Low Expectations Makes for Great Camming

It's been a while since my last post.  The camming world has drawn me in a bit, and I must say I think I am all the better because of it.  As discussed in my last post, these are my first sexual experiences with other men, and so far most have been positive.

So often I hear gay men bitch about how gay men on-the-whole are incapable of forming long-term relationships, or sustaining attention towards another guy any longer than is necessary for a robust orgasm.  Honestly, this is a partial truth that is clearly evident in these video chat sites.  Some guy will catch my attention, drawing me into a private chat.  Sometimes some conversation - sometimes not.  But then the moment of truth comes - when the guy on the other end finally gets what he's after.  Most often this is him blowing his load, but can also be getting a look at my ass or getting me to sexy-talk him over the falls.  Whatever it is, this dude will drop the connection as soon as he is satisfied, leaving me high and dry.  It's no big deal really - my expectations are very low for these camming deadbeats.  I chuckle to myself and move on.

But...it too is the case when I'll meet another guy with the same expectations and, well...good manners.  We'll be in it until the job's done for each of us.  The conversation will have some substance, and perhaps give a feel for the personality of whomever is on the other end of the video feed.  This makes the endeavor more than just stale novelty.  It provides some true warmth and release.

I'm a bit of a romanitc, and me looking for substance on gay cam sites is a bit like trying to play golf with a tennis racquet - it's the wrong tool for the wrong sport.

A Big Step - on Webcam

About two weeks ago I rediscovered Cam4.com.  I had been aware of it for some time, and never really paid that much attention to it because all I ever seemed to see on there were a broad swath of naked dudes asking for 'tips' or 'tokens' to perform various sex acts on themselves or others on cam with them.  It was amusing and everything, but had a very short shelf-life as far as my arousal goes.

Well, for whatever reason two weeks ago, I was looking around on the site and noticed at the very latter end of the index of broadcasting members were the guys who were getting no viewers, or maybe at the most one or two.  So even though I have shied-away from doing anything with a webcam on a sex site, I decided to go for it.  After logging on, I positioned the camera away from my face and rather on my lower body, which was still in underwear.  I soon started watching some solitary 40 year-old guy sitting in a chair and stroking his very normal-sized dick.  He saw I was there, and said "hi".  I responded in kind and told him it looked like he was having fun.  The next thing I know, I have my boxer briefs around my ankles and I'm stroking my cock with him, just talking about sex-stuff and getting each other more and more worked-up.  Things progressed rather rapidly until we were both in the position of coaching each other to orgasm.  It was a lot of fun, and definitely cathartic.

So this, as it turns out, is my first time having a sexual experience with another man while fully awake and deliberate.  It was amazing, and a huge turn-on.  Afterward, I didn't feel nearly as alone in my own skin as I normally do.  He related that he is in the exact same position as I am: married before realizing and accepting his sexual identity and now living with a wife he loves dearly, but who is not a lover.  He has kids too, and struggles with the same issues on a daily basis as I do.  God, it felt good to have someone else tell their story that so closely mirrors my own.

Surprisingly, I did not have any guilt after doing this.  I have always feared the temptation to cheat on my wife.  I am not making any kind of moral judgement about the act or anyone who has made the decision to do it.  I simply know that I, myself, couldn't handle my own self-imposed guilt.  Until jerking-off with this guy over the internet, I would have considered doing so an act of infidelity.  Now that I have done it, I (somewhat conveniently) do not consider it cheating.  It is not a rationalization as much as it is an acknowledgment hat I have sexual needs a human being, and I am not going to live my life starving myself of this basic sustenance.

Would really love to hear from any all readers of this post: Is jerking-off anonymously on webcam with another guy to be considered cheating?

A New Hand Tool

So I went to Adam and Eve about a month ago and bought a Fleshlight.  I had seen these on some of the porn sites I frequent, and decided there must be something to it since they get so much free advertising.  The Fleshlight site is very comprehensive, and gave me a good idea of what I wanted for my own personal artificial orifice.  The 'Crystal' clear one seemed to fit the bill.  While in a neighboring city, I slipped into an Adam and Eve and bought this strange new toy for myself.  Taking it out of the packaging and looking at it in the car, I couldn't believe the soft texture of the gel insert and the inviting labial opening - it actually looked and felt just like pussy.  Almost had to get down to business with it right there, but managed to wait until I got home.

