20 October Hookups, Dates, and Sausage Sightings

It's October,, my second favorite month of the year!  The days get longer, tv and theater seasons are in full swing, the air is brisk, running outside is a pleasure rather than a sweaty chore.  You get apple cider and pumpkin pie.  And the scary, paranormal events that are rare in July happen every day.

Ray Bradbury calls this The October Country: where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and mid-nights stay. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain. 

In honor of our journey past the border into the October Country of 2018, here are my top October hookups, dates, and sausage sightings.

1. October 1968: My first date.  In third grade, a cute boy invited me to a movie, which was a sin to Nazarenes.  I was certain that God was going to strike me dead with a thunderbolt. He didn't.  Instead, I got to hug a hippie.

2. October 1969: My first kiss.  From Greg, the boy vampire (also an astronomer, geologist, naturalist, and psychic), while we were watching the Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows.  It was a compromise; he really wanted to bite me on the neck.

3. October 1972: Why corpses are called stiffs.  In seventh grade, my friend's brother who worked in a funeral home invited us to come in and look at the corpse of a teenage boy who died that day.  I didn't know that men become aroused after death....






4. October 1974: The preacher pops a boner.  At a pre-college weekend at Olivet Nazarene College, we sat on a lounge in the student union watching a ministerial student make out with his girlfriend. Gigantic boner, the stuff of fantasies.

5. October 1979: The German Choirboy.  During my sophomore year at Augustana College, I spent a quarter abroad in Regensburg, Germany, and got my first real boyfriend, Wolfgang the Choir Boy at St. Peter's Cathedral.  We went out about a dozen times, but never actually spent the night together, since we both had roommates.

6. October 1983: The Halloween Homophobe.  Aka the night I drank 1 1/2 beers.  In grad school at Indiana University in Bloomington, my roommate Viju and I invited some guys over for a Halloween party.  Jimmy the Bodybuilder on Crutches invited his homophobic friend, who didn't know that the rest of us were all gay.  He had a meltdown!

7. October 1987: Heinz and His Crazy Obsession.  In West Hollywood, my sort-of-boyfriend Raul was living with a crazy old guy named Heinz.  I still can't eat Jimmy Dean's sausage biscuits or listen to the song "Come away wiz me to Malibu...."  I agreed to sharing, just to be polite, until I discovered Heinz's obsession.  Hint: Nasssty!

8. November 1990: The Rocky Horror Picture Show Virgin.  I had seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show in theaters twice and memorized the soundtrack, and the moment it came out on VHS, I bought a copy.  So I didn't consider myself a RHPS "Virgin,"  Nor did I think that the audience would demand a "virgin sacrifice."

9. October 1992: The Lawnboy.  What's scary about a lawnboy?  When he lies about his age, and you don't find out until after you've made the date.  Fortunately, I managed to call it off before the jail-bait scalawag arrived.  We finished the date in 1995, after he turned 18.

10. October 1996: My Date with the Vampire.   I may have exaggerated the oddities of Kevin the Vampire, but he definitely had a paranormal aura.  If he stared at you the right way, you would lose your free will.  That's how he got most of his dates.  He got the others with cool Bohemian looks and enormous penis.

11. October 1997: The Fireman Fantasy.   I've dated two firemen, and they've both been rather small in the penis department. Maybe that's one of the reasons they want to work with those big long hoses.  This guy came to our apartment after my crazy straight roommate put some water on the stove to boil and then left for six hours.

12. October 1999: The Boy Who Refused to Leave.  Not only did Ozzie tell an unsettling story about hooking up with John Kennedy Jr. after his death, the next day, after a hookup with me and Yuri, he refused to leave Yuri's room.  Unsettling.








13. November 2000: The Football Player Who Got Stuck in Time.  I really believe (sort of) that the University of Alabama football player I hooked up with that cold Novmber day was on a field trip from 1941.

14. October 2002: The Gay Psychic Angel.  Raphael showed up unexpectedly at my house in Florida, did a past-life regression, told me not to move to Europe, and gave me his phone number.  He was ungodly cute, an angel, but his arms didn't work, and I wimped out on calling him.  I've been kicking myself for it ever since.  I tried looking him up again recently, but I don't remember his last name, and he doesn't appear in the directory of professional psychics in Florida.

15. October 2005: Remy the Jerk.  I've had dates with Creepy Old Guys, Sleazoids, elitists, idiots, and jerks of all kinds, but this guy was a complete, utter *hole, so nasty that it was scary.  It's a good thing we had our date on Halloween.


