): about 20,000 of the former head-hunters, divided into several different tribes in the western Amazon region of South America, mostly in Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia.  I visited Colombia, but didn't meet any Jivaros.

7. Tuareg: there are about 1.2 million Tuaregs, a nomadic people of the Sahara, mostly in Niger and Chad. Formerly called "the blue people" because the blue dye in the men's turbans rubbed off onto their faces, they speak a Berber language.

8. The Mbuti (left): one of several "pygmy" tribes in the Congo, there are about 30,000 Mbuti, most still living as traditional hunter-gatherers.  The men have an average height of 4'9."  Sounds like my kind of guys.

9. Greenlander: The northernmost country on Earth, Greenland has a population of about 60,000, most of whom are Greenland Inuit.

10. Aboriginal Australians: The original inhabitants of Australia have the oldest cultural traditions in the world.  They have legends about walking to Australia over a land bridge that hasn't existed for 14,000 years!  There are about 600,000, divided into many different tribes with distinctive languages and customs.  Ritualized same-sex behavior is commonplace as an initiation rite.

I visited Australia 20 years ago, but didn't get a chance to meet -- or "love" -- any aboriginal guys.

But there's always next year.  Maybe these guys are on Facebook.

See also: The Day I Turned Japanese

Alan and I Cruise in Japan

Osaka, Japan

In March of my first year in West Hollywood, my ex-boyfriend Alan, the former porn star and current student clergy, suddenly announced that he was leaving the MCC: God had called him to start his own gay Pentecostal church.

In Japan.

Ok, there were 100,000,000 people in Japan, 3% Christian, maybe 1% of that Pentecostal, and 10% of that gay.  A target market of 3,000 people.

"Oh, no, there will be a massive revival.  Thousands of Japanese gay men and lesbians will be won to the Lord.  In a few years, there will be gay Pentecostal churches all over Japan."

He invited me to come along and become his co-minister.  I should have remembered moving to Omaha with Fred.  But...

Alan quickly landed a job teaching at an English language school in Osaka, and moved in April 1986, just as the new semester was beginning.   I applied for and received a scholarship to spend the summer at Kansai University.  On May 27th, I flew to Australia to visit a friend, and then joined Alan in Japan.

He lived on a very noisy, crowded street in the Kita Ward of Osaka, in a tiny apartment -- about 216 square feet, the size of an average bedroom in the U.S.

Every day between 8:00 am and 2:00 pm, Alan met with his students -- 8 to 10 per hour, talking about current events and writing essays.  I went to Gold's Gym, then to my class in Japanese Literature or to the Joto Library to study Japanese.

After dinner we cruised. I got the gay bars, restaurants, and discos, and Alan got the bath houses, bookstores, movie theaters, and Sakuranomiya Park. We were ostensibly looking for new converts for Alan's Gay Pentecostal Church, but Alan seems to have been mostly cruising.  Every night he brought a new potential convert back to our apartment: students, salary men, tourists.  For some reason, Asian men found him infinitely attractive (later, when we were roommates, he used this remarkable ability to steal my dates).

But none of the guys he brought him converted.

The Gay Pentecostal Church -- Kamisama no kyokai gei -- met every Sunday morning at 10:30 for Sunday school and 11:30 for the morning service.  With Alan and me, and sometimes whoever stayed over last night.

No one else.

We put up fliers in gay bars, restaurants, discos.  Alan announced the church at a meeting of Kansai Pride.

No one came.

In July we went to a Hadaka Matsuri, a Naked Man Festival.  It was the highpoint of the trip. Unfortunately, we missed the Penis Festival of Kawasaki.

At the end of July, when Alan's school closed for summer break, we returned to Los Angeles.  I knew he wasn't going to go back to Japan, and sure enough, in August he returned to his old job as a middle-school social studies teacher.  But soon he was talking about starting a gay Pentecostal church in Thailand.

"There will be a massive revival.  Thousands of Thai gay men and lesbians will be won to the Lord.  In a few years, there were be gay Pentecostal churches all over Thailand.  You should come...."

I said no to that one.

Japanese Tentacle Porn

The statue of Laocoon and His Sons reminds me of Shokushu Goukan, or Tentacle Rape, a distinctively Japanese form of pornographic art in which the subject is being entered, usually without consent, by a monster with many penis-like tentacles.

The tentacles can also act as ropes for bondage.