I didn't feel like concealing the purchase from my wife.  She's not fucking me, so I figure she can deal with it.  I walked in and showed it to her, then told her I needed some "me time" up in the bedroom. I did ask her to come with for some playtime with my new toy - to use it give my dick it's inaugural plunge - but she didn't go for it.  I followed the instructions on the box and warmed it up in hot water, then got buck naked and started sexing-myself-up on the bed. 

To say the least, the feeling of this device is amazing.  It's warm, snug, and feels just like a vagina does before it goes through the trauma of squeezing out two kids.  I was blown away and really had to pace myself to make it last.  After all, I usually don't announce my masturbatory intentions and make the bedroom off limits, so I wanted to savor my private time.  This clear silicone and plastic gem has given me a whole new take on jerking off.   Loved it.

As it matter of fact, it gets me thinking about prostate stimulation....

REWIND - My Sexual History, part 2

...and so after a futile attempt to masturbate for the first time in the woods with my two buddies, we all went home.

The revelation of orgasm didn't occur until the next day, when I was at home all by myself...

I was pretty excited about what Clay had described the day before while we were in the woods - the rudiments of masturbation.  I really don't know why, but I felt like stripping all the way down and lying down nude in the middle of the living room floor.   I could have used a bed - not sure why I didn't - but whatever in hind-sight.  After about 15 minutes of stroking I had some copius precum, though wasn't sure if this was to be the final product of my efforts.  At about 30 minutes I started to cross the point of no return, and then ejaculated for the first time in the middle of the living room floor.  The feelings were so new and so incredibly intense - it scared the living hell out of me, and I promised myself I would never do it again.

Terrified, I looked at the mostly clear semen on my abdomen and was certain I had ruptured something in my penis.  After I calmed down a little and determined I was not going to require a trip to the ER, I did what geeks do and started to read about the penis in the encyclopedia.  From what I read, I could duduce that I had had an orgasm.  This was all I needed to assure me everything was OK, and gave me license to have-at-it whenever I felt the urge.

None of my neighborhood buddies really ever talked about jerking-off.  We all knew we were doing it at the same furious rate, but no one really wanted to acknowledge it.  Eric spent the night at my house one night in the weeks that followed that day in the woods, and we wound up comparing our cocks and talking all about our new favorite hobby.  We got a bit worked-up by all the sex-talk and both needed to jerk, but instead we actually took turns going into my bedroom to rub one out.  Being considered a "fag" is probably what prevented us from going further with our pants down.  Sadly, after that night I never saw Eric naked again.  Well, at least not until we both were 34 years old...but I'll get to that.

I didn't have any significant sexual contact with another person until six years after that sleepover with Eric.  I "dated" a couple of girls before I went to college, but this never amounted to much, and I never really understood why other guys my age were so interested in girls.  One of my best buddies was the first to lose his virginity at age 15, and that's when the clock started ticking in my mind for me to lose mine, too.  I was so hopelessly awkward then around people I didn't know, and I knew I was coming into the dating game with a handicap.  At one point when we were in 11th grade Eric asked me why I didn't show any interest in girls.  Immediately panicking, and protesting to him that I was interested in girls, he said "well, you better do something about it, because people are starting to talk".  And with that, I was aware that I was under scrutiny, and had to double-down in my efforts to appear "normal".

Compounding my confusion in high school was my all-time first romantic crush - which was on another boy.  His name was David and he was one year ahead of me in school.  He was the most beautiful thing I thought I had ever seen, with kind and gentle ice-blue eyes and a nice, lean body.  David represented not only physical beauty to me, but also a vision of the kind of guy I wanted to become.  While I struggled with undiagnosed ADHD and mediocre grades, he was the Secretary of the The National Honor Society.  While I had no clue what I wanted to do at college, or much less for a possible career, he was dead-set on getting into medical school and becoming a surgeon.  While I was always on the heavy side, he was athletic and very toned.  And to top it all off, he was a really good person - a great guy - really kind and considerate.

