Six Naked College Boys and One Date

Bloomington, Indiana, February 1983

On surveys, only about 2% of the U.S. male population admits to being gay, and another 1% bisexual. Of course, most are leery of coming out on a survey questionnaire, and dissimulate.  The actual population is probably much higher.

And I estimate that a huge proportion of the "straight" male population, about 80%, is open to sexual activity with men.  .

20% are on the downlow:  They are interested in relationships only with women, so they claim to be "straight," although they are attracted to both men and women.  They seek out male-male action while telling their wives and girlfriends that they're out getting a loaf of bread.  They're open for kissing, cuddling, reciprocation, whatever.

30% will settle.  They are attracted only to women, but who cares?  Sex is sex, and it's a lot easier to get a guy than a girl.  No kissing, no reciprocation, they just want to lie back and think about lady parts.

30% will let you watch.  They aren't attracted to guys, and they don't want you to touch them, but they are willing to engage in autoerotic activity with you present, as long as you don't let on that you are interested in watching.

In fact, a major form of "male bonding" for that 30% is to invite your buddies over, watch porn or just talk about girls, and engage in autoerotic activity without letting on that you are watching each other.

I first heard of this practice when I was in graduate school at Indiana University, when a hefty Dungeons-and-Dragons player named Duane criticized The Kinsey Report (some 30 years after it was published) because 37% of male respondents stated that they had engaged in a 'homosexual' act to orgasm at some time during adulthood.

"That Kinsey had a ridiculous definition of homosexual acts!" Duane exclaimed.  "It  includes everything you do with other guys around, even a circle jerk!"

I didn't know what a circle jerk was.

"Oh, it's like when you're reading porn magazines or talking about girls with your buddies, and you decide to get off.  You're not touching them -- you're not even thinking about them.  You're thinking about girls.  How is that homosexual?"

My interested piqued, I asked, "How many buddies are with you, generally?"

"Sometimes just one, but I've been in a group of six before."  He eyed me suspiciously.  "Why?"

"No reason."

 I had to find some way to get invited to one of these six-guy orgies!  But of course I couldn't come out -- this was the homophobic 1980s.  I figured that since Duane played Dungeons and Dragons most nights, that was where the "circle jerks" happened.

I waited a few days to alleviate suspicion, and then asked to join, offering to bring a pizza.

When I arrived, there were five college boys sitting in Duane's dorm room on the 5th floor of Eigenmann Hall.  I took my place among them and scoped out the territory:

Desk chairs: 
Duane: husky bear, graduate student in physics.  The Dungeon Master.
Ben: cute eyeglassed graduate student in economics, new to D&D.

Duane's bed:
Scott: long haired, bearded hipster, graduate student in sociology
Andrew: blond undergrad in physics, rather husky.

His Roommate's bed:
Asher, the roommate, a rather muscular but shy grad student in math.
Me.

We played Dungeons and Dragons for awhile without comment, but when straight men get together, women invariably enter the conversation: sizes, shapes, angles, the ones they've been with, the ones they would like to be with, ones on tv.  Soon the conversation became more graphic, as they tried to one-up each other with tales of the most spectacular feminine physiques they'd been with.

I said "My ex-girlfriend had breasts like Loni Anderson's."  (Jennifer, the savvy receptionist on WKRP in Cincinnati).

They were all impressed.  "Wow, that must have been great!" Ben exclaimed.  Apparently breast sizes to straight men are like cock sizes to the rest of us.

"Yes, they were quite...um...nice," I said.  What, exactly, did straight men do with women's breasts? "I...um...felt them many times."

"Yeah, right.  I bet you did more than feel them!"  Duane said, nudging Ben.

"Darn right!"  I wondered what they were talking about.

"We gonna talk about girls, or play Dungeons and Dragons?" Asher said, annoyed.

But once the talk of girls begins, it doesn't end.  Next I brought out my secret weapon: an issue of Playboy.  "I also dated a girl that looked just like her," I said, opening the centerfold. and placing it on the gaming table.  "Um...she was the head cheerleader and the Homecoming Queen.  I did lots of things with her breasts, too!"

By now everyone was sitting in full view of each others' crotch. Soon there was a little squirming and hiding going on.  At this point the instinct was to grab Asher or Ben, sitting on either side of me, but instead I grabbed myself.

Still no sausages!  Time to get the ball rolling.  I unzipped.  "She always told me how much she liked this," I said.

Then Scott the Hipster unzipped.  "That's nothing.  I bet your prom queen girlfriend would dump you in a minute if she saw this!"

It was rather unimpressive.

