Therapy Update

I reluctantly go to see a shrink.

The reluctance may be in part because I am one of the sanest people I know.

I know the adage that an alcoholic is the last person you should ask if they have a drinking problem. So its hard for a meshugener to assess their own sanity. However, I feel like I am a pretty sorted, grounded person. I started going because of some relationship issues and the profound alienation I feel from the gay-community. However, now that I have gone for over a year I have begun to realize that I carry around some baggage from my childhood is not completely healthy ways - that may explain some of the goofy things I do in my relationships and why I spend way too much on-line.

IF you have never gone to see a shrink - I highly recommend it, but with the caveat that finding a good shrink is hard. This is my third attempt at therapy, the two other times I went a couple times an found it a complete waste of time. This time I was really careful, asking around, doing short phone interviews with a number of therapists and pushing hard to find someone who I felt I could click with. The key is having some sense of what you want out the of the experience. For example I am very verbal - I can clearly articulate what I am feeling but I definitely need someone to challenge what comes out of my mouth. I was looking for someone who wasn't just a "listener" but someone I could have a dialogue with and would be pretty active in the process. Many shrinks don't go there - so makes sure you ask. Also have some sense about the issues you want to talk about. Some head-shrinkers will advertise if they are into gay/lesbian issues. I am about 80% sure my guy is a member of the tribe, but he is definitely savy on the issues. Last, don't be passive about what is happening during your sessions - one of my best sessions happened after a particularly bad session where I felt the Doc was phoning it in - so I told him that at the beginning of the session and we had a great conversation about how it could have been better. There are times when he has said something that I felt was applying his judgement or values on things - a good shrink won't be offended, but will engage with a better approach.

Hope this helps.

Maybe next time I will babble about some things I have learned about myself.

Strange times in a Japanese Bath house

One of the wonderful things about Japan is soaking in a sento, onsen or rotonburri. For those who have never been a sento is a neighborhood bath house - nothing sexual where you go and soak in a hot bath. An onsen is similar but fed by a natural hot spring. A rotonburri is usually naturally hot spring fed but outside.

Now merge these wonderful institutions with a more typical gay sauna/bathhouse experience and it has the possibility of being a lot of fun. Now I am trying to be culturally sensitive, but to a westerner, intimate relations in a foreign country can be a delicate act - especially in Japan where social clues are often hard to read for an American. One attitude is to damn the torpedos and just be an American and if they don't like it ... fuck'em. I try to never to be the "ugly american" and observe or read about cultural norms and then try to live within the rules (when in rome ...) So the first bit of cultural knowledge that overshadowed my experience is the Japanese reticence around foreigners. So its important not to come on too strong or aggressive. On my end I don't have a particular fetish for Asian men - my dictum is a hot guy is a hot guy - but don't tend to go for any particular racial group. I went because I like gay bathouses - if I get off cool - but I wasnt' particularly jonesing for asian tail.

Oh one more strange thing. There is a video room - on the tv was some japanese gay porn. However, it was two older fat middle aged business men having sex. Very odd and not stimulating!

This particular night I was first and foremost looking to unwind after a long day walking and being a tourist, so a hot soak, steam and sauna were in order. Japanese bathouses also serve as a crash joints for guys who stay out too late - so upstairs are sleeping rooms where some fucking goes on but a lot more sleeping happens. The first odd thing is I went upstairs to take a short nap. I covered myself up - faced away from the room and was clearly sleeping not looking for nookie. I dozed off at one point had a sense of someone leaning over me feeling me up. I rolled over groggy and gestured that I wasn't interested and dozed away. This happened a couple times and I gave up on sleeping. Getting up I had the vague feeling of being violated. Being groped in my sleep is not my idea of a good time. I met up with my partner and we headed out, but when I told him - he said that is a very Japanese thing - the pleasuring of someone who is pretending to be sleeping.

We came back another night and I was more in the mood to have some fun.

Read part two ...

Sugar Challenge

I just spent time on vacation in a country where all the ice tea is unsweatened.

Imagine going into your local 7/11 and if all the space devoted to soda was instead filled with varieties of tea (mostly green) all without anything added. The cultural tastes must lean this way because it sells - which then begs the question of why we drink such sweet things. In fact everything is sweeter in America - do some traveling and you will notice that chocolate and pastries in other countries are not as sweet. Its as if we are a country who is jacked up on sugar. Given American obesity and diabeties rates its clearly a national disaster.

So what do I want?

First, I want options! I want to be able to find drinks that contain neither sugar or articificial sweeteners! I want the option of a dessert that isn't just sugar that has the correct balance of pastry and sweet.

Second, I don't want my insurance dollars and tax dollars feeding a corporate and cultural stupidity about food health. If we, demand that the government demand that manufacturers lower the sugar content of their food by 2% a year over the next 5 years! Slowly weaning the American addiction - learning to enjoy the taste of food just a little less sweet.

I know I am dreaming - but I can but hope!

How low will you go?

What would you do to have a night of sex with a total hot sexy, model quality man?

I am a very visual person - I admit that I get off on having sex with guys with great bodies. It doesn't happen very often - but when the last time I did (about a year ago) I thought to myself how hot it was. In that case it didn't hurt that he was a very nice guy who happened to be a great lover.

