Sure, we all want to get off. But we want to get close, as well. Sex and intimacy
go together as nicely as Vaseline and beating off, or so it would seem. Yet when
many gay men get out of a pal's bed, they feel like something's missing.
"Sometimes I have sex that's technically great, but still feel like I haven't
connected with the guy at all, except on a totally physical level," says one
unattached queer man."
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Having one-off casual sex with someone who started out a total stranger can make
the feeling of emotional disconnect even more acute; at least when you're fucking
someone on a regular basis, chances are you'll get to know him a bit better. But
even in an ongoing relationship, there can be a big gap between where your dick
goes and where your heart is.
Vulnerability is scary, so some of us choose to avoid it by running after the next guy
and the guy after that. There are abundant strategies to prevent getting hurt. There's
the "once is quite enough," no-repeat rule for sex partners. Some men bury themselves
in work, others deaden their feelings with drink or drugs, and some sculpt their
bodies into gorgeous sex machines. "Hell," says one survivor of the gay dating scene,
"some of those gym rats even look armoured." One man in his early 40s, who's
way cute rather than hunky, muses, "I tend to desire muscle gods, men I assume won't
want anything to do with me. I guess when I set myself up for defeat that way, it's
a way of keeping myself out of trouble."
Some gay men take refuge in open relationships. Maintaining loving intimacy with their
primary partners while stepping out and tomcatting around, they ensure they always have
warm arms to come home to. (Their outside partners, though, can get burned unless Mr.Partnered
has been upfront with them all along.) Others follow the more traditional monogamy model. And while
many unattached guys look for boyfriends they can get close to, others have pretty much given
up the search, maintaining close nonsexual friendships while fucking men they have no intention of getting to know.
It may be better to have loved and lost than never to have loved and all, but after
a while, lusting and getting hurt can get old. "There's no easy answer to the intimacy
quandary," says one counsellor. "It's really all about who we are as human beings,
and since people are complex, we usually send out mixed messages, even to ourselves."
Still, there are some things we can do, even when our dicks are hard. Being less
judgmental about others and ourselves, approaching sex partners as fully rounded
individuals rather than objects to get us off - that's advice that may sound
cliched, but it's nonetheless apt.
Honesty - though not the brutal sort - helps. So does curiosity. One man who sleeps
around a lot says, "It's not till we've both come and I lie around talking with
a new sex buddy that I feel like I'm really getting to know him. I just love
that part: finding out who he is. That way, even if I figure I'll never see
him again, I feel close to him. At least for a little while."
So give it a whirl; it's safe to say that getting intimate with someone can be
more than worth the gamble. Get to know the boy who's boning you: Open up when
you open wide.
Simon Sheppard
Now here's your chance to meet the man behind this column. OutUK has an interview with Simon Sheppard or you can take a look at some of his books that are currently available:
Looking for something very sexy and just as smart? Man on Man collects the best and hottest gay sex writing by Simon, who is also
co-editor of Rough Stuff: Tales of Gay Men, Sex, and
Power as well as a collection of gay erotica called
Hotter Than Hell.
In KINKORAMA : Dispatches from the Front Lines of Perversion he takes readers behind the unmarked doors and black vinyl curtains that lead to the sometimes shocking, often hilarious, relentlessly arousing scenarios of extreme sex. There
are also stories of bears in Tales from the Bear Cult: Beat Bear Stories from the Best Magazines.
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