Sexual Maturity

BURDENS, BLESSINGS, SEX

The responsibilities of adulthood, the responsibilities of life, can be overwhelming and I don’t give myself good grades for keeping up with them. Unfortunately, my adult accomplishments have been mediocre, but it hasn’t been for want of trying. Mediocrity is especially disappointing when one has tried hard to excel. Life periodically forces us to reassess who we are and what we can expect to accomplish in light of our limitations.

I don’t masturbate as much as I used to. I don’t have as much energy as I used to, and adulthood demands a disbursement of energy and attention away from personal pleasure to the responsibilities of family, friendship, employment, and housekeeping. But, I still enjoy masturbation at sixty years old. You’d think maybe that I would have had enough by now. Maybe I should have outgrown it by now. I’m a big boy, grown man, mature adult. There are better things I could do with my time than jerk off, but that doesn’t stop me from doing it. It feels good, and makes me feel close to the guys I like, just like it did when I was an eleven year old boy in Charleston, South Carolina.

Popeye illustration retrieved January 25, 2015, from https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/3/005/063/21a/207057e.jpg

My Valentine

ROMANCE, MARRIAGE EQUALITY, FRIENDSHIP

Let me be clear. I like handsome, horny guys with big dicks. I’m not looking to get married. I’m not looking to spend the rest of my life with one guy. I’m looking for hot, friendly guys to have sex with. Friendship, yes. Marriage, no. Fun, yum.

I’m not looking for love. Friendship is good enough. Why would I want to marry a guy? If I wanted children, I’d marry a pretty girl and do it the old-fashioned way. Why would I want to raise adopted children with some dopey guy with a big dick, when I can have my own biological children with a sweet, pretty girl? There’s no fucking comparison, and no advantage to trying to replicate a real biological family with a phony political one. There’s something wrong with homosexual men raising children together to make a political point. It’s about the politics, not the children. Gay marriage and marriage equality are flaccid, political concepts.

Let's Be Friends

FRIENDS, BUDDIES, LIKE

If you like-a me, like I like-a you
And we like-a both the same
I like-a say this very day
I like-a change your name

'Cause I love-a you and love-a you true
And if you-a love-a me
One live as two, two live as one
Under the bamboo tree

(Bob Cole, J. Rosamond Johnson, 1901, Under the Bamboo Tree)

Friends photo. ©2015 Random Sparkles. All rights reserved. Retrieved January 19, 2015, from http://randomsparkl.es/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Aspects_of_male_friendship_2_by_vishstudio.jpg

Nobody Likes Me

ANGER, RESENTMENT, LIVELIHOOD

I don’t mind not being liked. I have been not liked by a lot of people. I’m sixty years old and I’ve lived and worked in a lot of different places, so my opportunities for rubbing people the wrong way have been many and varied. Some people don’t like the way I talk, look, eat, walk, or think. Some people think I’m too old, fat, abrupt, or ambiguous. Some people think I’m too sexual. They project a sexual suggestiveness onto me that I am not consciously expressing. Some people think I’m not sexual enough because they don’t get what they want from me. You name it, and there’ll be somebody out there who doesn’t like it. It isn’t just me. In a lifetime we all come in for our share of disapproval from others. Some of us might get more of it than others, but we all get it. That’s life. That’s part of being human.

I can live with not being liked, but it can make things more difficult. I try to keep a low profile, so as to annoy as few people as possible. It’s easier to get through the day when the people you deal with aren’t mad at you, or resentful of you. Your time on the planet will be better if you make more friends than enemies. They might not make you a saint, but they might let you live in peace and enjoy your little footprint while it lasts.

A toxic workplace can be especially challenging to navigate through. It makes working relationships miserable and threatens your livelihood. My employer has evolved a workplace culture concerned primarily with dividing the spoils of financial calculation among a new clique of administrators, than it is with cultivating a qualified, productive workforce and serving the public. Faithful, longtime employees are routinely exploited, ignored, or bullied to comply with hair-brained schemes that have more to do with self-aggrandizement than efficiency, economy, or good personnel management. How do novice administrators with suspect qualifications and mediocre records of performance get control over the budgets and personnel of a large organization? Who allows that to happen? Who makes that happen?