David and I both played viola in the orchestra, so we often sat in chairs right beside each other  during sixth period.  Whenever he walked into the room I would blush and feel my heart rate pick up.  I absolutely savored any time I spent hanging out with him after class.  I looked forward to just being near him every day, but had to work to keep others from noticing how much I liked to look at him.   Though I was mostly naive to the sexual nature of my attraction to him, I would often think about what he looked like with no clothes on, what his penis looked like, and if he jacked-off as much as I did.  It never occurred to me I could think about touching him down there between his legs.  Though I was masturbating a lot, I don't think he ever intruded into my fantasies.  For whatever reason, I didn't cross a sexual line with him in my mind while wanking.    All I knew was that I wanted to be his very best friend, and to be like him.  I wanted to be best buddies with him and do everything he was doing in his life.

My junior year, I partially got my wish and started to become friends with David outside of school.  It was short-lived, though, as I think he thought I was a little bit too into him.  What friendship we had fizzled out, and I was bummed because he left for college a few months later.  Though I saw him maybe once or twice after that Spring, I kept up with him through common acquaintances.  True to what he said he was going to do with his life, David did go to medical school and did become a surgeon.  I so wanted to emulate him in every way that the seed was planted in my mind that I, too, should become a doctor.  Though I was more than a few years behind him, I later graduated from the same medical school that he did.  I didn't understand the nature of my crush on him during those high school years and look at it today as a lost opportunity, but the importance of him as a role-model in my life cannot be overstated.   I hope some day I will find a way to tell him how much he influenced my path in life.  If you're out there, David, closeted and reading this blog - thank you for everything.

The summer before I left for college my friends and I were always looking for the next party.  It was during one of these gatherings at some rock quarry that I got wasted and brave enough to make a successful move on a girl.  We were in the woods making-out and I got my hands in her pants - a first for me.  Early into my freshman year of college, I got laid for the first time by an upperclassman.  I was stoked to have met my goal of losing my virginity before I turned 18 years old.  She was a bit of a skank, but I was wasted and fucked her silly nonetheless.  What I wish I didn't do, however, was go down on her.  In retrospect, she had the strongest odor down there of any girl I have ever been with, and it really tainted my early feelings about oral sex with a woman.  Maybe my first hint that I had a conditional relationship with pussy was that it took me 30 minutes before I could come inside her.  She said she was on the pill and that I didn't need to use a condom.  So, like a fucking idiot, I didn't wear a condom.  This was during the mid 1980's at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis.  That June following freshman year I had a summer cold that I couldn't shake, and became convinced that I had contracted HIV from this girl.  It was the first time that depression and unchecked anxiety reared their ugly heads.

Sophomore year was a wild one, as I was completely stoned for most of it and yet somehow managed to turn in my best GPA ever.  That year also held many new sexual experiences, including group sex with another couple.  In the fog of pot smoke, alcohol, and sex that characterized that year, I also had my first experience with a guy hitting on me while post-coital in my dorm room with my passed-out girlfriend in the same bed...

REWIND - My Sexual History, part 1

After reading more and more blogs of others in my situation, I realize it may be helpful for me to take a step back and fill-in my sexual history a bit.  It's been a long process in getting to the point in my life where I am not afraid to identify as gay, and how we evolve into healthy sexual beings is a partial function of our early experiences.  This being said, the details of the journey may hold more of relevance than I had originally thought, especially as an illustration that my attraction to other guys is innate and not chosen.  So, from now on, when you see me start a post with 'REWIND' in all-caps, this means it's a story or recollection from my past that is relevant to who I am today. 

In my last post, I had said there was no mutual same sex-play with others when I was young.  That's not entirely accurate.  I never did the pubescent/adolescent circle jerk, but I did have some shared curiosity with others my age during almost all phases of my childhood.  Here's a summary of the formative encounters.

My earliest memory of curiosity about other boys had to have been when I was about five years old.  Our family was close to another family in our neighborhood and we did everything together - picnics, beach trips, ski trips, church activities.  They had a couple of sons and their youngest, Darren, was about five years older than I was.  Though we didn't have a lot of overlap in play or maturity, we did get put together often at the end of the day to share a bath.  At the age of five, I remembered how much this excited me to be naked with Darren in the bath tub, even to the point of often saying "I want to take a bath with Darren!".  He was considerably more developed than I was at five.  Sitting cross-legged facing in each other in the bath, his larger penis and scrotum were on full view - and I couldn't keep my eyes off of them.   I do not remember ever having this kind of intense curiosity when I was in the tub with girls.

