Saturday, August 16, 2008

the whole manhunt thing, and beyond

.
a few days ago, it was revealed that the chairman and co-founder of manhunt, the most popular gay hookup website the world has ever known, had recently donated $2,300--the maximum possible for an individual--to the mccain campaign.

my reaction? ironic amusement--i couldn't wait to see how the republicans were gonna respond to this lil' nugget if it ever pinged the fox news radar. beyond that i didn't give a rat's ass--i figure it's a free country, guy's politics are his own goddam business.

and boy, am i--as is increasingly the case these days--in the distinct minority on this one.

i've been all over the gay blogosphere tonight, and seems the howls of outrage (not to mention canceled memberships) that resulted from this revelation compelled manhunt's board of directors to quickly demand--and secure--the resignation of said chairman/co-founder.

and then the remaining board members fell all over themselves establishing their high-minded liberal credentials (because god knows we'd expect nothing less from those fine folks who enable us to find an endless supply of willing strangers to slam meth and bareback with). and now today, flush with victory, faggots are high-fiving each other all over the blogosphere--and wondering if they've exacted enough blood to satisfy their sense of moral outrage.

and i sit here and shake my head, and wonder how a movement that began as a demand for tolerance of diversity has so decisively turned into the very thing it was fighting against.

yeah, we liberal, enlightened gays are all about the diversity--but only so long as it's the kind of diversity of which "we" approve. and if you disagree with me in this assertion, i challenge you to go spend a little time in any of the top 10 liberal gay (fine, that's redundant) blogs and then come back here and tell me why i'm wrong.

and while i'm waiting for your response, i'll tell you why i'm right--and believe it or not, it has nothing to do with teh gays in particular; on the contrary, my thesis is based on what i've observed occur not only with us but with all the major "oppressed-minority" groups that have arisen to prominence in america within the span of my lifetime, including: (a) the blacks; (b) the feminists; (c) the illegals--and what the hell, let's throw in (d) the mothers against drunk driving, too.

because while you'd think that each would be magnanimous in the victories they'd achieved in such a stunningly short time, in each case the opposite has proved to be true--the more ground each group gains, the more wounded, aggrieved, intolerant and unreasonable each becomes.

and the fact that this is true because--fuck minority status--it's only human nature to grab a mile when someone gives you an inch doesn't help me much here, because i expect more from my people. and, time after time, i am sorely disappointed.

case in point: this manhunt-founder dude looks around, decides that national security is more at-risk right now than are gay rights--a totally reasonable assumption, btw--and, for whatever reason, decides he's gonna go with mccain because he thinks he'll be stronger on that issue than obama (not to mention that, like most people in this country who have succeeded in business, made serious money at it and have no interest in wealth redistribution, he's probably a dyed-in-the-wool republican anyway).

in other words, a gay man took it upon himself to decide that the gay agenda doesn't necessarily always rule--that's ok, right?

wrong--to the guillotine, infidel.

because the gay party line of today is: if you're not just like us, you're not only wrong, you're evil and must be destroyed.

but--and please god correct me if i'm wrong--isn't that exactly the mentality we were struggling against not so very long ago?

Thursday, August 14, 2008

it really is all in the head (part 3 of 3)

.
[the following is gonna make even less sense if you haven't yet read part 1 and part 2]


true to his word (and somewhat to my surprise), colin was back the following tuesday.

but unlike the shy wallflower we'd become accustomed to, this was a different boy entirely. he had a new energy about him; the tense, rounded posture was gone, he couldn't sit still and he couldn't stop smiling--he fairly radiated happiness.

turns out he'd done exactly as we'd told him, but contrary to his initial resolve, it had taken him almost the full week to nut up for it; in fact, he said, it was his fear of coming back and facing us empty-handed that had ultimately overridden his fear of rejection.

so it wasn't until the previous night that he had finally sat down with his roommate, looked him in the eye and told him that the reason he hadn't been around for the last four or five tuesday nights had nothing to do with a special project for his physics class.

"truth be told," he said, following the script we'd laid out for him, "those tuesday nights were spent in a coming-out group at the gay and lesbian center. i hope you can deal with the fact that i think i'm gay, and it won't make things weird between us."

and that was it; there was nothing in any way overtly challenging or threatening. on the contrary, we had colin put his sexuality out there as nothing more than a likely possibility; the ball would then be in the roommate's court.

and holy shit, was that ball smashed back at our boy--the way colin told it, almost before the words were out, he and the roommate were in each others' arms, kissing awkwardly, groping up and down the lengths of each others' bodies and pouring out their innermost feelings.

and turns out their stories were pretty similar: both had always known they were different, had kept that difference tightly under wraps, and had never dared to act on that knowledge--until now.

"we laid there on his bed a long time, just holding each other and kissing and talking and talking and kissing," colin said, the words pouring out of him.

i tell you, you coulda heard a pin drop in that stuffy little room.

"and then," he said, and took a deep breath before continuing, " it happened. we did it--we had sex, and it was...incredible!"

at this, everyone leaned forward expectantly--we were invested in the boy's situation, this was the payoff and we wanted a blow-by-blow, goddammit.

head back, eyes half-closed and a look of beatific joy alighting his face as he relived the memory, he told us that first they had undressed each other, and touched each other in all those special, long-forbidden places, and then . . .

and then they laid down on the roommate's bed and did pretty much what they'd done every night under the covers for months, except this time they did it together, while kissing and looking into each other's eyes, until they shot at precisely the same instant--from what i could tell, whole thing took a little less than a minute.

then--i swear to god--he said, "but don't worry, guys, we were totally safe--we used condoms and everything."

at that, having breathlessly related to us the single most transformative event of his young life, he sat back, beaming from ear to ear, and awaited our proud reaction.


