Remember Sex?

I can. But just barely. It's been months. Maybe a year or more.

What am I talking about here? Not SM. Since I got my garage cleared out, I could spend every waking minute chaining up, flogging, and whipping a seemingly endless array of willing men out there. And I'm not talking about anonymous blow jobs at El Mirage.

I'm talking about consumating mutual physical attraction. I'm talking the Missionary Position. I'm talking no negotiation beforehand, no safe words, no toybags, no group sitiations. Just two guys, in bed, going at it.

"Whaddya like? Yeah, you like that? Like it when I do it like this? Oh yeah. That's sweet. That feels soooo good."

Whatever happened to that?

They still have it on television. And in the movies.

It seems to me that there used to be a lot more of it going on.

And I may be wrong, but I don't think it's just me. I mean, given all the men banging on the door of my garage, I seem to be some gay men's idea of reasonably good looking. But getting laid has become just about impossible.

Maybe it's the internet. After all, the World Wide Internet has sure made masturbation a lot more interesting. Even great. And if you and your laptop can work it out, you don't really need somebody else there, do you?

And I think we can ascribe blame to the whole Gay Marriage thing. By elevating the issue in importance, it's made those committedlifelongmonogamous relationships normative. If you're not in one, you're probably asking yourself why not. But, as we all know, after the first six months or so, no one in a committedlifelongmonogamous relationship has sex. Companionship? Yes. Someone to fight with about whose fault it is that you're out of toilet paper? Yes. Sex? Uh uh.

And, loathe as I am to admit this, but the movement of SM out of the Mineshaft and into just about every suburban livingroom in all the Blue States (and probably more than a few Red States, too) probably has something to do with that, too. I mean, yeah, it's erotic, but there's all kinds of things you have to be good at, and you have to run up a hefty balance on your credit card, too.

And, of course, there's HIV. Oh man, is there ever. I'm old enough to remember when what is now called "unsafe sex" or "barebacking" was just simply referred to as "sex." Now, there's a small and elite group that seems to be having all the fun--seems, in fact, to have cornered the market on sex--by having that which has come to be known as "pig sex." Which is just sex, but because of that persnickity virus, it's now all kinds of transgressive to have it. And, when you do it, you're Making A Statement, so it must be like being the first African American to not ride in the back of the bus in Birmingham, or being the first woman admitted to the Citadel, or being the first openly gay politician elected to the U.S. Congress. I mean... imgagine the pressure!

And maybe it's the fact that the advertising industry has discovered gay men, and just like they did to women for all those decades, has bombarded us with images of perfect men with perfect bodies that none of we mere mortals measure up to and so we're all feeling inadequate.

And then there's the whole crystal meth thing. Apparently just having good old toweling-off-after-twenty-minutes sex isn't good enough any more. Now it's got to go on for hours and days at a time and involve acts that would set world records.

I mean, I used to go out to a bar every Saturday night and find some man to have sex with. (I swear! I'm not making that up!) On those rare occassions when it didn't work out that way, I'd go home, listen to Morrissey, wonder what was the matter with me, etc. etc., but that would last exactly six days, until the next weekend, when I'd be able to have sex again. If I had to wait that long.

Sometimes it was bad sex, but at least it was sex.

So what about you? Are you having sex? Are there still pockets of resistance out there? Is there a bar left in the world where, "Can I buy you a beer?" is unambiguously taken to mean, "Would you like to come back with me to my nearby apartment where I live alone and have sex with me?"?

Please tell me I'm wrong.

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