BijouBlog

Posted on craigslist, missed connections:

Thursday night it was the backyard at Manhandler. You were sucking guys off with your shirt off. You smoked a lot. That's nasty by the way. You seemed to be in my proximity or in my face the whole time I was there. You were inside fucking with your tired little cell phone (probably seeking even more cum from the web) and I got a good look at your face in the light. No wonder you lurk around dark sex venues. You are at least 55, maybe 60, wrinkled, fugly, and that Sean Hayes hairstyle has GOT to go. Please, do us all a favor, and take the summer off from sex. Don't come to water sports parties or bear naked or anything else. Stay home, or whatever the fuck. And the next time you try to elbow your way into the middle of my sex with someone, I'm going to give you a swift kick into your dried up decayed little balls. You know who you are, the one who looks like Jack from Will and Grace, and wears that ridiculous half-lopsided little harness thing sometimes. Go pickle yourself, hon.

Reply to the above: OMG I know exactly who you're describing. He is everywhere!!!! And so rude and will try to horn in on your action. He needs to stay home for about 20 years until sex no longer matters lol.

I am damn mad. I understand the poster's need to vent on one level, but I actually felt sorry for the person this individual was complaining about.

I wasn't surprised by the poster's crass materialism (”tired little cellphone”) and of course, obviously, the insults about the person's age and physical appearance. Such unabated viciousness seems to be common these days in a culture of narcissism and entitlement.

And let's face it: these have always been problems with ageism in the gay community, as well as the rampant discrimination against those who don't possess an ideally perfect youthful body. Even in vintage Hollywood, an actress over 35 was over the hill.

And the prejudice against age and those who don't match up to certain physical standards has escalated in a world where sex is available on a phone app, bodies can be photoshopped, and Kim Kardashian is a role model.

Regarding the reason for the vent, I do understand the etiquette about not “horning” in on public sex scenes, but rather than posting something so hurtful anonymously (the coward's way out), how about speaking kindly to the person and perhaps explaining the etiquette, for a start?

(But then, in the middle of a circle jerk, counseling might not come to mind.)

As I said above, I feel deeply sorry for this person who was the target of such vitriol. Loneliness … sexual addiction … who knows what drives this person to behave this way? I think his fate is the fate of so many unattached older gay men, many of whom don't know how to develop relationships (or, even more sadly, they could be lonely survivors of the AIDS epidemic of the eighties) because their only exposure to gay life was “dark sex venues,” which before today's environment of acceptance, were often the only places a gay person could connect?

And finally, to the person who posted that craiglist ad: Who are you to judge? You also seem to frequent these “dark sex venues.”

I don't think I would be wrong in predicting that you will be that person in about twenty years. Karma's a bitch, bitch!

Pizza's been in the news big time lately, and it is a big deal because of the LGBT rights issues involved. Memories Pizza in Indiana claimed they would not cater a same-sex wedding (not that this Mom and Pop outfit catered weddings anyway, but that's beside the point, and I don't really know of a wedding reception with pizza as the main course unless it was on the show Extreme Cheapskates, again, beside the point). This outfit, since closed, received almost a million dollars in support from most probably religious fundamentalists of a certain ilk.

Pizza, rather than a wedding cake, has become the food of controversy in the same-sex marriage debate.

Now, based on people's general attitudes about pizza, I'm not that surprised that at some point a pizza outfit got involved in this controversy.

Pizza: what is it about pizza? It's not that is just a popular food that has taken on so many shapes and forms (and in gay porn, sex with pizza delivery boy is a cliché) but there's something, I don't know, deeply psychosocial about the way we approach it in the United States. Quite amazing for a food that essentially began as a vegetarian “peasant” food, a simple dough with a simple sauce on it.

In the United States, pizza seems to be the center of so many social functions. Not just the obvious ones like the Superbowl Party, but diverse work and school functions. In fact, I remember pizza was often a bribe to keep the masses docile.

In elementary school, the promise of a pizza party was definitely held over our heads to promise good behavior. The good classes got pizza, but the bad classes got nothing. The really bad classes got to pull weeds outside.

When I ushered at benefit concerts in college, the ushers got pizza to ensure they were not served food only for the wealthy benefactors, which happened one year, creating a furor among the administration.

And at one notably condescending paternalistic place I worked at, the floor who got the people out in the least amount of time for the fire drill “won a pizza party.” Yes, pizza on paper plates, and you got your own soft drink from the vending machine. Thrillsville. Our floor didn't win.
 

 

Even accounts of guys jacking each other off in the saunas and steam rooms of gyms and health clubs (that seems to be a major location for missed connections) seem to him rather far-fetched. Along these lines, there also seems to be a common theme in these ads of noticing hot cable TV or computer/internet repair people and asking them to return so to pay them back in nonmonetary ways (now I would agree that is definitely a porn jack-off fantasy).