In third grade I would often sleep over at a friend's house whom I met at school that year.  Our friendship didn't last that long, and I think it was because we were not in same classroom after that year.  My enduring memory is of him trying to get me to "butt-fuck", like he said he did with another friend of his when they took a bath together.  This completely freaked me out and scared me off from taking a bath with him.  As a result, he and his parents always chastised me for being so modest.

Around the time I was ten years-old, bath time with my cousin who lived a few hours away was always something I looked forward to when I would sleep over.  My malignant fear of getting an erection when around other naked boys was neutralized while with Jason.  I didn't have to care about being at full mast around him because he always had a hard-on the whole time as well.  We would take turns sliding down the back slope of the bathtub like it was a slide, ramming into each other with our legs open.  I remember how good this felt, this contact of my boner with whatever part of his body was in my path.

I guess a real turning point for me, as for any pubescent boy, was when I discovered masturbation.  When I was eleven years-old, my neighborhood friends and I would spend almost all of our time after school playing in the woods and creeks that were scattered around our neighborhood.  One day my best friend, Eric, and I were joined by another kid in our class named Clay who lived just outside our territory.  We were hanging around by the creek when Clay asked us "Have you guys ever made white stuff squirt out of your dicks?".  After a shared double-take, Eric and I turned to Clay and said "what?" in unison.  Clay went on to describe how we were supposed to rub our penises to make it happen.  At that point Eric and I didn't wait to go home to try it out.  The three of us each went behind a separate tree and took an initial stab at it.  None of us were successful.  I sat there tugging at my hard dick aimlessly wondering what was supposed to happen.

The revelation didn't occur until the next day, when I was at home all by myself...

Fear of Erections in the Showers

I had an intense fear of being naked around anyone until I was in college.  I guess this is an experience common to many guys, and I've heard some different reasons being given for it.  In my case, I wasn't ever concerned about the size or my penis as much as I was with the probability of getting an erection while around other naked guys.  It's a fear that followed me in every area of my life - school, home, outside activities.  You name it. 

I have no brothers, and the only other male in my house growing up was my Dad.  I saw him naked all the time when he was changing and showering, like anyone does their parent of the same sex.  I would not ever feel comfortable changing or bathing when he or anyone else was around, though, and my demands for total privacy would often make us slightly late for events and appointments.  He was mildly frustrated by this but never forced the issue.  He would always say "What's the big deal?  Everyone's got the same plumbing!".

Growing up, I was never part of any show-and-tell scenarios and somehow avoided almost all instances where I would have to change or put on a bathing suit in front of a friend (though it probably didn't help that one of them made a grab for my dick one time).  Never shared a bath with a friend.  Never peed where someone could get a look.  No mutual sex play.  Nada.

I remember the times I couldn't avoid being naked, like at summer camp in the showers, as being an exercise in zen-like mastery of my thoughts - or at least a desperate attempt to do so.  First order of business when in any summer camp situation was to get the lay of the land with the bathhouse.  Every one of them - every single one - had open showers.  No stalls or dividers - the concept was apparently foreign to our part of the country.  I would see no way to avoid the situation with naked group showers at camp without catastrophic humiliation, so I would grit my teeth and go in the shower room with everyone else.  No one in there noticed that I wasn't able to talk much or hold a conversation, as I was completely mentally preoccupied.  Avoiding erections was a matter or fully distracting myself from the situation with little concentration exercises.  Buckminster Fuller would be amazed to know these consisted of envisioning various geodesic shapes and rotating them in my mind's eye.  It was a pretty random thing to come up with, but it got me through.  As much as I was intensely curious to see everyone else's penis while in the shower, I rarely looked as I was sure it would push me over the edge and I would pop a boner.  It was especially hard one year at camp as I had my first male crush on our cabin's counselor, a college freshman named Dan.  Seeing him nude was just about more than I could handle.