16. October 2008: The Satyr.    A massive guy, massively fat, with the biggest Kovbasa++++ I've ever seen, before or since.  I'm pretty sure he was a mystical being, Priapus the God of Virility, just manifesting in our reality as a super-hung chub.  His houseboy was cute, too.

17. October 2012: Assaulted in the Locker Room.  I've been yelled at and called names, but the only time I've actually been attacked was in the locker room of a gym in the gay neighborhood of Philadelphia, where a guy accused me of "looking at him" and rushed in to attack.

18. November 2012: The Dark Room. I went to the guy's house to pick him up for a date, and he opened the door naked.  Things went downhill from there.

19. October 2014: My Dad's Old Navy Buddy.   My weirdest paranormal experience to date: my Dad's old navy buddy shows up. Except my Dad was in the Korean War, and this guy is still in his twenties.  Ok, maybe it was his grandson.

20. October 2015: The Twink Who Wasn't Interested.  That's not actually scary, just perplexing for a twink magnet.  Turns out he was interested, he just didn't think I was.  Go figure.

The Art of Going Out: Meeting Men for Dating or Sex in West Hollywood

Nowadays, with same-sex attraction easy to accept and easy to divulge, people just click on Grindr to get a guy who lives 500 feet away to drop by for a 10 minute blow job.

 Thirty years ago in West Hollywood, things were different. "Going out" was an art, a form of recreation, and a game designed to get a man into your life or you rbed.  There were some very specific rules.  Breaking any of them meant being exposed to HIV, bringing home a druggie or a theif, or worse, or getting the reputation of being a sleazoid or a slut.  Or losing at the game, and not getting a man into your bed.

1. Decide before going out whether you will approach or be approached.  This would very important later: the approacher had to make the first physical contact, ask for the date or hookup, and provide the bed.

Plus if you planned to approach someone for sex tonight, you needed a clean apartment -- bed made, with new sheets, new towels in the bathroom, no dirty dishes in the kitchen.

Plus some interesting magazines on the coffee table, some condoms and lube at the ready, and at least coffee for the next morning.

Plus you had  to tell your friends that you were going out, so they could arrnage for a casual "drop in" to see if everything was ok.

2. Go out on a weeknight between 9 pm and 11;00 pm.  Going out could occur on any night of the week, but weeknights were preferable.  Friday and Saturday were reserved for dates and parties; guys would might go to the bars to look at guys or as part of their dates, but they were not likely to be "going out," looking to meet someone new.  .

Why be done by 11:00?  You have to get home anyway, and after two hours without success, you start getting desperate, and make bad choices.

After you decided on a bar, based on your age and the kind of guy you were interested in meeting:

3. Go out alone.   If you went out with a friend,you might get involved with an unsavory competition.  Besides, when you go out together, you stay together until the end of the evening.  This was a cast-in-stone, friendship-breaking rule.  I suppose it originated because someone, at some time, was left at the bar and ended up victimized


.

4. Do not drink, or just one beer.  If you were intoxicated, you would make bad choices.  I used to buy a coke and make it last for the two hours.

5. As the approacher, make at most six circuits of the bar.  I always walked around the entire bar, mentally checking who I was interested in.  Then I would start a second cycle,and nonchalantly stop next to ghe guy I liked most.  If he gave me Attitude (refused to make eye contact), I would go on to the next, and so on.  At the end of the second circuit, I would wait ten minutes, and start again. 

After six circuits, you're starting to look desperate or too picky.  And maybe you are.

6. When a prospect makes eye contact, interview him for about five minutes before initiating physical contact.  The questions  were purely social: "Where are you from ?  How long have you lived here?  What neighborhood do you live in?  What gym do you go to? Did you see Dynasty last night?"  Only sleazoids asked about cock size, bedroom interests, or HIV status.  It was the epitome of gauche.

At the end of the five minute interview, you either said "have a nice evening" and moved on or sealed the deal with physical contact.

7. The physical contact goes: touch shoulder, touch chest, grope.  The kiss was optional, and not usually recommended, as it might give you the reputation for being a slut. The conversation could continue during the physical contact for as long as you liked, since the decision had been made.  But the approacher had to issue the invitation fairly quickly.