There is mouth and anal entry, and either penis manipulation or some sort of tentacle-fellatio.

The origin was probably a non-pornographic yokai who grabbed unsuspecting fishermen and pulled them to their deaths.  A little tweaking, and the cautionary tale becomes porn.

Contemporary artists usually show hapless space explorers running afoul of multi-tentacled alien monsters with sexual congress on their minds, but there are also furry and fantasy-world tentacles.

The monsters can be plants, animals, or miscellaneous, sentient or not.

Sometimes the encounter is not accidental but by design, the hero captured by a mad scientist or Medieval torturer.

We usually don't see the being, just the straining, struggling muscles and the multiple entries by the tentacle/penises, so the acts becomes stylized, pure entry, sex without an object.

See also: Laocoon and His Sons; and Yokai: The Gay Goblins of Japan

Asian Boyfriends, Hookups, Hunks, and Sausage Sightings

When I was growing up in Rock Island, I never saw anyone of East Asian ancestry, ever, not even a face in the crowd.  So the exotic became erotic, and I've been especially attracted to Asian men ever since.  

Here are some of my top Asian dates, hookups, and sausage sightings.  Asian will mean men who can trace their ancestry to China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, or the Philippines.















Childhood

Chi Ehr,  my first Asian boyfriend.  I only saw him for a moment, but his dazzling, seductive smile was an iconic part of my childhood.  I ran into him years later.


Peter, a science nerd from Washington Junior High.  We competed over my boyfriend Dan at a sleepover.

Augustana College

The Korean Muscle Bear who moved in next door.  My bedroom window looked down into his kitchen, where I could see him walking around in his underwear.

Indiana University

Sunan, a bisexual Thai boy who Viju and I picked up at Bullwinkle's.  The next day he picked up his girlfriend, and all four of us went out to breakfast without letting on that we had spent the night together.  

Texas

Dan, a Korean twink who answered my personal ad in the Montrose Voice. Worked in a grocery store, chain-smoked.  

West Hollywood

Huan.  I arrived in West Hollywood with the Gayellow Pages in my hands, and within two days I was at Mugi, a gay Asian bar.  I had never seen so many cute Asian guys in my life, and they were all available!  I ended up accepting a date with the first guy who cruised me, Huan, who had been in the U.S. only a few months and didn't speak English well.  

Jin. Alan moved to Japan in the summer of 1986 to start a gay Pentecostal church, and I visited him for the summer.  We shared a tiny apartment, about 216 square feet (the size of a bedroom in America), so when one of us had a guy over, the other had no choice but to watch or join in.  The most memorable of our hookups was Jin, who kept going back and forth between our futons all night.   









Minoru.  Another of Alan's hookups who played futon-switching. 19 year old student majoring in German literature. 

Tranh.  A gym rat in West Hollywood who I worked on for weeks before a celebrity tried to steal him away.  Alan got him back by asking for the date for himself, with me taging along.  We all ended up friends.  .

Chehay.  The slim, soft survivor of the Pol Pot atrocities, whose Cambodian drag queen Aunti Bopha cornered me at Mugi in an attempt to marry him off.  

Tyler.  A third-generation Chinese-American twink who was the current boyfriend of my housemate Derek's ex.  If that sounds complicated, the story of trying to get with him is even more. 

Ramon.   We met him in Barcelona.  He didn't speak Chinese, but he was fluent in Catalan and a promoter of Catalonian independence.  We had quite a heady conversation for a hookup.  

New York

Prasert.  During my summer in Paris, I hooked up with the chef at the Suam Thai restaurant.  

The Man in Black who accosted me on Christopher Street in a weird paranormal experience.

Shen.  An undergrad history major from China.  We just went on one date, and spent the whole evening awkwardly kissing and cuddling in bed.  

Peter.  An undergraduate sociology major, Filipino.  My professor introduced us in the spring of 2001.  Another series of dates spent mostly in the bedroom.  

Dayton

Tony. I tried to hook up with Bobby Chan, the Chinese food delivery guy, but got his friend instead, a grad student in political science at Ohio State University. 

Chao.  The guy Tony dated immediately after our hookup.  We "shared," my first and only time with two Asian guys at once.  

Upstate

Chad A waiter at the Neptune, the Satyr's housemate and "boy toy."  We dated from October through February. 

Mike.  A twink who came to our bear party, but said he was nervous and asked if we could go off somewhere alone.  He gradually increased the number of guys in the room until it was full.  