I can’t vouch for any of the above; I do know that the usual places for public cruising are still bathrooms (Macy’s seems to be a popular site) and, in the Chicago area, certain forest preserves. Surprisingly, based on my perusal of recent ads, bars, even “rougher” ones like Touché, which still contains a backroom for sexual activity, don’t even make the list these days as missed connection potential.

Actually, there have been more and more accounts of guys noticing each other and mildly flirting in “suburban family” restaurants like Applebee’s. Here’s a typical one:

"Applebee's, Sunday brunch (Matteson) – 28 You, blond with deep blue eyes, wearing a tight black t-shirt, were eating with what seemed to be your parents and grandmother. You complimented me on my sweater and asked me what I was eating. You are so cute. Hope you see this."

The usual question one asks is if any of these missed connections ever end up connecting. I wonder if these ads reflect the shift in social norms, not only because the way people now connect in nonphysical ways like social media, but the gradual acceptance of LGBT into the mainstream culture. Maybe physical affection on trains and flirting in ostensibly straight locations outside “gay ghettos” shows this trend.

What I find particularly significant about ads like the above Applebee’s one is the face-to-face social interaction component. There’s more to a connection than staring at a bulge through clouds of steam, however stimulating. A little bit of small talk without relying on electronic devices can lead to bigger, deeper talks. And down the road you might end up sitting with your husband in a restaurant. Now that scenario might be just as much of a fantasy as doing it with the cable repairman or the guy working out next to you.

But remember, to quote the famous poet John Donne, “no man is an island,” even in the lonely yet crowded world of missed connections.

A former friend of mine who entered a lavender marriage with a former female friend (yes, I am a big gossip) reeled in horror when I told him my little kitten (who passed away from feline leukemia in 1989 after I had her for only six months) was in the room when I was jacking off. Yes, that little kitten might pick up some unsavory habits. Yikes!

In 2002, I got my cat, “The Honey,” (she passed away in 2013) who developed into the attention whore of the century. She would not only watch, but sometimes, while various sexual acts were going on, would do her usual “show the belly” routine, which in cat body language, means, ultimate trust. Once, my late partner was getting a blow job in my living room from another guy (I was out that afternoon), and he told me she was in fine “show the belly” form.

I don't think The Honey was getting off on the sex. Instead, another human was there who could supply her with attention. And given that cats are territorial, rather than trying to mark boundaries by excluding outsiders, she wanted to be inclusive, on her terms. As I used to say, if something major (a hot guy in full leather cop mode getting his cock sucked and boots licked, certainly major) was going on in her queendom, she had to be involved in it somehow.

The presence of cats seems to be a common trope, perhaps, in our classic gay films.

One of our classic films, The Night Before, does involve a gay couple picking out a kitten as part of their bonding. I'm not sure if one could imply the kitten was present when they have sex later.
 

In Always Ready, a cat sleeps on Casey Donovan's bed, the scene of many interesting activities, of course.

In From Paris to New York, a white fluffy cat jumps on the furniture and hangs out during the sex scene.

A cat in Wanted: Billy the Kid rolls around, trying to get attention, while two men have sex.

And in In Heat, during the frightening BDSM scene, a cat is chilling out in the background, indifferent to what is basically a home invasion.

(I'm not sure if cats can consistently function as “watch cats.” And they're definitely not “man's best friends.” They're not dogs.)

Tumblr, source of all things weird, even offers a site, Indifferent Cats in Amateur Porn.

Well, it certainly fits the criteria as it focus on the two most popular  Internet obsessions: cats and porn.

Just think: not too long ago, Chicago's landscape was covered with filthy, lumpy ice.

Now, in the Middle Ages, people really celebrated spring: so many songs about flowers blooming and animals and people screwing:
 

That was a time when life was much more precarious, and so when the inevitable cycle of nature began anew after a long winter (often a time of deprivation but also semi-hibernation, depending on the state of the autumn harvest). When spring arrived, the people celebrated, but they also had to participate in that cycle by literally sowing seed: a cycle of work and pleasure.

We've lost that intimate working connection with the land; thus our bodies and souls can't really hibernate or prepare to rejuvenate the way nature intends.

Sex in front of a fireplace in the dead of winter is wonderful, but if one is exhausted from commuting across windswept tundras, a cup of steaming hot tea is more enjoyable. (I wonder how the inhabitants of lands near the Arctic Circle fare with their long, sunless winters and short summers.)

T.S. Eliot claimed April is the cruelest month. I might say March is more cruel, which lately seems like the last, often vicious in-your-face blast of winter rather than a harbinger of cute lambs, bunnies, baskets of pussy willows, sprouting crocuses, and dewy grass. The weathermen Tom Skilling on WGN-TV Chicago actually called the month “schizophrenic” because of its extreme weather contrasts.

But there's one day, usually in early May, when I wake up and it everything has bloomed, like it happened overnight through some miraculous intervention.

It's unexpected, like the best sex. I want it to happen, but I won't know it has happened until it actually has happened!