8. After the grope, the inviation must always be accepted.  Before 1990, the invitation would be for a date, with an exchange of telephone numbers.  After 1990, it was usually to go back to your apartment for sex. During the early 1990s, there was a gray area, where some guys were not aware of the change, or not ready for it; they were permitted to reject an invitation for sex, as long as they followed up with an invitation for a date.

9. After the invitation is issued, you must both leave the bar. The cruising is over.  You weren't  allowed to stick around, even to "chat with your friends." You weren't  allowed to go to another bar. You could go to a restaurant for a late-night snack, to a late-night bookstore to buy The Complete Operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, or go home.

10. The next day, you must report to your friends. Was the bar good or bad?Enough hot guys? Too much Attitude? You had to describe your evening, what you did right, what you did wrong, ask for tips on how to improve your technique. After all, in a few days, or a week at the most, you would be back  out, playing the game again.

16 Texas Toughs, Houston Hunks, and Hell-fer-Sartain Sausages

I endured Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas  for a year after getting my M.A. in English.

It was actually Aldine, Texas, a far, far, far northern suburb of Houston, 20 miles from the beauty and excitement of the Montrose.

And, if you don't count two trips back to Rock Island and spring break in New Orleans, it was actually only seven and a half months, or 210 days.

209 days too long.

 I had a dreary two-room apartment on a dead end street, with an illiterate redneck landlord downstairs and a headbanger neighbor.

Everyone in the rust belt moved to Texas in the early 1980s, which meant that everything was grotesquely crowded, it took an hour to get anywhere in grotesque traffic, and everyone was new at their jobs, so they took forever and made lots of mistakes, which made every chore from banking to going to the gym a daunting enterprise.

Plus, everything was under construction, resulting in constant delays, and more flat tires in nine months than I've had in the 30 years since.

The campus was all ugly concrete slabs and treeless scrub grass.

Everyone was illiterate, surly, and very, very homophobic.  Consequently, all gay men were very, very closeted, giving you fake names and fake phone numbers.

There are a few things I remember fondly:
My Italian class.
A visit from Bruce.
Spring break in New Orleans.
Driving away.

And sausages.  They grow them BIG in Texas, and the guys were readily available.  For hookups, anyway.

Here are 16 Texas toughs, horrors, hookups, and sausages from my 210 days in Hell-fer-Sartain.

September:

1. The Student Who Got Naked in My Class, stripped down to his underwear right in the middle of a lecture on Moby Dick.  No one has ever done that in any class since.  The most beefcake you see is when they take off their sweater, and their shirt pulls up off their chest.

2. Raymond, a black guy with an interest in astrology (he was a Taurus) and an enormous Mortadella who kept saying "if you relax, it won't hurt." It did.

3. Sayid, his friend.  Raymond fixed us up, apparently believing that if I wasn't an anal bottom, I must be an anal top.  At the end of the date, Sayid ran into the bedroom, stripped, turned over on his stomach, and squealed "Take me! Take me!  Do whatever you want with me!"


4. Hank, a recent graduate of the college, now working in a department store, who claimed to want a relationship, but gave a fake telephone number.  He didn't realize that as a faculty member, I had access to all student records.  So I looked him up and called.

"Um...um...I don't...I mean," he stammered, trying to figure out how he managed to accidentally write down his real number.

"You said you wanted a relationship.  So -- dinner tomorrow night?"

He didn't want dinner.



October:

5. Dan, a Vietnamese immigrant who worked at the mall and chain smoked.  During our date, he poured water on a napkin to use as a makeshift ash tray.  After the date, I came down with a case of...well, let's just say it wasn't pleasant.

November:

6. Two Brothers and their Dad. I had a date with the 19-year old, but I made out with the 17-year old, and got a sausage sighting of the aroused Dad in bed.

December:

7. Dick, My Old Bully.  We reconnected at Christmas, back in Rock Island. Who knew that he was gay?  And so buffed?  And so well hung?




January:

8. My Most Embarrassing Hookup, when a middle-aged Mormon guy mistook me for a hustler.

9.The Redneck Boy from the trailer court next door worked out with weights, shirtless, in his yard.  I never made contact, but it was a pleasant sight.

February:

10. The Professor Who Got Away.  I pushed a little too hard, going into detail about the things we had in common.  I may have used the term "soul mate."  He rain.

11. The Russian Major.  I wooed him with my knowledge of Slavic languages, but after the make-out session on his couch, he said "I hate to burst your bubble, but I'm not in the mood to be raped tonight."  Raped?

