Lust

Apparently the Buddha once said that if humanity had one more drive as strong as sex there would be no hope for us ever to achieve enlightenment because we'd all be too distracted.

Matthew Stradling http://www.matthewstradling.com/
I guess he knew what he was talking about.

I know that sometimes I can sink into some sort of erotic fog, where sex is my major preoccupation, my pleasure, my joy, my reason for being. At times I just want to chase and be chased, to hunt, to find, to feel that anticipation of a new lover's arrival.

And I actually welcome that, I revel in it, I love the fact that I have great, warm, passionate, loving, tender, kinky, and most of all - fun - sex. And yes, I'm just coming out of one of those times again now.

Sometimes that urge just gets so strong, and when it all comes together, well, it's fantastic.

Whether it's with a man I have known and cared for over years or some random off the net I'll never hook up with again, there are times when it is all I want, when I'd rather fuck than eat or drink.

That feeling of skin on skin, the scent of a man, from crotch to armpits, cupping the heft of his buttocks or his balls, the joy of discovery that a new body holds, cock, eyes, mouth, legs, lips tongue - just getting that close up, that intimate, that near to another guy, that sense of almost passing beyond our skins and actually blending into each other. It's so good, so powerful.

Then it passes, and normal life resumes. I have been celibate at times, for quite a long time, for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes I'll go quite happily for months at a time with nothing. But then it returns, and it does feel like a hunger, the way desire can spread through my life and pre-occupy my thoughts and my time.

I can't imagine being gay and not at least having the possibility of sex. I guess I was happy in my periods of celibacy because I knew they were self-imposed and temporary.

Do gay men fuck more?

I think we do, if we can. For such a long time sex was the only way we could express ourselves, and even that meant we risked blackmail, prison, disgrace. The chances to love, to set up home, to settle down, were pretty much denied to us for thousands of years. So fucking became our way of showing who we were. And face it - it's a lot of fun.

Rita Mae-Browm the American lesbian author, got smuggled into one of the gay bath-houses of New York in the 70s, and watched what was going on, and had this to say.


"Since class peels off with clothing you might think a democracy of nakedness and need would develop. But here in the cubicles a new hierarchy took place among these lawyers, artists, grocery clerks, stockbrokers, movement activists, professors and cab drivers. Rank now came through the size of penis, condition of body and age…The irrationality of the flesh commands. Here the great American principle of competition and performance keep those on the make hungry, frightened, and slightly savage. (Brown, cited Jay and Young 1994:75) "

I love that idea of "the irrationality of the flesh", and I guess that's at least part of why I enjoy the wild and free side of gay male sexual life. It is irrational. It is joyous, and yes, it can also be slightly savage.

And it doesn't mean we can't or don't love deeply and truly. We can, and we do. But we can also shape our lives in ways that are different to the ways that most heterosexuals have to. Many, if not most gay couples, are clear on how sex and love differ, and it is pretty common for men who utterly adore each other to be comfortable with having sex with others.

I've been thinking about all this because of a few conversations I've been in, a few debates about the role of sex and sex-addiction, and what it means to be gay, all coming up in the context of the gay marriage debate.

I understand the need some guys have to ape straights. They say they want monogamy and a house in the suburbs, and that's great. A few times I've had that ghastly gay couple of "Modern Family" get cited as a wonderful example of what we could have. 

Do those two ever fuck? They give a bland, Disneyfied, desexed, safe and castrated image of homo-happiness. Not my role-models that's for sure. They do everything but fuck it seems - I get the impression that if you pulled their pants down they'd be as smooth as a Ken doll. But that's what makes them so acceptable on prime-time TV. They threaten no-one. No-one sane that is, I'm not counting religious nutters.

For me, as I've said before,  being gay is about love - it's about wanting to have my deepest emotional connections with men, even though I love some women with a deep and enduring intensity, but it's at least equally about sex, if not more so: I can swim in a sex of lust for men, but I have never had the slightest flicker of desire for a woman.

So lust, the erotic, desire, the search for and delight in the body of a man is just as central to my cock-sucking, arse-fucking faggotry as the emotional component, and I'm not going to deny either.


























Comments

Popular Posts