cruising for a bruising: the ins and outs of tricking up*

so let's say you find yourself on the other side of the not-equal sign of one of the hook-up equations i talked about in the previous post:

• it's getting late, you're standing at the end of the bar, minding your own business and nursing your last cosmo, when all of a sudden this way-outta-your-league type you've been casting surreptitious glances at all night inexplicably turns to you and gives you the eye;

• or you're online and this guy who's ignored you forever is, for some reason, all of a sudden hitting you up.
  

• or you're hanging out with someone you've been crushing on for the longest time, and tonight his indifference turns into something else.
  

• or [insert "i want him way more than he wants me" scenario of your choice here--because god knows there's a million of 'em]

whaddaya do?

on the surface this is a no-brainer--everybody wants to bag a trophy, right?

maybe--but if you were asking me, my answer would totally depend not on the guy over there, but on the kind of guy you happen to be.

because when it comes to tricking up, there's basically two kinds of fags:

(1) those who view an opportunity like this as a pure, no-downside gift from god--like winning the lottery. these tend to be men who don't look to their casual sex partners for validation; far as they're concerned, they totally deserve any hot guy they can get (in other words, they're basically uncomplicated straight men who just happen to like dick); or

(2) those who question their lovability and self-worth on a daily basis, and who tend to take every rejection--even (or especially) from strangers--as a reminder from the universe that no one worth having will ever want them.

of course, these are the two extremes; you'll most likely fall somewhere in between.

and to the degree you're a type 1, i say, what the hell--go for it.

but--and this is the reason i'm writing this post--to the degree you're a type 2, i say, avoid tricking up like the plague.

and i can hear all you type 2's right now: "wtf--you're telling me to turn down sex with an uber-hottie?"

yeah, i am, because even though every bit of social conditioning you've ever had tells you that the experience should be unbelievably good, the actuality will probably be quite different.

consider: since good sex is all about relaxing and letting go of inhibitions--and since, if you're anything like most type 2's, all you're gonna be thinking about the whole time you're with this guy is the impression you're making--the sex is probably gonna be lousy.

or worse, maybe you'll get caught up in the whole thing and the sex will be really good.

how could that possibly be bad, you ask?

simple: you're gonna be all moony and infatuated and want more, which is gonna make the fact that his interest in you evaporates at about the same instant his cum hits the wall (or wherever) all the more painful. i mean, whether he's nice about it or a total asshole, chances are you're never gonna hear from him again.

or worse, maybe you will.

and how could that possibly be bad, you ask?

simple: he'll either just use you for awhile, or call you whenever he's hard up and expect you to fall all over yourself to accommodate him--and then you'll never hear from him again.

and, trust me, there are few things worse than falling into a pattern like that, because it gets to be a habit, with guy after guy after guy.

and how do i know all this, you ask?

simple:

(a) i've been burned once or twice in this regard (although i never allowed it to develop into a habit); and

(b) i talk to people--people i fuck, and even people i don't.

and over all the years i've been doing this and of all the people i've talked to, i've found that injudicious tricking-up has been the source of more pain and regret than any other variety of bad sex of which i've ever come across.

bottom line, cupcake: if you're even the least bit vulnerable in this area, avoid having sex with (and the ensuing emotional attachments to) hot guys who don't want you--trust me on this one, ok?

[and if it's any consolation, the shocked look on the guy's face when you smile back and say, "thanks, but i'm gonna pass" will help to tide you over when you think back on what might've been.]
________________
* the act of hooking up with either a perceived sexual superior or someone who, given other options, wouldn't look at you twice.

for me, it's a sophie's choice between the braillettes and the handless organist

[text]
but then there's always this one:


see, you were all bracing yourselves for more bad music and your fears turned out to be groundless. you can relax now, and pick your own favorite worst album cover.

h/t to april.

we now return to our regularly-scheduled programming

[as promised, the first in a series of sure-fire ways to guarantee enough bad sex you'll be on viagra in no time (because i just know everybody's been on pins and needles waiting). if you just got here, you might wanna read this post first.]

1. tricking down*

i've done it, you've done it, we've all done it.

consider:

(1) you're out at a bar, it's late, you're horny (or just determined), you've long since mentally separated all the possibles from the furniture**, but now you realize the possibles have all left with each other and the place is looking like a levitz showroom at the tail-end of a fire sale so you figure what the fuck, turn and offer a reluctant smile to the borderline-annoying guy who's been trying to catch your eye all night and in whose company you normally wouldn't be caught dead (hey, maybe nobody'll see you leave with him)

or

(2) you're online trolling the hook-up sites and this guy on manhunt who's hit you up repeatedly tries yet one more time and, even though you wouldn't look twice at him any other day, catches you at a weak moment

or

(3) maybe you're hanging out with a friend who's had an unrequited crush on you for forever, the two of you get a little drunk, one thing leads to another and next thing you know...