March:

12. The Footballer.  This guy goes into ecstasies over me being from the Midwest, asked about farms, milking cows, etc., etc.  He asks me to wear a football jersey on our date.  He asks me to stand in front of the window and "Feel myself up."

No!

He arrives and says "Are ya hungry?"

Which is almost as annoying.

13. The Teenage Hustler of Bourbon Street.  The fuzz-headed Cute Young Thing kept following me around, trying to get me to buy him hot dogs, a pizza slice, beer, and Curaçao.  I finally agreed to bring him back to my hotel room, where he was too big to go down on adequately, and at the end of the evening he asked for $5.00.

April:

14. The Most Skittish Guy on Earth.  He arrives, says "There are too many people around.  You didn't tell me you lived so close to other people.  What if they saw me coming in?  What if they hear us?"

I get annoyed and say "Are we going to do it or what?"

He grabs a chair, puts it on the floor in the bedroom, and says "Go ahead and do it, then."

But then he hears a noise and vanishes before I have a chance to "do it," whatever "it" is.


15.Carl the Cowboy Cop  with a Kovbasa+, one of the biggest I've ever seen.  But he was immensely tall, which was a turnoff, and extremely anti-religious.

May:

16. The New Age Devotee who kept talking about the Universe, energy, chakras, crystals, and stuff: "The Universe wants you to find the one you're destined to be with."  He didn't want to do anything in bed except kiss and cuddle, although he stayed aroused all night.

In the morning, I prepared a New Age breakfast of granola and fresh plums.  I tried to hand him the bowl of plums, but he didn't take it, and it shattered all over the floor.

 A fitting end to my 210 days in Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas.

See also: Researching an Ugly Guy Takes Me to the Worst Place in the World

David's Top 20 Hookups and One-Night Stands

David, my friend in San Francisco, spent the first 43 years of his life in small-town Arkansas, a conservative Baptist minister who had barely heard that gay people existed, and certainly didn't know that he was himself gay.  After all, he was married.  He had two children.  He lived in Arkansas.

On January 6th, 1996, his 43rd birthday, he realized that he was gay.  Within a week, he had his first same-sex experience, resigned from his pastoral job, moved out of the parsonage, and asked his wife for a divorce.

By June he was living in San Francisco, He got an apartment and a job, joined a gym, bought a new wardrobe, and went cruising.

After 43 years in the wilderness of the Straight World, unwilling to touch, look at, or even fantasize about the masculine, he wanted to make up for lost time by experiencing masculine beauty five times a day.

Hooking up that often is a herculean task, even in Gay Heaven.  You have to be always "on," looking constantly, at work, at the gym, on the Muni.  You have to walk down different streets, go to different bars and restaurants, so you don't run into the same crowd all the time.  And you can't be picky: you have to be available to every man of legal age, whether he's old, young, short, tall, thin, or fat.

The logistic problems made him revise his goal to one a day.  Still during the last twenty years he's probably been with around 5,000 guys.

Here are his most memorable hookups, one-night stands, and public sexual encounters.

The Bible Boy of Castro Street.  In June 1996, shortly after we met, David shocked me by picking up a street preacher.

Brad Pitt.  In August 1996,  David and I had a four-way with Corbin the Gym Rat and Brad Pitt.

The Homeless Kid.  In September 1996, David shocked me again by actually talking to a panhandler.  And inviting him over for dinner.

Santa Claus.  David wasn't usually into the bear type, but he made an exception for Santa Claus, aka Bearnard, in December 1996.

The Straight Boy at the Garlic Festival.  David even cruised in the Straight World.  It paid off when we went to the Gilroy Garlic Festival in July 1997.

The Car Wash Boy.  David was visiting a friend in Oakland, and they passed one of those buffed college guys who advertise car washes by taking their shirts of.

The Abductee.  Alien abductions were all the rage in the 1990s, so what better place to cruise than at a support group for abductees?  Of course, David had to have his own abduction story....

The Brothers.  David was quite a twink magnet, but he didn't discriminate.  One summer he hooked up with two tourist brothers from Slovakia, both in their 40s, while they were traveling with their wives.

Kevin's Old Apartment.  In March 2003, I flew out to San Francisco for a visit, and David and I tried to track down my ex-boyfriend, Kevin the Vampire.  We hooked up with the guy currently living in his apartment after a conversation of less than five minutes.