Soon the other guys unzipped: Duane (thick), then Ben (nice mushroom head), then Andrew (impressive Bratwurst), leaving only Asher sitting shyly, fully clothed.  The conversation dimmed as each guy was immersed in his private fantasy, staring into space or at the centerfold.

I tried to stare into space, avoid the disgusting centerfold, and look at Scott and Andrew, on the opposite bed, plus cast occasional sidelong glances at Duane and Ben.  And Asher, looking more and more uncomfortable.

I reached over and touched his shoulder.  "You ok?"

He stared at my crotch for a moment, wide-eyed, then said "I gotta go, sorry."  He brushed past me and rushed through the door.

At the end of the event, kleenixes were passed around, and the guys returned to their game without comment.

Altogether, rather unsatisfying.

The next day I ran into Asher in the Eigenmann Hall Gym, working out furiously.

"What happened last night?  You didn't seem like you were having fun.".

He reddened -- apparently what happens in the circle jerk stays in the circle jerk -- but said "It was just too weird.  I know you're not supposed to...you know, look, but how can you not?"

Asher was gay!

I didn't go to any more Dungeon-and-Dragons Circle Jerks, but I did get a date.

See also: 15 Simple Rules for Cruising Straight Guys; and Dungeons and Dragons

A Hookup with the Nigerian with the Tattooed Penis

Bloomington, May 1983

When Viju started taking me to the bars, when we were in grad school in Bloomington in 1983, AIDS was practically unknown, there was little fear of being robbed or murdered, and the West Hollywood rule against casual sexual encounters did not exist.

We had casual sex.  Quick, practically anonymous.  We called it tricking.

I think it's because we were living in a world inundated by images of men and women together, being told a hundred times a day that gay people did not exist, or if they did, they were monsters, and this was our way of rebelling, of relishing the look, smell, and feel of the masculine.

The adults are lying -- only real is real.

We made the trick arrangements with little or no prior conversation, no screening, no introduction to friends (unless we happened to be at the bar together).  Sometimes only a first name, sometimes only a nod.

We followed him home without telling anyone where we were going.

We started the sexual encounter the moment we got in the door, with no coffee, no conversation, no making out on the couch.

When we finished, we threw on our clothes, scribbled down a phone number that might or might not be the right one, and left.  No cuddling, no spending the night.

We might return to the bar that same night to search for a new trick, and see him there, in search of a new trick. "Next!"

And we never tricked with the same guy twice.  "Been there, done that."


In retrospect, it was extremely dangerous, although nothing bad happened except a case of crabs.

And a feeling of emptiness afterwards, as if we had just eaten a big meal but were still hungry.

Whatever our desire for the masculine meant, it wasn't satisfied by tricking.

One night we saw an older black guy standing by the pool table, drinking a soda: in his 40s, taller than me, very muscular and very dark.  Since I was particularly interested in black guys, Viju said that I could "have him."

He introduced himself as Ollie with a slightly lilting accent.

"That's a very Swedish," I commented.

"Short for Olawale.  I'm from Nigeria."

We drank our sodas and talked.  Ollie was from the Yoruba people -- there are about 30 million in western Nigeria,  Many African-Americans are descended from them.

He attended university in Lagos, a big, sprawling city of 5 million, and moved to London, which he hated, then to Austin, Texas; Buffalo, New York, and Little Rock, Arkansas.  He had been in Bloomington for ten years.  He worked in the library, where he was in charge of the African Studies collection, and occasionally taught courses in Yoruba.

In five minutes, I got more biography from Ollie than from a dozen other hookups put together.

I wanted to know about the Yoruba language, of course, so he gave me a brief primer:   it's a tonal language, like Chinese.

All words have combinations of high, middle, or low tones that change their meanings:

igba (middle-low): rope
igba (middle-middle): two hundred
igba (low-high): egg
igba (low-middle): nonsense

I almost forgot about the hookup.  But a grope and a kiss reminded me.

We said good night to Viju, and drove back to Ollie's house, in an older neighborhood a few blocks north of the campus.  The living room was painted red, with African tapestries and masks on the walls.

"Would you like to eat?" Ollie asked.  "In Nigeria it is very impolite to have a guest in your house without offering food.  I have some fried plantains -- they come from a special store in Indianapolis -- and vanilla ice cream."

We ate our plantains and ice cream while I leafed through his coffee table book on African art, and looked at the wide, thick, black bookcases filled to overflowing with books on ceremonial magic, paganism, the occult, ghosts, the paranormal, voodoo, werewolves -- it was like a precursor to the Bodhi Tree, the New Age bookstore I would visit later in West Hollywood.

"Are you a pagan?" I asked.  "I knew a male witch in Rock Island."

"I've studied every magical path, but my heritage is the Yoruba religion."