and knowing my group well, i expected the room to erupt in disappointed groans at this anticlimax [that's IT?! you jacked off together? hell, that's not sex!], not to mention derisive laughter at the boy's naive notion that two lame-ass virgins needed the protection of condoms to do anything, much less that.

but for several long seconds nobody said a word--i guess they, like me, were all too busy casting back over their own catalog of myriad past hookups and conquests for even one sexual memory, no matter how elaborate and fantasy-fulfilling, that would make their own goddam faces light up like colin's just had.

and to their credit, not a single guy in that room threw out anything in the subsequent discussion that might burst his little bubble of joy.

that was the last we saw of colin (in fact, he left the meeting early because he couldn't wait to get back to his new boyfriend), but that was ok; the group had served its purpose for him, and i felt pretty good about that.

but he left us something as well: a reminder that good sex really isn't so much about such superficialities as big dicks or positions or props or drugs or even what you do as it is about where your head is--and, if you're lucky, your heart.

* * * * *

[and where is little colin today? oh, probably hanging trussed-up in a sling somewhere high on meth with electrodes clipped to his nipples and a buttplug up his ass, vainly chasing the high of that first time--but i hope not.]

cynically yet idealistically submitted for your reading pleasure,

mkf

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

it really is all in the head (part 2)

.
[if you haven't already, read part 1 first]


think about it a minute: two naive, sheltered young men away from home and tasting heady freedom for the first time, thrown together by random luck of the draw--and not only might they both be gay, they might actually be hot for each other.

talk about winning the goddam lottery your first time outta the gate--and as colin's story emerged, this near-impossible scenario was looking more and more likely. i mean, consider:

the roommate
  • talked vaguely about a girlfriend back home but had no pictures of her;
  • had made little effort to make friends in his new environment, preferring to hang out with his roommate instead (which of course was fine with colin);
  • had little if any interest in sports or other manly activities (yeah yeah, sports-fags--keep your protestations to yourselves);
and, most telling,
  • found an endless variety of excuses to parade around their room half-nekkid--all the while avoiding direct eye contact with our boy.
and it was this combination of brazen and bashful that was driving colin mad with pent-up adolescent desire.

in fact, the sexual tension in that little dorm-room was apparently approaching critical mass: after lights-out, colin said, he could hear the roommate masturbating under his covers--at first surreptitious about it, he had become bolder as the weeks had gone by--and colin had started to match him stroke for stroke [yeah, at this point in the story we were all shifting around in our seats, too].

but nothing was ever said, not only because they were both too shy, but because the stakes were too high--one wrong move, and you're stuck sharing a room for the rest of the school year with an angry straight guy who's scornfully rebuffed your advances--neither was willing to risk it.

so what to do?

well, needless to say, the room had some ideas--in fact, in the heated discussion which followed colin's story, he was pretty much ignored as we hashed out the solution to his problem.

and while it wasn't a particularly radical course of action we ended up recommending, it'd still be more than a little scary and would take some guts on the boy's part--but it was shit-or-get-off-the-pot time, and we knew it. and colin knew it too--that's why he had come here.

when we were done laying it out for him, he stood up, squared his shoulders and said, "ok guys, i'm gonna do it, and i'm gonna do it tonight. i'll be back next week to tell you how it went."

and then he marched out, filled with resolve--and something told me that next tuesday i'd have a full house.


[stay tuned for part 3--and, unlike that lil' dick-tease colin, i promise i won't make you wait a week]

Sunday, August 10, 2008

it really is all in the head

.
believe it or not, several years ago i co-founded the very first "coming-out" group in the history of the los angeles gay and lesbian center, a fact astonishing not so much because i actually took on shit like that back then, as because--up until i did something about it--the city of los angeles had never before had such a group.

why was i moved to do such a thing? simple: having just come from san diego, i couldn't believe that the much-bigger los angeles didn't have a comparable coming-out group.

finding this unacceptable, i worked with a sympathetic facilitator at the LA center (sweet lil' norm--i hope you're doing ok wherever you are) to form its first-ever coming-out group.

yay for me, right?

nah, that isn't the point of this post; it's merely the background for what is to follow (but being drunk and therefore overly loquacious, i had to give you the context first).

*     *     *     *     *

he crept into the room one tuesday night, right before the group started--young, timid and scared--a prime example of my target coming-out demographic.

and of course everybody cued into him immediately, because (a) he was adorable; and (b) unlike half the guys in the room who had been out for years and were only "coming out" in order to try and pick off the newbies (acceptable practice, this being LA and all), this one was obviously new to the game.

he sat in a corner, said nothing throughout the two hours we were there, and slipped out the door as soon as i said we were done.

but he was back the next tuesday, and the tuesday after that.

and finally--i think it was maybe his fourth time there--he caught my eye during a lull in the give-and-take, half-raised his hand, i looked back at him, smiled encouragingly and said, "hey, you. tell us what's on your mind--we won't bite, i promise."

all eyes turned toward him, and he did as i asked.

turns out his name was colin, he was an 18-year-old freshman at ucla, living in a dorm--and, of all things, he was in love with his roommate.

at which point we all relaxed--because we'd all heard this so many times before--and got ready to offer him the standard never-fall-for-a-straight-guy advice.

until little colin came back at us with somewhat compelling evidence that the object of his fervid dreams might actually want him just as much--shit like, roommate lying uncovered on his bed in just his underwear, eyes half-slitted shut feigning sleep, legs spread and a semi-hard-on oozing precum through the sheer, thin cotton of his skivvies--you know, that sorta thing.

at which point this became our group's collective fantasy, and we all joined together to unite colin with his ultimate desire.

[end part 1 because it's getting late/early and i have to be at work soon; you'll get part 2 next time i'm shitfaced enough to continue this story]