The Elevator.  There's a lot of porn about getting someone to go down on you in an elevator, but have you ever tried it?  David did.


The Hitchhiker.  In August 2003, David came to visit me in Florida, and we drove down to Key West for the weekend.  On the way we picked up a teenage hitchhiker, on the way to his freshman year at Florida International University.

The Unicyclist.  For at least a decade, the Unicyclist was a fixture on Castro Street. He didn't speak; if he liked you, he would circle you and beep a little horn.  For some reason he never approached David, so one day David approached him.

The Surfer.  The water at Baker Beach in San Francisco is cold.  Even in the summer, you're not going to swim or surf there without a wetsuit.  But when David saw a naked man there in April 2005, he didn't ask questions.  He just went down.

The Bodybuilders.  Everybody in San Francisco went to the gym, so you had to be really spectacular to draw attention based on your physique.  And the really spectacular guys tended to only date each other.  One spring David managed to date Bodybuilder #1, and then, after they broke up, shared his new boyfriend, Bodybuilder #2.

The BART.  The Bay Area Transit System has very small restrooms, and it's not very well heated, but that didn't stop David from having a twink go down on him in the middle of December..

The Slave.  David was into leather, but not into BDSM; no bondage, whips, or clamps, thank you.  But when the prospective bottom looks like this, who can say no?

Skyler Stone.  A comedian who usually plays stoners. You may know him as Cousin Mike on Raising Hope, or from his prank make-out session with his buddy at the homophobic Chik-fil-A.  By all accounts, he's straight, but David says that they hooked up in Los Angeles.

The Otter from the Bike Stop.  In March 2013, David visited me in Philadelphia, and proved that he still had the stuff by getting the telephone numbers of 14 guys in a single 24-hour period.  The only one he actually hooked up with was an otter met in the gay bar The Bike Stop.

The Stonewall Veteran.  The Stonewall Riots, the start of the Gay Rights Movement, were in 1969, so there aren't a lot of people left who can say they were there.  David met a guy who was active in gay rights even earlier, in the Mattachine Society of the 1950s.

Everybody Hooks up with Everybody.  In July 2013, I flew out to San Francisco to visit David, and he provided a friend to share: James, a black-haired twink majoring in Arabic.  It turns out that James dated the nephew of a guy I cruised back in Rock Island 30 years ago.  Sooner or later, everybody hooks up with everybody else.

Finding Small Town Gay Men on Grindr

Middle America, September 2016

In the book Familiar Faces, Hidden Lives: The Story of Homosexual Men in America Today (1976), Howard Brown expresses horror over a gay friend's decision to move away from Baltimore to a small town: "How could a 35 year old, well-educated [gay man] put himself in such a position?  Didn't he know that he was choosing a life that would afford no chance of love?"

 In the 1980s and 1990s,  the moment you figured out that you were gay, you made plans to move to a big city. Small towns and even medium-sized cities were sites of lies, secrets, and silence, where gay people were assumed not to exist, and probably didn't.

There might be one or two gay people left in Crawfordsville, Indiana, or Danville, Illinois.  They were deeply closeted, living in constant fear, isolated, lonely, desperate.

Yesterday I was traveling with my brother and sister-in-law on I-74 through the desolate nowheres of Indiana and Illinois, past Crawfordsville and Danville, Veedersburg and Westville, Mahomet and Farmer City and Leroy.  I turned on Grindr, and watched the names and faces come and go, and listened the voices of gay men.  Were they still isolated, lonely, desperate?

Here are 14 of their profiles, edited slightly for narrative flow.  Decide for yourself.

[The photos are not from Grindr, which doesn't allow nudity]

1. Gaymer.  Weirdo book lover.  I don't drive.  Sometimes mean, sometimes boring, but if I'm on here, I'm horny, so send some dicks.

2. Mystic.  Running, animals, anime, gaming, having fun, stargazing. Passing time on Earth, making friends along the way.  I'm an old soul in a modern age, dreaming of things that might never be.  8 inches.  Hookups ok.

3. Tonka.  Like the toy trucks, I have big wheels.  Other things are big, too.  I try to laugh at whatever life brings: conversation, cuddling, dicks.  Can host.  Hablo Espanol.

4. Funfun.  Living life at level 10.  Hit me up for a night of Netflix and pizza. If you have holes in your ears big enough to see through, no thanks.  No one over 26.
