Philadelphia

Akamu..  I was staying with friends for the weekend, and their housemate brought him home.  Laotian. He came into my room in the middle of the night.  

The Plains

Nguyen  A muscular gym rat from Minnesota.  I actually hooked up with his cousin at an art gallery.

Phil, a middle-aged bisexual who comes to the M4M Parties.  

See also: My Top Black Boyfriends and Hookups.; 16 West Hollywood Hunks That I've Been Keeping Secret.

A Hookup with My Dad's Old Navy Buddy or His Grandson

Plains, October 2014

Last fall, around Halloween, I got an email about the next M4M Party from a guy named Phil: "I'll be driving through town Saturday, and I would like to come."

Unfortunately, the party was on Sunday.

"I must have read the date wrong," Phil replied.  "Can I come by anyway and hook up with you?"

Guys who can't make it to the parties request hookups all the time.  I usually refuse, but Phil sent a very attractive selfie: he was in his 20s or 30s, round face, dark eyebrows, nice smile, and very muscular, with well developed pecs and abs.

But that's not why I agreed to meet him: he looked absolutely familiar, as if I had known him all my life.

On the brisk Saturday afternoon before Halloween, we met at the gay-friendly coffee house a few blocks away from my house.  In jeans and a red t-shirt, Phil looked even more familiar.  I wanted to run up, hug him, and say "It's been a long time!"  Instead I shook his hand and asked "Have we met before?"

"I don't think so.  At least, you don't look familiar."

He told me that his father was a diplomat; he grew up bouncing from Germany to Italy to Sweden, and through a dozen U.S. states.  All that moving gave him wanderlust, so after high school he joined the navy, and traveled to Korea, Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Singapore.


That list sounded familiar, too, but I couldn't figure out from where.

After the Navy, he went to UCLA and majored in East Asian languages, then"bounced around," doing all kinds of things.

"I've been a hustler in Prague, a kept boy in Morocco, a translator in Beijing, a dishwasher in Nepal, a ski instructor in Spain, and an English teacher in Iran.  Have you ever eaten caviar while watching the sun rise over the Caspian Sea?"

No way!  Americans couldn't work in Iran after the 1979 revolution.  Phil was feeding me a line!

Well, I was something of a world traveler myself.

"I picked up a Swedish bodybuilder at a gay bar in Tallinn, Estonia."

"Oh, the Angel Bar, down the street from the Kiek in die Kok Tower?"

"My friend and I tried to start a gay Pentecostal church in Osaka."  

"Osaka!  Have you ever been to Physique?  I used to know the owner.  Very nice guy."

Ok,this guy had swallowed a Damron Gay Guide.  How could he have crammed all that travel into 25 or 30 years?  He must be feeding me a line.

But he was very cute, and he still looked very familiar, so I invited him home.

Phil was affectionate in bed, versatile, and very gifted beneath the belt -- a Mortadella+!  I could believe his tales of being a hustler and kept boy.


"So, does your truck driving job bring you through town often?"  I asked afterwards.  "We could get together..."

"Maybe.  I never know my route in advance.  One week I might be driving to Tuscaloosa, and the next to Anchorage.  I'll let you know...."

Which in gay circles means "It's been nice, but I don't want to see you again."

That night I sat staring at Phil's selfie and going through the old photos on my computer.  Friends from Upstate, Florida, New York.  No.

West Hollywood, 20 years ago?  No, he wasn't old enough.

College, thirty years ago?  No.

Then I remembered!  I texted my Dad.  "That picture of you in the Navy, with civilian clothes.  Could you email it to me?"


An hour later, a photo appeared as an email attachment, Dad in civilian clothes and his 1950s hair wave, his arm around a taller guy with a crew cut.  "Me and Luke, Okinawa."

Different hair, but same face.  Phil, 50 years ago!

That's why he looked so familiar.

Dad always said that his years in the Navy, from 1956  through 1960, were the best time of his life.  He had a whole album of photos of him and his buddies, which his grandson had recently scanned and put on his computer.

When I was a kid, hungry for any evidence of same-sex desire, I was intrigued by the quiet intimacy of the photos.  I stared at them for hours, wondering if Dad had a secret gay life, but afraid to ask.

"Who was Luke?"  I texted Dad.  "What can you tell me about him?"