According to the Yoruba, the Creator God Olorun is unknowable, so we revere his emanations, the 400 or so orishas: Ogun, Shango, Eshu.  They are very beautiful, many appearing as muscular, nude men, each with his distinct personality.  Some are benevolent and eager to assist the humans who offer them the proper respect.

Others are -- well, not evil, exactly, but not terribly concerned with human affairs, and likely to get cranky if importuned.

"My Orisha is Erinle, the patron of gay people.  He breaks the boundaries of gender, and has relationships with men.  He walks hand in hand with his lover. Ochosi.  He's also the patron of physicians and fishermen.  Come, I'll summon him to bless our meeting."

He brought me into the bedroom, which had an enormous bed with a black conforter, a black-wood dresser, and a small table covered with African statues, silk cloths, beads, seashells, candles, a bottle of wine, and some incongruous items, like a can of sardines, a stethoscope, and a statue of Superman.

"Erinle likes fishing," Ollie explained.  "He blesses his disciples who eat fish.  And the stethoscope --he's the patron of physicians, right?"

"And the statue of Superman?"

"He's gay.  I thought he would find the muscles.appealing."

We took off our clothes and sat crosslegged before the altar.  Ollie lit one of the candles, bathing the room in eerie red light.  He poured a little of the wine into a cup, put it on the can of sardines, and began praying in Yoruba.

Later he told me that the words were "Fun mi agbara," give me power, a prayer for sexual potency.

He held out his penis for me to touch.  It was long and thick, with strange scarification: bumps all around the head.

"The penis is sacred to Erinle, too," Ollie said with a grin.

We moved to the bed.

Wow.

Ollie lay atop me, clamped his mouth on mine, and inserted his penis between my legs.  Several other positions followed, but what I will remember forever is Ollie's face above mine as he thrusts.  A broad open-mouthed grin.  His forehead beaded with sweat.  His eyes white with passion.

Afterwards we showered, and I spent the night.

We saw each other in the bar occasionally after that, but we didn't meet again.

But I learned something important.

If we go out searching for the archetype of masculinity, pure physique and penis, we can never be satisfied.  That is unknown and unknowable.  We must look for orishas, individual emanations of the divine, each with his own unique history, beliefs, and personality.

In other words, talk to the guy first, no matter how big he is beneath the belt.

See also: The 20 Most Beautiful Men in the World; and Encounters in the Darkroom of an American Gay Bar

300 Naked Men Before Breakfast

I looked at over 300 pictures of naked men this morning before breakfast.

Big and small, thin and fat, flaccid and aroused, all ages (18+), races, shapes, and sizes.

And, if I had the time and inclination, I could easily look at 300 more.

When I was growing up in Rock Island, and even through my years in West Hollywood in the 1980s and 1990s, you might see ten pictures of naked men per month, if you were lucky.

They were glossy photos of professional models in expensive magazines.

Nude photos of amateurs were extremely rare.  Photo labs wouldn't develop them, so you had to have your own darkroom.

Once I photographed Fred from the waist up immediately after his orgasm.  We sent it in to the photo lab, laughing, knowing that the lab technicians would have no idea what they were processing.

Even shirtless photos were rare.  Occasionally a shirtless celebrity would show up in a movie magazine.  Or you could look at the underwear ads in clothes catalogs.

Beginning around 1990, cameras appeared that developed the pictures on the spot, so you didn't need a photo lab.  Suddenly you could get nude photos.

But only of your friends, who you had seen naked in real life.  There wasn't much point.

Once one of Fred's friends flew out to West Hollywood for a visit, took some nude photos of me, and showed them to every gay man in Des Moines.

In the 1990s, Usenet groups, and later bulletin boards, allowed you to look at -- and download -- photos of shirtless and naked men for a small fee. Only a few per week, all professional models, but still, it was an amazing improvement.

Checking for the new photos on your usenet groups and bulletin boards became a standard part of your morning routine.













The explosion began around 2007, when smartphones became capable of taking uncensored photos and submitting them instantly.

Suddenly every guy with a smartphone and a bathroom mirror could post himself and his friends on the internet.

Not every guy did, of course: if you were shy, conservative, sensitive, if you had a small penis or a self-esteem problem, if you were worried about your career, you wouldn't bother.

I have some shirtless photos online, and some penis shots, but not both together.

We're much pickier now.  A big penis or hairy chest is not enough.  To attract our attention, the guy has to have something that stands out: a smile, a tattoo, a special combination of face and physique.  Plus we look at the background of the photo, analyze the composition, structure, and lighting.

We have become connoisseurs of naked men.

Which is fine.

But sometimes I miss the days when seeing a photo of a naked man was a rare, exciting experience, something to be cherished.

Not the 20 minutes before breakfast in your daily routine.