Luckily, my friends from the neighborhood were as modest as I was so it wasn't a major issue.  We all hated the whole shower thing, and would make jokes about it.  I had friends who were into all kinds of varsity sports at school, and I never understood how they could submit to so much naked time in the locker room.  I would not have been able to control my body's response to a situation like that.

By the time I left for college, the situation had eased somewhat.  At that time in my physicial development, I had reached a respectable height of 6' 1" had a decent-enough looking body.  My penis topped out at a very average 6.5" when erect, and was less prone to spontaneous tumescence.  Having little body insecurity made dealing with the semi-open showers of my dorm a non-issue after a while.  I did enjoy the frequent times I would be in there with a friend from the hall and would be able to get a good look at his package, but unlike the past, I would actually be able to hold a conversation and not rotate geodesic shapes in my head.  I had also by this time lost my virginity, and had let a couple of girls explore my proud member with their mouths in well-lit situations.  I knew I had nothing to be ashamed of.

After college, I discovered the beauty of natural hot springs.  At that time, I was in the best shape of my life and found that I loved being naked and uninhibited among the other people.  It was a completely new experience for me, to be naked in a non-sexual way.  As a result of this, I love going to hot springs to this day and being in a natural state with others of like-mind.  

Oddly, my fear of public erections has come full circle.  There have been many times when I have been to hot springs with my best friend, and have actually wanted to have a spontaneous erection in front of him.  It would be a way of my body signalling my feelings for him - without my permission to do so.  It would relieve me of the desire to work up the courage tell him how I feel.  As I've gotten older, my body definitely doesn't look as good as it did when I was young, but I have no problem being naked in front of other men.  It is one of my favorite things to do.

Closet Case #3498

I am only now thinking about making my blog public.  I started this nearly four years ago as a way for me to process life-long homosexual thoughts and feelings which had never taken form.  I was just starting therapy, and for the first time disclosing to another person that - using THE word - I was gay.  Seeing my feelings written on the page let them exist externally from my noggin, and this was somewhat cathartic.  I have felt until recently that there was not enough content here to be useful to anyone else but myself, so I did not go public with it.

Yesterday, that all changed.  I ran across the blog of Closet Case #3498.  "Blurred", as he is known, is a mid-twenties guy recently finishing business school who generously shared the details of living as a closeted bi-man in NYC.  His candor was as soothing as climbing into a hot tub after a long day of skiing.  He made me feel much less alone and isolated than I normally do, and at times really turned me on.  Living in the closet is hard, and he made some bold yet truthful statements without feeling the need to qualify them or apologize for the way he chooses to live.  Unfortunately, it seems the trolls wore him down and he shuttered his blog earlier this year, but not without first writing an elegant and eloquent farewell.  In short, he is a real human being, and a class-act at that.  I am sorry to lose the stream of truth he provided on a regular basis, but happy for the gifts he gave.  More than anything, I hope he finds happiness, self-acceptance, and someone who loves him and allows him to  furnish the deep soul he has been given.

I then thought to myself how useless my own experiences and struggles will be unless I share them with others.  I am concerned about anonymity, but I think it is a risk that can be tightly managed.  I've taken a lot of comfort from the writings of others, and I think it's time I contribute as well.

So here we go.  It's a bit scary to do this, but the most valuable and important experiences in life often require a leap of faith and a modicum of courage at the beginning.

One consolation in growing older past age 40...

Recently I find my self wondering at work and in my social life....does anyone know about me?  Does anyone suspect?  Is there some morsel of thought or expression I left unchecked in my daily interactions with the people in my life?  Did I give it away that I dig guys without intending to?

The answer, more and more as the days pass in my life, is I don't really fucking care.

Confidence in myself - the rightness of who I am and how I am meant to be - is blossoming.  Anyone who is close to me who may have a problem with my sexuality is officially handed their hat and given leave.  I am not going to obsess over it anymore.  It has been such a long time in finding this clearing in the woods, but the light is shining through. 

It has it taken me 40+ years to find this place. 

I have been watching a lot of gay cinema recently.  Initially I was drawn to the depictions of sex and soft-core porn aspects of it.  Now, I find myself much more interested films that have great character and relationship development.  Intimacy between two men has come to touch me deeply - much more than the thrill of seeing two naked guys roll around for a few minutes.  Seeing love develop between men is so deeply mysterious and satisfying to me.