5. Another Reject.  Bottom if you want to know.  High school senior, as lonely as all of you here.  I'm awkward, so good luck.  No, the girl I'm with is not my girlfriend, and it's not my prom.  Looking for a boyfriend.  Let's get coffee and see where it goes.

6. Speed Racer.. I work for a company that sanctions races all over the country.  I also announce races all over the Midwest.  Masculine, laid back, looking for younger, well hung a plus.  Blonds go to the front of the line.

7. Potato Pancakes.  Virgin, never did this before.  I may not be gorgeous, but I'm still a catch.  I cook, sew, sing, garden, can my own spaghetti sauce.  Oral and anal bottom.

8. Jelly.  Age 21.  We all have the time. Reading, jazz, retro porn, Pokemon Go.  I am a summer looking for a winter.













9. Paratrooper Comedian.  Uptight high strung goofy 420 friendly with a glock.  My Mamma left me, my Daddy left me, I'm lazy and not goodlooking but I'm full of laughter and heart.  Baby, ring my bell.

10. Dick Wolf.  Sup, Boners?  I call my bedroom Margaritaville because I'm wasting away in it.  Come and see my band and punch me in the throat and make out with me on stage.  We can go on a cuddling date later.

11. Zoom Zoom. I'm me.  Sarcasm, art, music, motorcycles, cooking, sake with Red Bull.  Nothing upsets me.  Black Buddhist bottom.  The bigger you are, the better.  Want a blow job?

12. Open Minded.  Up for anything -- you tell me.  No bi, married, trans, closeted, femmes, fats, Blacks, piercings, druggies, losers, weirdos, gang bangers, unemployed, or old dudes.  Sorry, no offense, it's just not my thing.












13. Nerd.  Loves books,movies, video games, all physical activity.  Quirkily cute. Fuzzy bottom.  Cannibal chaser.   Poet and philosopher.  If you're closeted, I'm not interested.  Please don't contact me if you don't want to hang out and get to know me.

14. Enigma.  Adult male primate. Intellectual gym rat nudist with a screw loose and a campy sense of humor.  Also a cock as big as Mount Everest. Why can't orphans play baseball?  Because they have no home.  I have a home.  It could be yours, too, if you play your cards right.  

The Search for a Roommate Leads to 3 Hookups and 2 Dates

Germantown, Pennsylvania, September 2012

When I got a temporary one-year position at a small college in a distant suburb of Philadelphia, I was ecstatic.  Finally I could move back to a gay neighborhood.

It didn't take long to realize that the commute was going to be a problem: a five block walk to the metro station, wait for the train, take it to the downtown station, wait again, transfer to a new train, sit for 45 minutes, walk to campus, an hour and a half each way 4 days per week.

Maybe I could relieve some of the pressure by finding someone in town to stay with now.

Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of gay men on the small, conservative campus at least not many open enough to find and amiable enough to make friends with.

1. Horst.  The academic advisor of the gay student organization, a bisexual woman, introduced me to the only out professor on campus, a musician named Horst: in his 30s, tall, thin, elegantly dressed.

We met at small, elegant bistro near the campus, where he got on my bad side right away by waiting until I ordered the fajita platter, then ordering just a small bowl of mushroom soup -- "You don't need to eat much for lunch, just a little soup or a salad."

He was a graduate of Brown University, originally from Germany, where they still believed in culture.  Americans -- all idiots!  Is there anything more hideous than rap?  And American students, with their mindless pursuit of video games and graphic novels! A generation of morons!

I hate elitists.

Next!

At least I got a date out of the deal. Horst had an uncut Kielbasa+, very thick. I didn't even mind his habit of yelling out orders "Faster!  Slower!  Take your time!  Take it all the way down your throat!"


2.  Jimmy. Horst gave me the number of his ex-boyfriend, Jimmy, who worked in the Admissions Office: in his 30s, rather buffed, with thinning brown hair and very big hands.

Jimmy insisted that we meet in a park by the river: "It will be getting cold soon, so we have to squeeze in all of the outdoor time we can, right?"

We walked through the park, over the bridge, and through the park on the other side, while he talked about his garden: "I got some asters and Russian sage coming up, and I still have to do some weeding and hedging.  The helenium is looking good."

"So, do you own your own house?" I asked.

"Well, it's actually my great-grandmother's house.  My mother is renting it to me and a straight couple."

I stared.  He shared his house with a straight couple?

Next!

But at least I got a hookup out of the deal.  Jimmy was average beneath the belt, but very passionate, into kissing and oral.  We laughed over Edgar shouting out orders.