The other day I was working and absently logged into a gay chat room. I get hit up by a local guy who is married that sounded very hot. Younger married gym stud - I got instantly hard. Since he was local we talked about what we would do if we got together. It was a hot chat, but something about left me uncomfortable. There was an under tone of domination - the married hot stud making the fag be his slut. Actually, that was no undertone - he actually said things like that - I played along for a bit and then got a bit belligerent back. He hung in there for a bit. I told him he had to earn the right to fuck me. And I pushed to see how far I could go. See if he would kiss, let me rim him possibly even fuck him. He kept protesting his ass was off limits - he was a total top - I guess eventually I pushed too hard and he logged off with no explanation - which was fine by me -

It just got me thinking, how low will you go to have sex with a hot man? Should I let go and lower my defenses and be the submissive fag that some guys like? Even though I tend to bottom - I have been accused of bottoming from the top - as if I need to be in control? Or do some guys not have enough self respect to make sure that sex is equal. That no matter the sexual position everyone deserves respect?

For now - I defend my position - that I aint no manpussy, man cunt or whore. Just cause sometimes I let a guy fuck me - he better fuck me like the prize that I am. And if isn't willing to roll over after wards and share the joy - then forget it. Don't get me wrong some guys don't like being fucked - but then again - sometimes in the offering its all that counts.

Random Thought on Procreation Instincts

So the other day a friend emails me and says he hasn't had sex in ages and it was cool cause the less he gets then less he wants it. So I thought - in his embrace of the idea that "the less one has of sex, the less one desires it" - there is an implied value in being released from the desire for sex. That we can rise above our lust and be better for it.

Something about that idea just rubs me wrong.

Maybe I lived a repressed sexually denied existance for too long and just won't tolerate it anymore.

I think that sex can be a wonderful element in our lives both for increased intimacy/spirituality and just physical abandon - pleasures of the flesh can be a drug and can be obsession - but they also can be better than chocolate - caught up in all of this is self-image, confidence, need for touch, longing for acceptance, love, belonging. Deep in the calculation of sex (which I am struggling to deal with) is our inherant desire to procreate - as gay men - we still have that energy - and how it manifests itself it a very complex thing.

If we are all hardwired to procreate - the need to plant seed per se - as gay men who are not having sex to create babies - how does that balance out in our psychic desires? Could that partially explain the love of cum, barebacking and other dangerous behaviors? Or is it simply that we are made as men to shoot a fair bit and we need to know what to do with this energy.

Hot Email

I had the following email exchange the other day ... it made me instantly hard! This actually about 5 emails ...

"Hey -I do have fond memories of rimming your smooth, hot hole and fucking a couple of loads out of you (sorry to be so crass!) and anytime you're in a "mood" just give me a ring. It turns me on to eat certain asses, but it's something I almost never do (for all the obvious reasons) and was just having a pleasant memory....whatever.

I'm not proud, mister. I'll take seconds anytime---nicely warmed up, throbbing and twitching for more.

Oh good. That was the idea. Well, in any case, I got hard writing it and thinking about IT. The pulsing hole, slippery and wet from having been eaten out and tongued. But now I have to try and HIDE this big ole hard-on so I can go teach my class.

Made it through class and now in office where problem starting to return in form of thickening cock, filling up pouch of underpants, pushing it out to big bulge. Feel so heavy and thick in there. If I stand up, it'll swing and rub against thigh.

Yes, now that I have imagine of eating your puckering hole in mind, cannot get it out. Want to spend a long time on it, teasing it and making it pulse and throb until it's aching and aching to be filled with big thick cock.

Imagine if you were sitting on my face with my tongue in your ass, squirming and wriggling your ass back and forth to get optimally licked and probed, while I reached up and played with your nipples and the precum started drooling and oozing out of your cock head. That'd be even more distracting."

There is a lot I could say about this, but the one thing I will say is that all my life I have practiced safe sex until I got tested with a bf and we agreed to be monogamous. The intimacy of that initial encounter was intense and it was something that gets forgotten in all the sub-culture of the bareback world. That being said - there is something I find hot about fucking a cum-sloppy hole or being fucked with a load already in me. Don't think I will ever get that piggy - but the thought is hot!

Grow up Obama supporters

I am an NPR junkie and follow politics like some people follow sports. Recently, I keep hearing Obama supporter whining about the "democratic establishment". They seem to think it was a big plot that Hillary Clinton won the Ohio and Texas primaries. They seem to feel like the Clinton campaign is part of an evil empire trying to stop their man from spreading the gospel.

All I have to say to frothing at the mouth Obama supporter - GROW UP!

Don't get me wrong, I like Barak Obama. I am a loyal democrat who would vote for him if he is the nominee - I just happen to think Hillary Clinton will make a better president. She has her faults, but so does our man Obama. Don't mistake the rhetoric for the fact that he is a politician. Obama supporters like to think he is something different - but in my mind he isn't raising the millions of dollars without being in bed with big money the same way all politicians are. It is a fact of life. My support for Clinton is based on a belief that she will navigate the fine line between ideals, rhetoric and practical politics better than Obama.

Part of being a mature adult is being able to non-emotionally deal with the facts on hand and accept reality. Sometimes I think Obama supporters are addicted to the dream. Like believing in Santa and the Tooth Fairy.