[sebbie]

Off to College Part 1

I never dated in High School. Not one date. The whole idea did not appeal to me and I got no joy from even the thought of hanging out with a female partner. I was not attracted to guys either. I never got into anything in my interactions with males my age that could in any manner be considered sexual.

Keep in mind that this was in the first half of the 1960s, and being sexually attracted to a person of your own sex was still considered to be a mental illness that could possibly be cured if a guy could only find a skilled expert psychiatrist. After all the thought was that straight people in theory are happy people who lead happy lives incorporating regular penis-vagina sex. And the stuff some gay guys did, such as anal or oral sex, was considered weird and sick, and breaking a gay guy of his fondness for such acts was part of the purported “cure” for the mental illness of having gay thoughts.

Psychologically I was living in a place other than any of this anyway. What other guys were doing to with and for partners was no concern of mine. If the idea of engaging in penis-vagina sex was a turn-off, that applied even more-so to the idea of engaging in sex involving the mouth or anus with a gay guy. But having said that I was quite interested in the sensations that I had learned to create in my body at night, under the cover of darkness, and had spent my high school years honing my skills and technique. I had found a better and easier-to-navigate sexual world, a place all my own and enjoy myself for the pure fun of it, without having to deal with the complexities of being with a sexual partner male of either sex. In my mind, this was an ideal world, and all these years later I still remain convinced of that.

So, I entered college in 1965, and a lot of college activities are built around social activities that involve potential or ongoing sexual partners. In 1965, all the guys who joined a male fraternity were “assumed” to be heterosexual males looking forward to dating women every weekend along with regular dances and other social events that mixed males and females on a regular basis, presumably males and females in search of penis-vagina sex. The idea of a fraternity consisting mostly if not exclusively of gay males was, well, way out there. Fraternity members were by definition straight and totally focused on how good it felt to have intercourse with a woman.

Of course, that was not me at all. Socializing on weekends with women made me miserable and I wanted no part of that scene at all. But, I did not have to join a fraternity with all of these weird guys in it. I could continue to stay in a dorm and not have to deal with any of this. In those days dorms were segregated by sex, and the rooms generally were doubles, with 2 men in each double room and 2 women in each room in the women’s dorms. Assignments, unless a student had identified a specific person as a roommate, were random, and the thought of 2 gay males rooming together and having sex never occurred to the dorm managers, or, if it did, nothing was ever said. The real concern was with the idea of a female showing up in a guy’s dorm room for, to make out and well, you know, but they had rules that purportedly kept that all from happening. Rather weird, huh?

My brother, five years my senior, had completed a 2-year degree and then worked for 3 years. But at the point in time when I would be a freshman he was interested in finishing the final two years of his bachelors degree, and so the obvious thing to do was to avoid the random roommate selection process and we would room together in a double. This was not terrible awful because we had grown up sharing a bedroom as well, and I could pretty well figure out what my brother's schedule was and when I would likely have the space to myself.

The dorm was set up just like I previously described, two single beds not six feet apart. A mirror and towel rack, and two closets with built in dressers, and two metal desks for study. The bathroom was way down the hall. It looked a lot like a rest room at an airport, with a long row of toilets with doored private stalls, another open area consisting of a long row of sinks, and a shower section with 8 heads that was completely open, so any guy showering could see all the nude males who were doing the same thing. These facilities were brand new and seem very much like a military setup. But lkeep in mind that the school was also a ROTC establishment and for many years all the males were required to be in ROTC so the comparison made sense.

In the mornings, the guys would head to the restroom to S, S and S. clad only in a white towel which they kept in place around their waists at the sinks but then removed for the shower and used to dry off. Early mornings the shower could be packed with nude males and to avoid the crowds some guys opted to shower in the late afternoons or evenings when the area was largely disserted. Still, for a gay male who liked to observe other nude males, this was a great place to be, but no one mentioned that.

The University laundered bed linen, but only once a week. How all of this impacted male behavior with respect to nighttime “wet dreams” I always thought was very interesting. The bed was a military style cot, more or less, consisting of a mattress with a flat spring on the bottom. Not a very comfortable bed. The University wanted to keep the mattresses clean, so every one was fitted with a slick, all=vinyl mattress cover that would presumably keep “liquids” from staining the mattress underneath? What kinds of liquids? Well, you know, some of my penis prone masturbation techniques could wreck havoc on not only a sheet but directly on the mattress underneath. Think of the vinal cover as a mattress condom. Think of a vinyl liner as something of a condom for the mattress in a space where 200 guys were all having “wet dreams” and what that could mean for mattress life if they were not properly protected. Guys may like to claim that they were only getting their “rocks off” on their weekend dates but everyone knows that is a myth.

Keeping the sheets clean was quite a task for the University. Think starchy yellowish week-old cum stains on practically every sheet. This calls for heavy-duty laundry detergent and adversely affects sheet life, and part of the dorm rent no doubt was used to replace the sheets and the occasional mattress that had succumbed to the activity going on under the covers. At one point I decided that the slick vinyl mattress cover made just sleeping unbearable. So ine night I got up, removed the cover and put the sheet back on over the unprotected mattress. As I hid the vinyl cover under the bed, I thought to myself if the mattress gets stained no one would be able to tie me specifically to the crime. The housekeeping staff seemed to not notice at all.

In the second year of all of this my brother had gotten heavily involved with a girl he married shortly atfer he finished his degree, and he was in heavy dating mode. This worked out well for me as these dates tended to not end till the wee hours of the morning and once my brother was gone I would have the room all to myself for a lengthy period of time. I took advantage of that and kept honing my skills as I kept thinking of new and interesting ways to do things to, for and with myself. These were happy times for me to be sure. While all of this was going on, I also became a really really good student, a powerhouse in that regard with respect to the entire campus. Somehow, my combination of activities worked really well, but dating was not one of them.

To be continued in part 2.