Sometimes I worry about my future. How long will I be allowed to last with my current employer? I’ve been there for nineteen years, but I don’t belong to a clique. I am at the mercy of people I don’t like or respect. It wasn’t always that way, but things have changed. Sometimes I think, just let me stay long enough to retire with my pension. Other times I think, I just want to get the hell out of here; I’ve had it with this place and these people. What will I do next? Do I want to maximize my pension? Will I be retained long enough to maximize it? Will I be able to live on my pension? If I have to get another job, what will I do? How will I market myself in the future? What does the future hold for me?

I don’t know much, but I do know this: Christian Science has taught me that substance is Spirit, and Spirit is the source of supply. I like reading the Lesson, and it does me good. I have experienced the power of prayer, and I pray daily. I am a writer, and however my livelihood is manifested in the future, I will continue to write and enjoy it.

Angry Man Photo.  ©2003-2015  Conjecture Corporation.  Retrieved January 18, 2015, from http://images.wisegeek.com/angry-man.jpg

Keeping Track

MASHPEE, BOY, MOBIL GAS

I've got a crush on the boy at the Mashpee rotary Mobil Station. Handsome boy with long, dark blonde hair draped across his forehead. Nice boy. Polite boy. Friendly boy. I go in every now and then to buy five bucks worth of gas for the car I keep in my driveway at home. I don’t want to fill it up because I don’t use the car that much. I take it for a spin a couple of times a week to keep it running. Now I want to make this boy part of my routine. I think about him and wonder if he’ll be there when I go to get my gas ration. He’s the best part of that little trip. One more beautiful boy in my life to keep track of.

Photo retrieved January 18, 2015, from https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/69/4e/92/694e92bb84b6d109ba81daade3892052.jpg

Come Here Often?

MARRIAGE, SEX, UNDERSTALL

It isn’t easy to meet men for sex in polite society. Or, it hasn’t been easy for me to meet them. I’ve heard other guys’ stories about how they’ve met men in social situations and ended up having sex with them. I’ve watched it happen between married guys who work together. No problem. Some of these encounters turn into ongoing, clandestine relationships. Bing, bang, boom! Married guys love fucking each other. It’s so convenient and cozy. They make it look easy. Easy to get the sex and fool their friends and colleagues that they’re just regular guys. It’s always annoyed me that married guys have more gay sex than I do.

On one hand, we want to civilize sex. That’s what marriage does. Marriage makes people do right by the men and women they have sex with. On the other hand, good manners is not the kind of behavior we associate with good sex. Sex is rude and aggressive, though usually discreet and private. How do we get from good manners to sexual excitement? Sex takes liberties, which is part of its thrill. If it were all good manners we’d never get around to it, we’d never get it done. That’s why men do things like having sex under a bathroom stall at Home Depot or the mall. It’s the perfect place to shed your inhibitions, grab a big dick, jack it off, and shoot a big load all over the floor. The perfect place to be anonymous, rude, and sexual. Men meet in a place where it’s mutually understood that casual sex is the goal. Sex with a stranger in a public place is the best sex that some guys have, including married guys. It’s pleasant to move, work, and play in polite society, but most of us want sexual excitement too, and we get it where we find it.

Photo retrieved January 13, 2015, from http://s3.amazonaws.com/auteurs_production/images/film/regular-guys/w448/regular-guys.jpg?1315801902

Out in the Cold

COMPATIBILITY, IN-CROWD, FITTING IN

Compatibility is a big deal. It’s bigger than I thought it was. It’s the way of the world. Ultimately, it’s bigger than knowledge, skill, aptitude, and experience. We tend to think and say that it should not be, but it is. We profess our approval of merit, then turn around and hire the guy we like rather than the guy who is best qualified to do the job. We perform the mental trick of believing that the guy we like is best qualified, regardless of evidence to the contrary. People want to be with people similar to themselves. It’s human nature. We see it all the time. We see it all around us. Is it a bad thing? Not for those who benefit from social familiarity and acceptance. It might be bad for those who get left out, and someone always gets left out. It’s no fun to be left out. We all want to belong somewhere, but we don’t all succeed at finding a group or a place to belong to. We don’t all get accepted by a secure social arrangement. We don’t all get to be in with the in-crowd. And, those of us who are left out just have to do the best we can. Poor schlubs!

Photo retrieved January 10, 2015, from http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6pb5vDOls1qetik7o1_1280.jpg

The Other Closet

MAN SEX, MASTURBATION, SOCIETY

Men like having sex together. I guess there are women who like having sex together too, but I don’t care about that. I only care about man sex. Sex between men. Men masturbating together. Men masturbating each other and enjoying each other. Men connecting and enjoying contact with each other. Masturbation. Making out. Cock sucking.

