Features > The Guidance Counselor

by Doug McClelland

(posted February, 2003)

From: Not As Nice As You Think
Subject: Jekyll and Hyde lifestyle
Question: I'm a thirty-six year old successful worker in the financial industry in Seattle. I'm 'out' to most people I know but with a pretty conservative image. I lead a very comfortable upper middle class life with a nice home, nice car, nice friends, etc, etc.

But when my thoughts turn to sex I am drawn to sleazy, anonymous, activity. The thought of a nice date, with a nice guy, followed by nice sex, (that would fit into the rest of my life) leaves my dick limp. Friends sometimes try to set me up with nice guys but I always demure, leaving them with the perception that I live a monk's life while in reality I'm getting fucked up against a wall by strangers in the bathhouse or sexclub as often as possible.

I'm not unhappy with this situation but I'd be interested in a dialogue on two aspects of it. Am I an oddity in this practice of leading a Jekyll and Hyde lifestyle? And if I'm not (which is my suspicion), I'd be curious for your opinion on why even men who have assimilated perfectly into liberal society are drawn to the adventures promoted at CRUISING for SEX.

Dear Not Nice: Successful business type by day and a sex pig by night…please write again and include a pic and your phone number. You sound like just my type.

You are right in your suspicion that you are not alone. Many gay men whose lives and careers progress along the conventional ‘success’ route do not give up the sexual adventurism of their youth. And why should they? Straight men are supposed to settle down, marry and breed as they mature. Gay men have the liberty to set a course that includes both success and continued sexual fulfillment. Society sometimes has a problem with this, but fuck society.

There is an eroticisation of the ‘working man’ and other butch types in gay culture. Sleazy bars are full of men dressed as bikers, cowboys, skinheads, construction workers, military, police, etc. Sleaze is implicitly lower class. So, successful guys who wear suits by day switch into the erotic lower class costume of their choice at night to go on the prowl.

One of the great things about gay sex venues is the way they are great social levelers, there is no way to tell the student from the street kid, or the judge from the ex-con. We who go cruising for sex are gay brothers living our lives in our own way.

One problem I have with your letter is the last line in which you seem to imply that assimilating into society is a desirable thing. I don’t feel that way at all. I think that we are at our best in our ‘ghettos’ where we create our own society.

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From: Obsessed
Subject: Desiring a straight guy
Question: I am writing to you as I do not know what to do. I have been after this guy, so called straight, for several years now. Yes, years. I have not met anyone like him. He is such a hunk. He knows I am gay and he has been over to my house several times now to get something. I want to tell him how I feel about him so bad but don’t have the guts.

I just want to have sex with him, nothing more. I can’t keep my eyes off him. I can’t sleep the whole night. I wake up calling his name. I don’t want him drunk, but sober. I did try getting him drunk but that did not work. Many times he either plays with my mind, or he wants it.

I don’t know what to do. I just want not even a night with him. Maybe then I can sleep, eat correctly and everything that goes along with the so called normal way.

What to do? Please help.

Dear Obsessed: Sounds like you’ve got it bad.

So he knows you are gay and he leads you on by flirting or playing mind games. He has at least considered the possibility of sex with you enough to tease you and he has been to your place.

Let me offer a scenario. Get him over to your place. Give him a couple of drinks…you don’t need to get him drunk, just loosen him up a bit. Then casually mention that the videotape on top of your TV is the hot new porn you just bought. Perhaps he’d like to check it out? Get the tape playing and sit down together to watch a bit of it. Get a tape that shows two guys doing a woman, or a gangbang tape. It should be something that can pass as hetero but with more than one guy in the scenes. As the video plays put your hand on your own crotch and get your dick hard. Don’t make a big scene about rubbing your crotch, just make it seem like the video is making you horny and touching yourself feels good.

Watch him carefully for a response. If his hand ends up on his crotch then you have a good chance of scoring because once he is hard and he’s sitting watching porn, he’ll be thinking with his dick and not his head. You can then move on to getting your dick out, possibly with something like ‘do you mind if I stroke my dick while we watch this’ or ‘I have to stroke my dick when I watch this’. How can a guy say ‘no you can’t’? If he is into this he will join you in stroking. Next you need to get his dick in your mouth. No man will turn back once you have started a blowjob. Continue on from there to get as much from him as you can.

There is a chance he’ll jump up and excuse himself when he sees you rubbing your crotch but if so you’ve only acted like any horny guy, not like some depraved molester. From your description, he’s available. Go for it.

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From: Optimist
Subject: Monogamy
Question: I agreed with most of your comments in last month’s column regarding the question on where men over forty fit into gay life. But I take exception to your recipe for a successful long term relationship.

You said to succeed such a relationship must be non-monogamous. This seems a very jaded and pessimistic view. Why do you think gay men can't have the same monogamous life partnerships as straight people? I still hope for my Prince Charming.

Dear Optimist: I would not consider my promotion of non-monogamous relationships as jaded or pessimistic. I simply believe that love and sex can be separated into two quite different things. Sex with someone you love is very special, but recreational sex is just plain fun. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive. And gay men are under no obligation to conform to an ideal whose primary purpose is to allow straight men to posses women and to believe they know who their children are. Just as you would feel OK about your lover going for a game of tennis with a buddy for fun, you should feel fine with him indulging in a sexual game in a park.

I think your suggestion that such relationships are what straight people have, and that it is something to emulate, is an idealization of life that strays quite far from reality. Interestingly a recent large DNA study produced the surprising result that a significant percentage of children in the US were fathered by men other than the husbands of the mother. Thus indicating that straight married women (generally considered the most conservative players of the sexual game) are not being monogamous in large numbers. I’d say this is a good indicator that lots of straight relationships are not monogamous whatever their pretense.

I hope you find your Prince Charming. And if the two of you have a long term monogamous relationship by mutual consent, great! But I can guarantee you that as you age together in that long term relationship, it will not be the sex that keeps you together. It will be the love.

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From: Open flaps
Subject: The open pants when peeing question
Question: I saw the question in December’s column about why men open their pants completely at the urinals. You asked for input from guys who do it. The reason I do it is simple: the underwear I have doesn't have a fly. It is just easier to undo everything to pee than to reach around through my zipper to try and find the waistband of my boxer-briefs.

Not that I'm against a little cruising at the urinal. I'm just usually not cruising at the local cineplex. The gay bars, however...

Dear Open Flaps: Thanks for sharing!

 

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