Farshad's Hookup with Leonardo DiCaprio

I'm in Paris for the first time in eight years, visiting my old haunts and catching up with old friends.  Farshad, the French Moroccan on my Sausage List, and his roommate Michel have me over for dinner.

Farshad is approaching middle age, dark-skinned, bearded, with a hairy chest.  He's one of the founders of the first gay Muslim organization in France and a member of a gay-friendly masjid.  Michel is a second-generation French Tunisian in his 20s, short, slim, with a smooth chest.

The French are not as star-struck as Americans, so celebrity hookups are not a common dinner-party topic of conversation, but  I mention my relationship with Jimmy the Boy Toy, how my real-life celebrity boyfriend was not famous enough, so I invented a hookup with Gregg Sulkin of the Wizards of Waverly Place.

"Why didn't you tell him Leonardo DiCaprio?"  Farshad asks.  "He's more famous, and more believable.  Tout le monde a été dans son lit. [Everyone has been in his bed.]  Even me."

I nod knowingly.  Leonardo DiCaprio is not only immensely talented, he's very, very busy.  He has been involved in passionate romances with female supermodels from three continents, yet he still has the time and energy to rack up up gay rumors.  Nearly every guy I know claims to have been with him, or at least to have seen him kissing a bloke at a nightclub.

But Michel is impressed. "You and the star of Titanic!" he exclaims.  "I never knew that.  Did you say  'I'm king of the world!' when tu l'baisé? [when you topped him]"

Brussels, June 1995

Farshad was 18 years old, a new graduate from a lycee in Lille in northeastern France, planning to study languages at the university.  He had just figured out that he was gay, not just using garz as a substitute for girls, as many of his friends did, but interested in dating and romance.

But where did a conservative Muslim boy from conservative Lille, whose parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and two brothers were members of the Ligue Islamique du Nord, go to meet boys?  And avoid running into anyone he knew?

To Belgium, of course.

One weekend he took the train 1 1/2 hours to Brussels, got a dorm room in a youth hostel, and set about exploring the gay nightlife.

He found a club on the Rue du Lombard that had a bar and disco in the front and a darkroom in the back, and saw a blond minet on the dance floor, shirtless, gyrating vigorously, almost obsessively. Sweat glistened on his slim, smooth chest, rolled down his perfect belly.  He had long arms and shoulders, dirty blond hair, a beautiful angelic face.

Trop chaud!  Farshad thought.  Too hot for me.  I have no chance.

But he underestimated his Mediterranean charms.  Soon the garz sat down at the bar next to him and ordered an Orangina and asked "Que tu veux boire? [What would you like to drink?] with a strong American accent.

Surprised and excited, Farshad stammered "Um...quoi... an Orangina, too, please."

"You speak English?  Excellent!"

"English,  Italian, Arabic, and a little Tamazight, the native language of Morocco," Farshad said, hoping to impress him.

He did.  "That's fantastic!  I can barely handle French and German, and that's only because my mother is from Germany."

He introduced himself as Leo.  He was  an actor, in Belgium making a movie about Arthur Rimbaud, the famous boy genius who wrote startling poetry and had an affair with the middle aged, established poet Paul Verlaine.

"Was he gay?" Farshad asked.

"Gay?  No.  He was gay, straight, bisexual, and everything else.  He loved men, he loved women, he loved words and language, he loved beauty.  He found desire everywhere, even in the slightest touch on the wrist."

Leo touched Farshad's wrist. 

"I've never been with a garz before," Farshad admitted.  "Except for fooling around with my friends, fondling through their clothes, wanking them, that sort of thing.  Nothing romantic.  Nothing passionate."

"Well, it's about time you started," Leo said, moving in for a kiss.

Leo was very passionate, into kissing and full-body contact and oral.  He went down on Farshad, then topped him with his legs in the air so they could kiss.  Then they held each other in their arms and kissed and cuddled, and became aroused again and moved into 69.  And on and on all night.  Farshad didn't remember it all, just a blur of hands and mouths and aroused penises.

Farshad awoke to the sound of the shower running.  Soon Leo emerged from the bathroom, toweling off.

"What do you want to do today?" Farshad asked.  "Have you seen the Musees Royaux des Beaux Arts?"

"I have to be on the set in an hour."

"Ok, then...dinner later?"

"I'll be going back to America soon.  And you have to be getting back to Lille."

"Mais...mais..."

Leo sat on the bed.  "The world is full of hot guys, Farshad.  Not just one, not ten, not a hundred -- thousands.  They'll come and go, but there will always be more.  Your job on this planet is to experience as much beauty as you can before it all fades away."