whatever--the way it happens doesn't really matter; the point is, if you're out there in the trenches enjoying all that sex that is the birthright of every gay man goddammit, chances are you're gonna have your own "i'm horny; he'll do for now" moment and find yourself rolling around naked with someone you know from the get-go you're really not that into sexually.

and hell, why not? conventional wisdom would say there's all kinds of reasons to take what you can get: (1) it's easy; (2) guy's usually enthusiastic; and (3) no first-time jitters--since you don't really care what the guy thinks of you, you can relax and go with it in a way that's often not possible with a new guy you're actually hot for.

and sometimes you get a pleasant surprise and the sex turns out to be really good; more often, however, you end up either regretting the decision (either during or after), or having to close your eyes and think of someone or something else just to get off.

and the long-term downside risk of tricking down? well, here's the thing: it's like murder--it gets easier after the first time.

and once you start down the road of sleeping with the furniture, you're well on your way to mastering that skill at which so many gay men excel--the neat little trick of separating sex from passion.

________________
* the act of hooking up with either a perceived sexual inferior or someone to whom you're not attracted.

** any person or group of people one encounters in a social or sexual setting in which one takes little or no interest.

next: tricking up.

a challenge, and an answer

Like an everything pizza, you have made your blog into a bit of this, a bit of that...

I guess it is a more rounded expression of you as a person, but for the life of me, do you expect ANYONE to be interested in all (or even most) of your subjects?

with this cut-to-the-quick comment to my last post, noblesavage (who, although he loves me, knows better than most how to play the truth game), challenges my scattershot approach to blogging--and once again i'm forced to think about what i'm trying to accomplish here.

would i like to attract buttloads of readers to this site? fuck yeah i would--i pay about as much attention to people who say shit like "i really don't care if anybody reads my blog; i'm just doing it for me" as i do to women in west los angeles who claim their boob jobs are just so they can feel good about themselves.

look, you publish a blog, you're putting yourself out there and you're looking for validation in the form of readership and feedback. and, to the degree you achieve same, you experience that connection with humanity that i think all humans crave and all bloggers seek--and that's gotta be a great feeling. seriously, i can't even imagine what it must be like to know that dozens (much less hundreds or thousands) of your fellow humans make a check of your blog a part of their daily routine--what a mind-blowing high it must be to know that there are that many folks out there vibrating at your frequency.

and since i discovered the blogosphere around mid-2005, i managed to figure out that most successful blogs--no matter how different they may be from one another--tend to be alike in that each has some sort of consistent, cohesive theme; i.e., their readers, once attracted, can reasonably expect to get more of whatever attracted them in the first place each time they return.

which, knowing that, makes what i've done with this blog all the more inexplicable--because, as noblesavage has so eloquently pointed out, god only knows what random hell you're gonna walk into when you click over here on any given day--and how the fuck am i supposed to build readership that way?

consider his point: in this last week alone, politically-oriented types attracted by my analysis of the scott mcclellan thing might have come back the next day for more only to discover that all of a sudden i'm talking about the ins and outs of gay sex. and then all my gay-sex aficionados probably came back the day after that to see what i had to say about bad sex only to find themselves instead assaulted not only by the insult of bad music but, on top of that, the injury of bad hair.

what can i say? noblesavage is absolutely right--i'm all over the place with this blog, and if i were smart, i'd do it differently.

problem is, i like doing it this way--even if nobody gives a rat's ass, i can't tell you how much more fun i had writing about skeeter davis drunk than i did about scott mcclellan sober. it was what i wanted to write about at that point in time, and i did it, and i'm glad--it dredged up a long-forgotten memory, and now i have it to look back on whenever i feel like it. and yeah, i tend to go off-topic a lot these days--i know it's undisciplined, and probably off-putting to a lot of people.

all of which makes the fact that i can always count on at least a couple dozen people to come back here on any given day to see what i have to say all the more amazing (and, whether you know it or not, i thank each and every one of you angels every goddam day you show up for more of this shit).

bottom line: fuck convention--as much as a wide following would make my dick hard and wet, truth is, i'm an odd duck, and i guess i'd rather put myself out there like i really am from day to day and scare off the majority for the sake of the few who get me, than market one or two carefully-cultivated aspects of myself and go for the big kill.

does any of this make sense?

a break in the action

i know we were talking about more weighty matters and i really hate to interrupt the flow but something's come up, and since i'm a little drunk and it is my goddam blog i'm hereby exercising my option to, if i so choose, inexplicably careen off into a completely different direction whenever i fucking feel like it. from my comment to the guy who posted the following youtube clip:

i heard this song once and only once--on a jukebox in some roadside diner in the summer of 1964 during a family vacation. i was a very little kid at the time, but for some reason it stuck in my head and comes back to haunt me from time to time. so tonight i decide to look for it, and wham! there it is on youtube.

