Tuesday, Jul. 02, 2002 - 10:10 p.m.
Found Out

The lifeguard—believe it or not, he calls himself “Foot-Long-Sean”—wandered away from the beach and up a craggy sun-drenched hill. Lo and behold, he encountered a luscious young man up there—smooth tanned chest, hard as granite—absent-mindedly masturbating. The young man was not in any danger that I could see, but the lifeguard made an intervention anyway. It was soon apparent that Sean came by his name honestly.

I watched these two going at it on PrideVision. It was about 12:15 am on Friday night/Saturday morning, the kick-off to a long weekend. I decided, what the hell, I’d traipse up the street to the bathhouse.

It has been months since I last visited, and while I do not regret going Friday evening, the experience showed me that this is not what I need right now. As mentioned, I’ve been struggling with a flare-up of self esteem and body image issues, big-time; part of what helped me decide to go out that night was that I felt pretty okay about all that, and more importantly, unattached to any goal for the excursion. I was horny; it would have been nice to get down and dirty with someone (or others); but I wasn’t craving an ego boost. The perfect headspace, I thought, in which to observe myself and others in queer sexual space.

The evening started out interestingly enough. Once stripped down, a towel around my waist, I made a beeline for the jacuzzi. My sore shoulder felt so damned good under the jets. There was only one other fellow—older, with long stringy hair—with me in the tub; as I gave myself over to the hydro massage, his smile made me realize my o-ing and ah-ing was loud and orgasmic.

“Maybe later I can do something to make you sound like that?” he asked, mischievously. I laughed. I hadn’t been that attracted to him, but I liked his mischievousness.

“You’ve got a gorgeous smile,” he said. “But everyone probably tells you that.”

“Sometimes,” I said, starting to blush. Starting to get hard.

We made small talk as I moved around to align various bits of shoulder, neck and arm against the soothing jets. The relief I felt was so overwhelming, I wasn’t paying him much attention.

That is, until he turned his back to me and leaned over the edge of the hot tub. I didn’t know what he was up to, at first. Then I figured it out: he was showing off his butt. This guy was probably in his early forties, but he was most blessed in the callipygian department, let me tell ya.

I stared at his ass, wanting to laugh at—yet appreciative of—his obviousness. After a moment or two, he turned around again and sat back down in the tub, smiling and staring at me. I smiled back. He began brushing his legs up against mine. Next thing I know, he’d sidled over and grabbed hold of my dick. I liked that. I liked that very much.

At first.

I grabbed hold of his. It was floppy and full. Something felt funny down there, though. Took my fingers a moment to discern that he was wearing a wide elastic band qua cockring.

As soon as I started fondling him, he stopped touching me. He leaned back, staring at me and moaning appreciatively.

“I like getting my balls tugged,” he said. I obliged. Feeling myself losing interest by the second.

“So what do you say we go back to my room?” he said. “I’ve got poppers, eh? And a whole bunch of toys.”

He batted his eyes at me. He looked like he thought this offer was one I couldn’t possibly refuse.

He was wrong.

Politely, I begged off, said I was going to go walk around. He was gentlemanly in the way he let me disengage.

I ascended from the jacuzzi. My shoulder started bothering me immediately.

I walked around, sat in the sauna for a bit, wandered around some more. I needed to sit down in a comfy chair so I went to the TV room where they have huge leather couches. I plunked down, watching boys walk by.

The bathhouse wasn’t that busy, but it was busy enough I suppose. Not a lot of energy in the air. Or was it just me?

Sitting there giving my shoulder a rest, I saw the damndest thing. Since my last visit, the bathhouse has added a new amenity: two computers, plugged into the Internet. As I sat there, I watched a steady succession of near-naked men plunk down and log on. I couldn’t believe it. A few checked email, but most were cruising for sex online! One guy loaded up the gay.com chat applet; another was perusing online personal ads. Then they’d wander around some more in search of face-to-face adventure. Too funny…

Eventually, I wandered around some more. But I had to keep coming back to rest up every ten or fifteen minutes. In my travels, I saw a handful of guys I’d had sex with there before; I realized I see a lot of the same guys each time I go out. That made me kind of sad, imagining this scene might be their primary or sole sexual outlet. But I don’t know that, of course.

In particular, I noticed Hamid, who I named after the Afghan president when I first wrote about him in January. He briefly cruised me when he walked by this time, but didn’t appear to recognize me. A bit later, there was a crowd of spectators in the porno room so I went to investigate; there Hamid sat, getting a most public blowjob from some older flabby guy.

I only watched for a moment before walking on. And this was interesting: instantly, I decided that even if I had another chance to have sex with Hamid, I would not. If he would let someone that unattractive suck him off for an audience, he obviously didn’t have high enough standards. My ego would not get boosted from his attention.

That was my reaction. I laughed at it, at myself. It’s much easier to let the sexual snobbery of others roll off me when I can see my own for what it is.

Anyway, that was about it. My shoulder got sorer and sorer; I began to feel less and less sexual. I wasn’t getting much attention from the other patrons, certainly not from the ones I was drooling over. So after a couple hours—a wee pout beginning to set in—I decided to call it a night.

I got home around 2:30 am, and by the time I turned the light out it was almost 3. Surprisingly, I realized I was horny; feeling comfy in bed, my shoulder rested, I got back in touch with that. So I traipsed back out into the living room, turned on the TV, and sure enough PrideVision was re-cycling the midnight porno. I picked right back up with the long-donged lifeguard and his ripped buddy, followed their urgency—and mine—through to conclusion.

Slept like a baby.

I’m glad I went to the bathhouse. While not sexually satisfying in the slightest, the experience clarified something, at least in the short term. With all I’m struggling with right now, it’s not a wise idea for me to be looking for sex.

Call it a mid-life crisis (it always usually hits us queer fellas early); call it whatever. But I’m not feeling so great about myself, my body, my “sex appeal”. Searching for a quickie is not any sort of answer.

For the next while, I’ve decided I’m not going to look for it. At least not that narrowly.

Let sex find me.