Ash Of Myself

It's Lent! Happy Lent everybody! Oops. No. That's wrong. Have a meaningful Lent. (And you thought it was just our Jewish brothers and sisters who had 'happy ones' and 'sad ones.')

St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Doylestown had a nice service this evening, with the imposition of ashes and all. And I've decided that for the first time in a long time, I'm giving up something for Lent. Namely: television.

For most of my adult life, I haven't owned a television. I never watched a Seinfeld episode until I moved back here. Not that television is awful or anything. Quite the reverse, I'd go so far as to say I find a lot of very high quality, thought provoking stuff on the tube. (I will definitely miss The Daily Show and the Colbert Report) But, I thought it would be a happy medium between giving up something that I would deeply regret every day (like Starbucks, or Tobacco), and something inconsequential (smoking crack) or something self-serving (vacuuming). And I'm giving myself a break this Sunday because the Baron is coming up so we can watch the Oscars together. Although I could get all cagey and say that the Baron will be watching television and I'll just be in the room.

Speaking of the Baron, he was hinting that maybe what I should give up for Lent is men. Hinting strongly. And it crossed my mind. But I couldn't get beyond the What If... What if a really great guy comes along and I have to say 'no' to his advances and ask him to hang out until Easter?

But that did get me thinking about sex. And my... uh... relationship with sex.

Maybe it's because I had abundant sex as a teenager. Lots of sex. Several times a week.

With whom, you might ask? Well, back in the day, the towpath along the canal was a veritable hotbed of homo coupling after dark seven nights a week from about May through October. (I know! Brrrrrrr!) And I took advantage of that every chance I got. Now during this time, my home life was awful, my stepmother always on my case and my father disappearing behind his newspaper without intervening. School brought lessons on a regular basis of things I couldn't do very well. I was awkward and unsure of myself. So, having sex brought excitement, risk, fun, and a lot of enjoyment into an otherwise dreary life. And, budding kinkster that I was, I really liked it when guys would ask (underage) me: What are you into? Because I would immediately reply, "I like to get tied up." And, I met a few who were verrrry happy to oblige. I had absolutely no bad experiences--pretty remarkable given the volume we're talking about--and not infrequently, the good ones were great. (There was the time that this boy with a beautiful name broke into a vacant house so we could "have some privacy," this hot fireman who really loved sucking my dick, and the list goes on and on. I remember it as being altogether joyous. College was a slow period, punctuated by trips to a dirty book store in Reading, Pennsylvania, which, I learned recently, still exists. After graduation, when I moved to Philadelphia, I did my best to make up for lost time. If a weekend went by and I didn't have sex, then I'd fret that something was really really wrong with the world. Or with me.

As I write this, faces out of the past come floating up in my mind.

Ah sex.

I've always liked it. A lot. The gods knew what they were doing when they gave us that particular gift.

As you well know if you've read anything here in Singletails beyond, say, this entry, things have slowed down a whole lot for me. It takes so much more work ("Okay, but you'll have to meet my dad."). Too, I'm on such an emotional and metaphysical rollercoaster that getting my head behind what I'm doing is often not very easy. I've probably gone for stretches of longer than 40 days in the past two years, but give up sex for Lent? I don't know that I'd be able to make that promise.

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