I like the idea of men bonding with each other through sex. Sex enhancing friendship. Sex as a way to make friends. Making friends through sex. It happens all the time, and it has happened for all time. Whether or not to enshrine homosexuality as a cultural phenomenon, an institution, is an issue. Whether to honor homosexual activity and the friendships that evolve from it is an issue that society has struggled with for several recent decades. Homosexual acts and associations tend historically to be secret, disguised, dishonest. Tradition, religion, culture, and family used to discourage homosexual acts and relationships. It appears now, in our post-modern culture, that society and its institutions embrace, defend, and promote a kind of homosexual presence and sub-culture. Homosexuality is still the other, but it is now the precious, acceptable other. It has been relegated to the storehouse of humane, liberal causes. Homosexuals have become just one more group to feel sorry for. Homosexuals came out of their own traditional, historical closet only to be ushered into the crowded closet of liberal special interests. Society, though more benign, is still playing games with homosexual men and women. Homosexuality is OK in the post-modern millennium, as long as it conforms to liberal biases and expectations.

My Mess

BOYS, GIRLS, LIFE, LOVE

I am sorry that I’m such a mess. I wish I had more control over my life, but I haven’t been very good at mastering my fate. Spirituality. Christian Science. Art. Writing. Sex. Homosexuality. Masturbation. Land surveying. Mapping. Drafting. Autocad. ArcGIS. Penn State. MGIS. Master of Geographic Information Systems. David DiBiase. Jim Sloan. Karen Schuckman. Patrick Kennelly. Anthony Robinson. ESRI. Life is full of good and interesting things. It can be difficult to choose just a few to concentrate on, but we have to. We have to make good, practical choices for ourselves and our loved ones. We have to learn how to move things along in life. Progress. Accomplishment. Success.

I’m so grateful for the experience of earning my master’s degree at Penn State. I loved it. I worked hard at it. I enjoyed it. I did well. I did better than I thought I would. It filled my life with meaning and purpose, valuable knowledge, information, and experience. Now that it’s done, I don’t really know what to do with it. I don’t have to do anything with it. I did it. In a sense, it’s over and I have moved on to other things in my life. My life has moved on. Why do I have to do anything with it? It’s done.

Spirituality. Writing. Sex. Home. Yarmouth. There’s a lot of things I don’t understand and will never understand. I can’t understand everything. I think through what I can and do my best to function in the world on the little that I know. There isn’t just one thing in life. Life is a patchwork quilt, an amalgamation of things. Poor mortals do a balancing act with life, to get through it. There isn't just one thing. There may be a hierarchy of things, and mastery comes from figuring out what the harmonious, optimum arrangement of those things is. But, it can take a lifetime to figure things out. Life is almost over by the time we plumb its depths and figure it out. So, we do the best we can in thought, word, and deed to live our poor, little lives and enjoy them.

I am a homosexual for better or worse, I’m still not sure which. All I know is that I have had a sexual interest in other guys since I first learned about sex. And, I first learned about sex from boys my own age. That’s how sex started for me. If it had started differently, maybe my sexuality would have developed differently. I will never know. All I know is that I’ve always liked guys sexually and I still do. My sexual attraction to other guys has been one of the greatest pleasures of my life. That’s got to be one of the reasons that I never got married. Marriage would be a lie, or at least a stretch, for me. Why put myself or anyone else through that kind of an elaborate, twisted charade? It has never seemed right or fair to me to abuse marriage that way. Marriage as pretense. Marriage as sex therapy. Marriage as moral obfuscation. Marriage as business and social strategy. I never had any reason to believe that my sexual attraction to other guys would magically disappear if I married a girl, but life could get real complicated real fast if I did. I’d just as soon keep things the way they are. Things are complicated enough as it is without dragging some poor girl into my moral dilemma and making my problem hers.

What is my problem? I never allowed myself to have the fun I wanted with other guys. I fantasized a lot. I hoped a lot. I expected a lot. But, I didn’t do enough to get what I wanted sexually with other guys. I should have been more sexually proactive as a young man. What was I waiting for? Who was I waiting for? A prince in shining armor? The perfect man or woman? The love of my life? The perfect friend? Platonic love? Was I waiting for someone else to make my moral decisions for me? Was I waiting for a man or woman to come along and make things right for me? Unrealistic expectations.

Photo retrieved January 3, 2015, from http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2007/boys_camp/boys_camp_01.jpg