Month: June 2002

Winding Up

A quote I stumbled across that talks about the leap of faith in my desires that I’ve been trying to make lately:

Curiosity can bring guts out of hiding at times, maybe even get them going. But curiosity usually evaporates. Guts have to go for the long haul. Curiosity’s like a fun friend you can’t really trust. It turns you on and then it leaves you to make it on your own — with whatever guts you can muster.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami

What I mean by “leap of faith’ is that I’m admitting to myself that I’ve tried a lot before — leather, wrestling, sex clubs, boyfriends, groups, fast and anonymous fucks, casual hook-ups, topping, bottoming — out of curiosity that encouraged me to see what I liked, but I haven’t always had the guts afterward to go after what I really did like if it meant breaking too far out of the character of myself I’d always played. Not that I’d given up on what I liked, but that I’d file things away as a sort of secret life that I kept separate from my day-to-day activity. Well, what the hell’s wrong with going after what you like and being honest about it? You’re sure not going to increase the odds of finding like minds without having the guts to let them find you.

A Dilemma of My Own

This weekend was my turn to go out on a date with a friend of a friend. As with you, it was a guy I’d met a few times before but never really got to know, and who I liked a lot once we got to know each other a little bit. Fun, smart, and good-looking, but I was also feeling a little bit of frustration about getting back into the same old routine of meeting a nice guy and crossing my fingers hoping that if he was even interested in me that he’d also share any of my leather fetish. Nice, attractive guys who really capture my interest are rare enough. Ones that like me back narrow the pack down a little further. The additional factor of finding someone who actually responds to leather like I do is usually the one I’ve had to compromise on. Lately, though, as I’ve thought more and more about wanting to stop shoving parts of who I am away into storage, I get more frustrated about having to give up this thing that’s such a potent part of my sexual make-up.

You and I have been in the same spot for a while, John: it’s really important to us to find guys who appeal to us both sexually and mentally. We’ve always gone the traditional route: hoping to meet nice guys through regular channels, and then just secretly hoping they share some of our more unconventional interests. It’s not a bad approach, but it hasn’t been very successful.

As much as I know I like to play around with different guys who share only a small part of the things that make up who I am, one of the lessons I’ve learned in my years of whoring around and getting to know myself better sexually and emotionally is that at heart I’m the marrying kind. Not a prude, and not fixated on the idea of monogamy just for the sake of it. I just know I like to focus the bulk of my attention on one guy who excites me on many levels.

I’ve always been so self-conscious about owning up to how much the leather thing actually means to me, and the result has been that I’ve always treated it like a dirty secret. I’m trying to approach it differently now: this time I don’t want to just cruise for guys into leather who just want to fuck and run. I’m sure I can continue to have plenty of fun and discovery along the way with those guys, but now I may as well just admit that what I want is to get really involved with someone who’s into leather like I am, who appreciates ideas and life like I do. Maybe I’ve just been looking for the total package — that best friend plus — from the wrong angle.

I’ve been underestimating the leathermen and hoping there’d be another nice guy with a fetish of his own. Now, I think it’s time to look at the leathermen as a pool of candidates who’d be just as likely to have a life beyond their fetish that would rock my world. Yes, me, I’m open to wooing.

Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee

Allison's a square, Wanda. Cry-Baby don't dig squares.

“I’m so tired of being good.”

So laments poor Allison in John Waters‘ Cry-Baby, the story of a repressed good girl who yearns for the fast life in the arms of a hot, hot juvenile delinquent with a sensitive soul. Allison, I have always understood your pain.

I am, without a doubt, the biggest goody-two-shoes you know. Don’t drink, don’t smoke (what do I do?). Smart, polite, reliable, responsible, diligent. And so self-conscious about being seen as anything but such a goody two-shoes, completely exasperated. Being most of these things comes comes pretty easily, but I hate the pressure to live up to the reputation I’ve built for myself. I’ve always hated it so much, in fact, that when I can’t live up to it, I fail in a rather spectacular fashion — always the overachiever. Yes, I have a secret life as a lazy, messy, self-indulgent fuck-up.

The little things never bugged me that much: they add character, make me more human. I’m a little slobby around the house, I’m a little bad with deadlines, I don’t return phone calls right away. No trouble, right? Well, that’s just a little steam being let out of the pressure cooker. I am so much more irresponsible than I let on. I let things fall apart left and right, as long as I can keep up appearances. My credit and my finances are a disaster. I have let people take enormous advantage of me just because I didn’t want to make a fuss. I have been so much sluttier than I have ever let people know, and the truth is that I didn’t really enjoy it as much as I always thougth I would. The fact that there have been massive repercussions from the few times I’ve truly thrown caution to the wind do nothing more than make me feel even greater pressure to hold myself to standards that usually feel impossible.

I’m worry about letting people down, of not living up to expectations, of being faulty. And it goes without saying that I probably perceive all these expectations more than anyone around me actually has them. But still, whenever people express surprise that I haven’t been the reliable goody two-shoes they’ve gotten used to, it just winds me up that much tighter. Even when people actually don’t give a crap, I react as if they do. I’m so uptight you could pop me.

Gratuitous picture of Johnny Depp as Cry-Baby, because he's hot.Not that I haven’t popped already. You’ve been following along lately, right? What I’m trying to do now is find balance, to own up to my own shortcomings, to embrace my inner bad boy and realize that I can let go of the stupid stuff and then maybe stop dropping the ball so often when it really counts. I’m allowed to indulge myself, I’m allowed to slack off, I’m allowed to be weak. I’m human, duh. What a boob I’ve been. It’s time to just relax a little once and for all, more often and less self-consciously. After thirty years of being the best little boy in the world, though, it’ll be interesting to see how well I can integrate a little everyday delinquency.