October

3. Rory. I couldn't stay with a student, could I?

Jimmy gave me the number of his ex-boyfriend, Rory, a senior majoring in modern languages.

We met at the YMCA near the campus, where many students and faculty worked out, and shared a desultory game of handball.  Rory had a round, handsome face, a slim swimmer's build, and, from what I could peek at in the shower, a Bratwurst+ beneath the belt.

He was impressed by the fact that I was a Modern Languages Major as an undergrad, that I had lived in Turkey and France, and that my boyfriend Troy was a French major.

But: "I live with my parents and little brother.  They know that I'm gay, but we don't talk about it.  I've never brought guys home when they're not around, but I've never introduced them to a boyfriend."

Next!

At least I got a hookup out of the deal.  Like many 22-year olds, Rory was constantly aroused, before, during, and after the bedroom activity.  He was strictly oral passive, going down on me while murmuring "Take me, Daddy!"

4. Hamid.  I hate, hate, hate the question "Do you have any big plans for the weekend?"  It always makes me feel guilty.  Am I the only person in the world who doesn't spend the weekend riding dirt bikes on the beach and then singing around a campfire with 20 of my closest friends?

So when the Middle Eastern guy at the Barnes and Noble near the campus asked, I got sarcastic: "Sure, I'm jetting down to Cancun to go hang gliding with Tom Cruise."

"That sounds like fun," he said, oblivious.  "I'm going to the Beer Fest in King of Prussia."

"You drink beer?" I asked in surprise.

He grinned.  "I do a lot of things."

Hamid was a recent graduate of Temple University with a major in theater arts, a practicing Muslim, but he ate pork and drank beer.  He had a trim physique, with a smooth tight chest, thick biceps, and a thick Bratwurst.  He was mostly into anal, but open to suggestions.

Oh, and he was living with his sister and her husband, who didn't know he was gay.

Next!

But at least I got a date out of the deal.

November

5. Sprag.  Maybe I was going about this wrong.  Maybe I could actually rent a room from a gay guy two nights a week.   It would be a little pricey, but it would save me from a long commute.

I answered an ad for someone to stay during the spring semester, a room with kitchen privileges for $300 per month.

His answering message was very long and annoying, ending with "and the little bird said 'beep'," and he was never home, so it took about two weeks to get ahold of him.

His name was Sprag.  He was about 40, very pale,very muscular,  with dark eyes, red lips, and a short beard.

While I was interviewing, he played loud music constantly -- an immediate turnoff.

"My boyfriend stays over several nights a week," Sprag said.  "And sometimes I hook up.  I hope that's not a problem."

"No, not at all," I said with a grin.  "I have no problem with hookups, especially if you're into sharing.

"And sometimes I have girls over, too,  I'm like 90% gay, but you know, sometimes I'm in the mood for p____."

Next!

At least I got a hookup out of the deal.  Sprag had firm, pale chest, a shaved crotch, and an enormous cut Kielbasa.  He wouldn't kiss, but he was into both giving and receiving oral.

By this time, there were only a few months left, so I decided to ride it out.  I never found a guy to stay with, but it was a lot of fun looking.

See also: My Date with the Nastiest Guy in the World

No One Over 30

The guy on the left is 18.
The guy on the right is 38.

Which would you rather invite home for a hookup?  Or, assuming similar personalities, a date?




The answer is obvious, yet a surprising number of gay men would reject the 38 year old out of hand.

They specify on their dating app profiles:

No one over 30
Legal age to 30 only
Under 30 only

Ok, if you're 20 years old yourself, you might want to limit your dating to someone with shared cultural references  and life experiences -- it's hard to discuss the problems of your first job with someone nearing retirement!  But for hookups, what difference does it make?

Besides, the vast majority of 20 year olds are fine with older guys, or even prefer them.  The under 30 only provisos come almost entirely from men who haven't been inside a twink bar since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Why such a bizarre age restriction?






Sometimes I suspect that when they say under 30 only, what they mean is:

If they're not fishing for kids, why are they limiting themselves to the 24% of the adult population that is aged 18-29?

Do they think they will have better luck with someone young and inexperienced?

Do they think that everyone aged 18-29 is gorgeous, no exceptions, and everyone over 30 is hideous, no exceptions?

Do they break up with their boyfriends on their 30th birthday?