Dad isn't good at texting, so he called me.  "He was a couple of years older than me, in his late 20s. He took me under his wing when I was stationed in Japan.  And I think we were in the Philippines, too.  I had never been outside of Indiana before, but he had literally been everywhere!  He spoke fluent Japanese!"

He sent me three other pictures of him and Luke together.

 My favorite, one that I found hot as a kid, depicted them in swimsuits on a beach, their arms around each other, cans of beer in their hands.

Dad had a bulge.

"Did you keep in contact with Luke later" I asked.

"Not really.  Last I heard he was in college, studying international relations on the G.I. Bill. But that would have been in the early 1960s. Why so many questions about Luke?"

"Oh...um...I met a guy today who looked exactly like him.  It was spooky."

I sent him the selfie.

"That's the spitting image of Luke!" Dad said.  "Must be his grandson.  Imagine hearing about him again after 50 years!"

Did I hook up with Luke's grandson?

Or with Luke himself, unchanged, eternal?

See also: The Mystery of the "Kiss My Ass" Burro; The Football Player who got unstuck in time.

The Bed-Hopping Boy in Japan

Osaka, Japan, July 1986

When I was living in West Hollywood, my ex-boyfriend Alan, the Pentecostal porn star, moved to Japan to start a gay Pentecostal church.

I know, odd idea for a country where less than 3% of the population is Christian.

I managed to get a scholarship to study Japanese that summer, and moved in to his tiny apartment on a noisy street in the Kita Ward of Osaka. There are beds, tables, and chairs available in Japan, but Alan insisted on traditional furnishings, sleeping on mats on the floor and eating off a coffee table.

Every day between 8:00 am and 2:00 pm, Alan met with his students -- 8 to 10 per hour, talking about current events and writing essays.  I went to Gold's Gym, then to my class in Japanese Literature or to the Joto Library to study Japanese.

At night we went cruising.  The West Hollywood condemnation of casual hookups didn't apply in Japan -- in fact, most gay men were closeted, with wives and girlfriends, and preferred hookups to dates.  Often they didn't even want to spend the night.

I concentrated on the gay bars -- Physique, Popeye, Kuro, Leibnitz -- clustered in the Doyama-Cho neighborhood.  Alan sometimes came to the bars, too, but mostly he hit the bath houses and sex clubs.

There wasn't actually much cruising in Japanese gay bars.  You didn't approach the guy you liked.  You asked the club owner or bartender to introduce you.  The few gaisen (Japanese guys who like foreigners) usually preferred older men, so I struck out a lot.

But Alan, who was infinitely attractive to all Asian guys, didn't.  He brought someone home almost every night.

In a tiny one-room apartment (216 square feet, about the size of a bedroom in the U.S.), the roommate gets to watch or join in by default.  Except for Minoru.

One night I was alone in the apartment, having struck out at the bars, when Alan came in with an Cute Young Thing -- in his 20s, short, slim, baby-faced.  Later I discovered that he was 19 years old, studying German at the University.

They were so busy kissing, groping, and ripping their clothes off that they didn't notice me until they were nearly naked.  Then Minoru froze.  Smiling with embarrassment, he whispered something in Alan's ear.

Alan turned to me.  "Boomer, this is Minoru.  He's very conservative, and he doesn't like to be watched.  Could you take a walk?"

"You're kidding!" I exclaimed. I had never been kicked of the apartment before.

"Just for an hour or so."

I roiled with anger, but, I wasn't actually paying rent, so what could I do?  I walked down to the street and mingled with the noisy partying salarymen for an hour.

When I returned, they were lying naked on Alan's mat.  Minoru quickly slid on his underwear.

"Is it ok to come in now?" I asked sarcastically.

"Sure.  We were just about to go to sleep."

I undressed, climbed onto my own mat, and switched off the light, but didn't doze off.

After a few minutes, Alan started to snore.  As if on cue, Minoru crawled over to my mat and started groping me.

"Hey, you're Alan's date!" I exclaimed, startled.

"Oh, he doesn't care."

"Wait..." I murmured.  "At least ask him."  I raised my voice a bit.  "Alan!  Do you mind if Minoru and I get together?"

"What?" He raised his head and glanced over sleepily at us.  "No, do what you want."

Minoru pulled my ear close and whispered "Tell him to go away.  I don't like it when someone watches."

See also: The Bed-Switching Freshman at the Chocolate Moose.