 

[the only other thing i remember about this experience: i wanted to play the song again but none of the grownups would give me the goddam nickel or whatever it cost back then, so i had to wait 44 years] 

 and yeah it's sappy, but if this song (or at the very least, that hairdo) doesn't resonate with you even a little bit, then (a) your endorphin receptors are wired completely differently than mine; and/or (b) you need to come back and listen to it next time you're shitfaced.  

 sober update: turns out nobody--not even those of my friends upon whom i can usually rely to eat cheesy retro shit like this up--is moved by either this song or the hair.

i'm spelling this out because i'm so tired of all the 27-year-olds with cockrings and viagra prescriptions i can't even fucking begin to tell you

[text]

why is sex like pizza? 

because when it’s good, it’s really, really good. and when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.

or so the old joke goes. it's a good line, but it's also a big lie, and it’s one that lots of people buy into. truth is, there are few things more damaging to the gay male psyche than a steady diet of bad sex.

who the fuck am i to make such a pronouncement, you may ask? i'm just a guy who's walked the talk--i'm no sex expert with broad sweeping knowledge, nor do i pretend to be; on the contrary, my area of expertise is fairly narrow--but, trust me, it's deep.

and how do i define bad sex? oh, there’s all kinds of bad sex; we’ll get into that in future posts. tonight we're gonna talk about that much rarer commodity: good sex. far as i've been able to determine, the odds that sex between two guys will be good improve to the degree that there is

• mutual attraction. you're into each other

• mutual respect. neither of you is looking down on (or up to) the other

• sexual compatibility. the lid fits the pot

• a common goal. whether casual or serious, everybody's on the same page

• a pleasant aftertaste. the feeling you take with you from your last encounter will color the way you approach the next--remember, your baggage is accumulated one item at a time.
  

while it’s gonna be very rare you hit a home run in all the above categories (and let's face it--you wait for that to happen you'll probably never get laid), i'm willing to wager that, to the degree the above criteria are met, the sex has a much better chance of being good; to the degree they are not, the sex will probably be bad.

in other words, (a) if you're willing to hold out until it's right, you won't have sex with lots of different guys, but most of the sex you do have will be good; and (b) if you're willing to settle just to get off, you'll have buttloads of sex with lots of different guys, and lots of that sex will be bad.

and, bottom line, the more bad sex you have, the more likely it is you'll probably need cockrings and viagra by the time you're 27 (or 32 or 38 or 45, take your pick).

[next: the many faces of bad sex]

if nothing else good comes from this administration, maybe it's put the "pick dumb ones and they'll stay loyal" theory to rest once and for all

you wanna know what really chaps me about this whole mcclellan book thing?

is it, you ask, the fact that here's yet one more asshole from this administration whose first-person accounting of his own and others' incompetence and duplicity are being met not with the ostracism and disgrace which used to accompany such revelations, but rather with the lucrative book deals and speaking gigs with which america so richly rewards such people today?

or maybe because, with all his high-flown talk of his loyalty to the "truth" being greater than his loyalty to the president, he's pretending not to know that, as white house press secretary, it was nothing more or less than his goddam job to get out there and do what every white house press secretary before and after him has always done and always will do; namely, lie, spin and deflect the search for truth every single fucking day (and that his real sin was not that he did it, but that he did it so badly)?

or could it be because he's being given a forum on such national venues as good morning america and today to spout his self-serving drivel, and getting away pretty much unchallenged by folks who should by all rights--considering his self-admitted ill-treatment of same during his tenure as white house press secretary--be ripping him to little-bitty shreds?

nope, it's none of those things.

don't get me wrong--all of the foregoing is beyond egregious, but after almost eight years of the bush administration, i'm pretty much deadened to shit like that. what i feel here is something much more basic and visceral, maybe even irrational: utter and bottomless contempt for someone who, when left by his own innate inadequacy few options, elects to not only bite the hands that fed him so richly, but then attempts to wrap such craven chickenshit betrayal in the cloak of nobility and service to his country.

i mean, here you have a guy who, were it not for george bush and karl rove, would be toiling away in obscurity in some cubicle somewhere. instead, he--like so many others in this administration--was vaulted into a position of national prominence so far above his level of competence as to be almost incomprehensible.

and how does he repay his benefactors for that taste of the nectar of power that he would never in a million years have experienced otherwise? naturally, with treachery of the most base and cowardly kind.

i'm telling you, i wouldn't piss on this asshole if he was on fire.

[and for you partisans out there: had i been writing a blog back then, i'd have said pretty much the same thing when that little kiss-ass lickspittle george stephanopoulos threw former mentor bill clinton under the bus at the lowest point of his presidency for no other reason than to further his fledgling media career--happened a decade ago and still pisses me off.]