What if they meet someone in a bar?  Can they tell instinctively, or do they have to check id?

And why bother?  Most gay men over 40 get approached by twinks all the time anyway.  Why specify it in your profile.

I shouldn't care if you have a ludicrous, bizarre requirement that cuts you off from 75% of the adult male population.  There are plenty of twinks to go around.

But one of these days I would like to go out with a guy and NOT have everyone assume that we are father and son.

See also: How to Avoid Being a Creepy Old Guy; and A Week of Hookups and Dates with Older Guys

What's Wrong with an Open Relationship?

I have been getting insulted by an anonymous poster, who complains bitterly that I am a despicable person with a sad, pathetic, meaningless life because I have an open relationship.

 I no longer permit anonymous posts on this blog.

Half of these stories are about sharing boyfriends and romantic partners, so I'm not sure why someone who hates such things would be here in the first place.

But in case you have moral qualms about open relationships, here's why I think they're a good idea:











The cultures of the world have many ways of determining who is responsible for raising children.  The most common are:
1. Polygamy: several women have children with one man.
2. Polyandry: one woman has children with several men
3. Mixed: anyone in the clan can have children with anyone else.

17% of the world's cultures practice monogamy: one woman has children with one man only.










Monogamy ensures that men know that they are the biological father of the children they are raising.  But it has some drawbacks:

1. The wife becomes property, her vagina a commodity that can be bought and sold.  Through the 18th century, if a married woman was raped, the husband was assumed the victim.  If she was unmarried, the victim was the father.

2. The penalty for a wife who "cheats" is severe, but for the husband, the penalty is mild.  It is even expected that he have a "mistress" on the side.  90% of the people prosecuted under the adultery laws are female.

3. The husband and wife are expected to live alone, with their children, in"single family homes" which puts a severe strain on the world's economic resources.  Multiple-family dwellings are much more efficient.

Same-sex couples don't need to worry about pregnancy from an extramarital encounter, so why do they practice monogamy?  I have heard the following objections to sexual activity with people outside the relationship:

1.It increases the risk of sexually-transmitted diseases.

Unprotected sex increases the risk of STDs regardless of whether you are in a relationship or not.  Should single gay people avoid sexual activity, also? Wrap it up!

2. The partner may find someone he likes better, and end the relationship.

Will spending an hour in the bedroom with this guy tell you if he likes The X-Files and Buddhist philosophy, if he will be supportive of your career, if he will fit in with your friends?  Of course not -- all you will find out about is his bedroom performance.  If your relationship is so fragile that it will end because you found someone better at oral sex, is it really worth preserving?









3. Heterosexual men don't do it.

Of course they do, just not as often as we do, for an obvious reason: women lose prestige by having sex, but men gain it. Think of the terms used for men and women with multiple partners: stud vs. slut.  So it takes work to persuade a woman to have sex with you, but to get a man to have sex with you, all you need to do is ask.

4. It must be disgraceful.  You wouldn't want people to find out, would you?

I would prefer that my mother, minister, and boss not be apprised of my latest three-way.  Also I wouldn't want them to know what I did with my partner last night.  And I don't want to know what they did with their partners, either.

5. It detracts from the joy, fulfillment, and fun of the relationship.

I don't see how.  It's a joy to cruise guys together, to evaluate prospects.  It's fulfilling to watch your partner in action with a guy he finds especially attractive. And it's fun to discuss afterwards.


6. I prefer monogamy, and everybody on Earth has to do things my way.

If you and your partner are both into it, feel free to only have sex with each other.  Or to not have sex at all.  It's really none of my business.  But at the same time, you don't have the right to judge me over something that my partner and I enjoy.

Semi-Open Relationships

I don't have strictly open relationships, where either partner can do anything with anybody at anytime.  What's the fun in that? I want to be there.

My relationships have usually been semi-open.

1. Either partner can engage in social activities with anyone he wants, including events that are typically considered dates: dinners, movies, and so on.

2. BUT no bedroom activity can occur without both partners being present.  All three will participate, or if one of the parties isn't into it, he can just watch.

3. At bath houses, sex clubs, and bear parties, the partners will cruise together whenever possible, but separate sexual activity is permitted.

4. If the partners are in separate cities, they can engage in bedroom activities with close friends, including "sharing" dates and romantic partners.

It's worked so far.  Twenty years of semi-open relationships with no STDs, no jealousy, no crying and recrimination, no breakups because he found someone better, and a lot of fun.