They didn't exchange telephone numbers.  They never saw each other again.



"That's rather a sad story," I say.

"Sad!" Farshad exclaims.  "I see only happiness.  I spent the night with a man who has a beautiful body and a beautiful soul.  Can you expect more of life?"

"You shall certainly travel from stage to stage," Michel says, quoting the Qur'an.  "Nothing lasts forever.  What counts is the beauty in front of me at this moment."  

Was Farshad Telling the Truth?

Leonardo DiCaprio was filming Total Eclipse in 1995, and several scenes were shot in Brussels.  But his conversation seems too intellectual, even cerebral.  DiCaprio is more of a plain talker.

DiCaprio doesn't have blond hair, and is smaller beneath the belt than Farshad said.

The bedroom activity Farshad describes doesn't mesh with the descriptions of DiCaprio's bedroom activity from some of the women in his life, but that could be merely a matter of performing differently with men and women.

DiCaprio is a strong supporter of the gay community who has played gay or bisexual characters several times.  You'd think that if he was bisexual, he wouldn't keep it a secret.

But the gay rumors continue to rack up.

See also:  Nude Photos of Leonardo DiCaprio

Where to Find Circumcized Men

I've never seen a penis I didn't like. Big or small, thin or thick, soft or hard, veined, curved, epispadias, hypospadias, who cares?  Any penis that the guy agrees to let me look at, fondle, or go down on is a good penis.

Well, not entirely.  There have been a few that were too ugly.  I don't like a red, shiny glans, smegma deposits under the foreskin, or wrinkled shafts.

And being uncut is not a deal breaker, but I have a definite preference for cut.














They're much more majestic.  The obvious urethral opening, the hard surface surface around the crown, the obvious differentiation between the glans and the shaft.


Beautiful.

















Much more interesting than having a tiny part of the glans peeking out from the foreskin.

And having to pull back a foreskin to see it.

Or the ones where the foreskin doesn't retract at all.

Good luck in finding cut cocks, though. Circumcision is required by Islam, so they're mostly in the Muslim-majority countries of the Middle East and North Africa.   Latin America, India, China, Japan, only a few cut guys. There are a lot in the U.S., Canada, and Australia, where faulty medical science decreed circumcized penises healthier up through the 1970s.

Well, I live in the U.S., so it shouldn't be a problem, except that the number of circumcized cocks varies by region.  70-80% in the Midwest, 20-30% on the East Coast and California.

It also varies by race: nearly 90% of non-Hispanic white men are circumcized, but only 70% of non-Hispanic black men, and 40% of Mexican-Americans.











Plus the overall the number of circumcisions performed in the U.S. is decreasing.  It's hovering around 60% now.

So unless you can find some Midwestern white guys over 50, it's increasingly likely that your date or hookup will be uncut.

Oh, well.  There are plenty of Jewish and Muslim men to choose from.


See also: Cut or Uncut

The Boy Who Refused to Leave My Room in the Rain

Long Island, October  1999

I met Ozzie at one of Ravi's Bear Parties on Long Island: a 21 year old NYU undergrad, tall, muscular, with smooth dark skin and an enormous Kovbasa beneath the belt.

He was Moroccan, from in Tangiers, on the Strait of Gibraltar, where his father worked at the Continental Hotel, He spoke Standard Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, English, French, and Spanish.

Obviously I wanted to do more than go down on him!

There was only one problem: I had (and still have) an inviolable rule, drummed into me through ten years in West Hollywood: you must end the evening with the same people you began the evening with.  No abandoning them halfway through for a trick.

I always came to the Bear Parties with Yuri, who lived in a graduate student apartment at Setauket University, about thirty miles in the wrong direction from NYU.

The Bear Parties were on Wednesday nights, and I had class on Wednesday and Thursday both, so it made sensee to drive with Yuri and spent the night in his room afterwards, rather than taking the train all the way into Manhattan, and back again.

Besides, there were distinct advantages to spending the night in Yuri's room.

I wasn't going to abandon him tonight to escort a Cute Young Thing back to Manhattan, and I wasn't going to suggest sharing: Ozzie wasn't Yuri's type.  He liked older men with bodybuilder physiques.

But Yuri, always easy-going, said "Not a problem.  If you like him, I don't care.  We will share him."

But what about the sleeping logistics: "Are you sure there's enough room for three?"

Graduate student apartments were nicely appointed, but the bedrooms were quite small.  Yuri had a single bed, a desk, a dresser, and a bookcase, with a single window looking out onto the parking lot.   When I spent the night, we did a lot of cuddling.

