[sebbie]

As any heterosexual guy has come to realize at age 19, navigating the path to penis-vagina sex with a female can be difficult. There are all sorts of bumps in the road, starting with the notion that sex with a female is most often tied not only to emotional attachment (bad enough alone for a lot of guys) but to, (horror of horrors), long-term commitment! And, not surprisingly, most 19-year olds are not ready to get into big time emotional attachments let alone commitments that at least in the story books are supposed to last forever (remember the “until death do you part” stuff). All of this is just scary for most (dare I say nearly all) 19-year old guys.

Let’s say it right now. A lot of women, maybe most, are wired very differently when it comes to sex than the guys are wired. Generally speaking, the women worth getting serious about from the standpoint of emotional and perhaps permanent commitment are most often the ones that see sex as the logical last- step in a process that begins with emotional attachment.

Guys usually are wired differently. The hormones are flowing and the tension in the groin area is happening. Guys sometimes (often?) see this tension not as simply a very enjoyable experience but as a “medical condition” that needs to be dealt with one way or another. They often think that the best and most socially-acceptable way to deal with this is real sex with a woman, but for a host of reasons, this may not either be possible or even desirable in the larger scheme of things, given where the guy is school-wise (a freshman in college) or otherwise (a reluctance to make a long-term emotional commitment).

Let’s be blunt here. For guys who think of themselves as straight, this is frequently not a happy time, sex-wise.

What about the guys who think of themselves as gay, and attracted to other men their age? Isn’t casual sex with another guy considered the norm for gay guys? Another guy is not going to be wired like the typical woman is wired, where everything seems connected to making a firm emotional commitment first and the sex part comes later, maybe far later. Gay guys in theory are all about casual (aka one-night) sex without emotional bonds or commitments. Or are they? Maybe this is one of those great myths that heterosexual guys generally believe.

Let’s think back: In the pre-HIV days, prior to the 80s, maybe the casual sex thing was indeed the norm for gay men, and the long term commitment thing was more-nearly the exception than the rule. As everyone knows, HIV changed the behavior of gay guys with respect to casual sex in major ways. Casual sex by definition was not sex with a guy who you have first gone through a detailed list of all the previous sexual partners. Casual gay sex involving methods in which bodily fluids were exchanged became potentially life-threatening sex, and interest in coming up with ways that were safe(r) became a new key element. For starters, no one got HIV when engaging in a solo jerk-off session nor by watching another guy jerk himself off. Problem solved! Well, at least sort of problem solved. What I am getting at here is the idea that gay guys suddenly became interested in engaging in activities that at once were sexually exciting to them and yet posed no risks.

I suppose we could debate the issue of whether the safe activities are as enjoyable as the risky ones, but let me leave that topic alone for now. Perhaps you can decide that one for yourself as you read the story line relating to Bill and Joe, Tony and Donovan, Dylan and (now) Josh.

Other forces are at work too. Politically the whole gay movement has evolved to the point where the major theme is “gay couples, male or female, are no different than straight couples other than gay couples have same-sex partners.” Gay couples find each other, establish emotional bonds, make commitments, get married, take on employment in every imaginable field, raise kids, and in general do everything that a straight couple would do. Acceptance of gays in the larger society largely hinges on the notion that we are no different from you. In particular, we do not engage in casual sex in public restrooms. All of those old gay stereotypes from the 1950s about gays and sex are flat-out wrong or at least completely obsolete.

All of this is endlessly fascinating commentary, and worthy of more discussion, but for now let me circle back to the 19-year olds Bill and Joe, and the situation they currently face. Bill and Joe have discovered a bunch of stuff that a lot of 19-year olds would be clueless about. First off, both Bill and Joe love snug-fitting clothing, clothing that seems to get them aroused in a bunch of different ways. Would this be common among 19-year olds, or more nearly some sort of abnormal “fetish” Bill and Joe both just happen to have? I do not know for certain, but I think that what Bill and Joe discovered is probably very commonplace for guys and quite normal. The issues are two-fold, however. If a guy were to be open and admit to this, he might be teased or bullied, called a fag, or whatever. So most guys are not even willing to entertain the possibility in their own minds for fear of what the possible consequences might be. College life is more open than what it was like living with your parents and in high school, but still a lot of college students would still be very uneasy about admitting what they like to themselves let alone their male friends, particular what they like that involves solo sex activity involving anything they think could be interpreted by others as abnormal.

Somehow, without saying much to each other, Bill and Joe have managed to at least to a degree worked their respective ways around this. Bill and Joe are not ready to make emotional commitments to anyone, having nearly four years of college to navigate first. But that doesn’t mean that they can somehow deep-six their sexual feelings and sensations for that amount of time. So the activity involving the clothing items at this point serves a very useful purpose and release given the limits on the other options right now, and where other options might quickly go.

The third part of the puzzle, however, gets trickier. What if I, a guy, gets aroused watching you, a guy, get aroused perhaps with the aid of the snug-fitting clothing items such as those that have been described? Does that make me gay, or at least have a gay side to my personality?

What if YOU suddenly discover that YOUR arousal gets more intense with the realization that I am watching you do this? Does that mean that YOU are somehow gay and now disinterested in ever having sex with a female partner? Or what? Is this just a curious form of male bonding, or is there something more complicated going on here? If I enjoy watching you struggle with your sensations inside the thong and singlet, and similarly, you think it is fun to watch me struggle with the same feelings and sensations, exactly where does that leave the situation between you and me right now?

Maybe part of the problem is that the thongs and singlets are actually working TOO WELL and are therefore too good of a substitute for the sensations of real penis-vagina sex, in if this is true isn’t that going to eventually mean the end of reproduction (and the human race)? Maybe I shouldn’t even think about that for now.

So, as we leave this chapter, Bill and Joe have wandered down the hall in their thongs and singlets, and into the process had an encounter with Josh, Dylan’s roommate. Josh thought what they were wearing was, well, interesting for sure, but did not say anything that would indicate a degree of surprise.

Bill and Joe are now at the urinals, attempting to pee, which because of basic biology is not that easy to if they have been pre-cumming profusely very recently. The singlets have to come off the shoulders, and the singlets have to come off the shoulders and get pulled down so the pouch and their butts are exposed. Then the penises have to come out of the cotton thong pouches. Then a guy waits, sometimes a long time. If any other guy wanders into the bathroom right now, he is going to see two bare butted guys standing beside each other at the urinals, attempting to pee. Whoever wanders in might get the wrong idea about what is happening. But Bill and Joe both seem to think that is also part of the fun they are having with themselves (and with each other).

To be continued….