He thought for a moment.  "Ok, we will put blankets on the floor."

It was raining when we left Ravi's house.  I thought it odd that Ozzie wouldn't run out to the car with us; we had to drive up to the front door and fetch him.

"I don't like the rain," he said, bursting into the back seat.  "It doesn't rain much in Tangiers."

On the way back to Setauket University, he told us his coming out story.

Tangiers was once a gay mecca, home to William Burroughs, Alan Ginsberg, and an army of less well known gay men.  When King Hassan II took the throne in 1961, he instituted a crackdown on "decadence" and "Western immorality," but there were still lots of sex tourists from Europe and America.  They would pick up local boys for afternoon trysts in exchange for gifts or a few dirham.

"I never did anything like that.  I was a good Muslim boy, not a prostitute.  But there was a hot British guy who used to drive past the bus stop every day and smiled at me.  And one day it was raining, so he stopped and asked if I wanted a ride."

He got more than a ride.

Except his mother happened to be out shopping, and saw him getting into a car with a foreign man twice his age.

There were questions, accusations, and Ozzie was outed.  A week later, he was at a private school in upstate New York, exiled as a "disgrace" to the family.

His parents sent him a check every month, and sometimes he telephoned his older sister, but he hadn't been back to Morocco for five years.

"I hate the rain!" Ozzie murmured, staring out the car window.  "The first time I picked up a guy in the rain, I got kicked out of Morocco.  The second time, it was a ghost."

Yuri and I glanced at each other.  Rather a depressing turn to the conversation!

But Ozzie warmed up when we got back to Yuri's room and spread blankets on the floor.  He was too big to swallow all the way, but Yuri and I both went down on him at the same time, and then he turned Yuri onto his stomach to finish with interfemeral.  Then he went down on both of us simultaneously while we kissed.

7:00 am.  Yuri's alarm clock goes off.  Enough time for a brief session, mostly handling Ozzie's morning wood, then breakfast: Cheerios.

7:40 am. Yuri packs up his stuff.  He has a class at 8:00 am, and I want to do some work in my office, so it is time to say goodbye.

"If you walk down that street for about five blocks," I tell Ozzie, "You'll hit the train station.  Take the Long Island Railroad to Jamaica Station, then transfer to Penn."

Ozzie looks out the window.  "It's raining pretty hard.  Could I stay here awhile, until it lets up?"

I glance at Yuri.  He shrugs  "I guess ok."

7:45 am.  Yuri leaves.  Ozzie and I go back into his room and make out.

8:30 am.  Ok,  It's still raining, but I have things to do.  Ozzie turns on the tv.

9:00 am.  I really have to get to the office to prepare for my 11:00 class.  It's still raining.

"You can take an umbrella to the train station," I suggest.

"I'd rather wait until it stops raining, if you don't mind."  He kisses me on the cheek.  "We can find something to do, right?"

Sighing, I go down on him again.  This is becoming less erotic and more like a chore

9:30 am.  I have class soon, and I want to go to the gym, but I can't leave Ozzie alone in Yuri's apartment.   He could steal something, or do some damage, or call his friends for a wild party.

I knock on the doors of Yuri's roommates, hoping that they'll chaperon.  But they're not in.

10:00 am.   I shove an umbrella into Ozzie's hand.  "Ok, you're going to either go to the library and wait for me, or go home, but you can't stay here.  Your choice.

No twist ending.  It was just really annoying that I couldn't get Ozzie to leave, Kovbasa or not."

See also: Ozzie Hooks Up with John F. Kennedy Jr.

The Doctor Makes a House Call on Christmas Eve

West Hollywood, December  18th, 1987

My second year in West Hollywood.  I was planning to fly home for Christmas the next day, but I woke up sick: feverish, dizzy, headache, sore throat.

"Why do I always get sick at Christmastime?" I asked myself savagely.  The answer came: Too busy, too much stress, too much fat and sugar, not enough exercise.

I cancelled my flight, and waited to get better.

December 22nd

I could hardly eat anything due to the sore throat. It was time to see the doctor.

 I called my regular doctor, but he was out of town, so they offered to get me an appointment with a substitute.

I blanched.  Overall, health care professionals are more homophobic than any other professional group, and in the 1980s, at the height of the AIDS crisis, even moreso.   You didn't go to a doctor, ever, who didn't advertise in the Gayellow Pages or who wasn't recommended by friends.

But any port in a storm.  I figured I could just be very closeted, maybe invent a girlfriend.

My appointment was that afternoon.  I was too dizzy to drive myself.  Alan was in Thailand, and my roommate Derek and off-on boyfriend Raul were both out of town for the holidays, so I called my friend Mitch to drive me to the UCLA Medical Plaza.

The nurse called me into the little room, took my temperature and blood pressure, and had me sit on the little table covered with paper to wait for the doctor.

He arrived a few minutes later: in his 30s, tall, broad-shouldered, dark-skinned, very handsome, with a round face, dark eyebrows, dark eyes, and curly black hair.  I noticed big, square hands and no wedding ring.  Very hot.

His nametag read "Dr. Mohammed al-Khouri."

Uh-oh.  In the 1980s, Muslims were stereotyped as very homophobic.  I hope my regular doctor didn't write anything about being gay in my files.

But I was especially attracted to guys from the Middle East -- my first sexual experience was with a Lebanese boy -- and you didn't meet many in West Hollywood.  I wished that I was well enough to cruise him.

Dr. al-Khouri was cheerful, almost jovial, as he examined my chest and abdomen.  "You're in great shape," he said casually.  "Are you a pro athlete?"

"No, I just go to the gym for fun," I said in my brackish cough-voice.  "But I do work for Muscle and Fitness."

"That must be exciting.  Can you get any work done, with all of the bodybuilders coming through all the time? Turn your head to the left."

He was trying to feel me out, to see if I was gay!  "No, I'm a professional," I said noncommittally.  "I'm not distracted easily."

"Ok, let's have a look at that throat."  He peered down. "Ok, Boomer, you've got strep throat.  Better lay off the guys for a few days"

I was so worried about the strep throat that I didn't notice "lay off the guys."

He painted my throat with something, ordered a penicillin injection, and gave me a prescription for medicine.  "You'll need to take it easy for about three days.  Stay home, no bars, no parties  Do you have anyone to take care of you?"

"My roommate Derek.  But he's going out of town for Christmas.  My friend Raul, too..."

"Tell you what," Dr. al-Khouri said.  "I'll drop by in a couple of days to see how you're doing."

"I didn't know doctors made house calls anymore."

"Some do.  How about Thursday night, around 7:00 pm."

"But that's Christmas Eve. Don't you have..."  Suddenly I remembered that he was Muslim.  "Oh, sorry."

"No, I'm free as a bird.  And you'll be free, too.  Doctor's orders."


December 23rd  

I spent the next day alone in my house, except for brief visits from friends.

December 24th.

My sore throat was gone, I felt better except for a little tiredness, and I was still stuck in the house. At noon I walked down to the Different Light and had lunch at the Greenery, luxuriating in being able to eat crunchy things again.

Then I went home.   I kept thinking of the gym, of the French Quarter, and of all the things I was missing back in Rock Island: Christmas caroling, light displays, our traditional Christmas Eve pizza and present-opening.  I kept hearing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," my most detested song in all the world, playing from somewhere far away.

I ordered a pizza for dinner, and watched a Christmas special on tv.

At 7:00 pm sharp, Dr. al-Khouri knocked on the door.

I didn't expect him to really show up!  I was in my bathrobe!

He was carrying one of those medical bags like in the movies, but dressed in a regular short-sleeve shirt and jeans, not in a doctor's uniform.   Now that I was feeling better, I definitely noticed his broad chest and muscular arms, not to mention his impressive basket.

I rushed into the bathroom, splashed water on my face, gargled some mouth wash, and returned to sit next to him on the couch.  There was definitely some heat between us.

He took my temperature and blood pressure, looked down my throat, and said.  "I pronounce you cured.  You're not even contagious anymore."

"Um...does that mean I can go out tonight?"

"I wouldn't suggest that.  You still need some rest. But if you want to invite a boyfriend over for some tlc, that's perfectly fine."


"How did you...know?" I asked in surprise.

"Please, you live in West Hollywood, you have a man listed as your emergency contact, and you keep trying to sneak a peak at my basket."

I looked at it openly.  Very impressive.   "Well that just means I'm feeling better, right, doctor?  So what about kissing? Um...I mean, can I do that?"

He draped his arm across the couch behind me, and touched my shoulder. "Go ahead and kiss...um...anybody you want.  Tell you what.  As of this moment, I'm not your doctor anymore.  I'm a friend visiting to help you celebrate the holiday.  Got any eggnog?"

"I think there's some in the refrigerator.  Um...and there's some mistletoe around here somewhere, too."

We didn't need the mistletoe.  A moment later, I was kissing anybody I wanted.

In case you were wondering: Mortadella.

December 25th

What do Muslims do on Christmas Day?

They spend the day in bed.