bentkid

> *strokes chest of guy i have my arm around*

> *snuggles nose against his back*

> *pulls his waist in close to my cock and midriff*

> *takes a deep breath of his hair, kisses back of neck*

> *strokes fingers through his pubic hair*

> *fades to sleep with my right hand resting gently on his right hip, hand cupped gently over his pelvis*

> *breathes regular and deeply*

> *wakes up to nudging morning hardon*

I have a boyfriend /lover/ersatz-husband who I love. I would even marry him, if I felt like driving to Vermont, or taking the slow boat to Sweden. He is everything I am not. That is a huge problem, one that may end up in tragedy and heart-rending pain. I still love him. This post isn't so much about that. I would like to say something from the other-side of 'desire fulfilled,' however. I had one mantra in my twenties, even during those times that I was dating (which was often enough). "God, I want a boyfrend. God I want a boyfriend. Why don't I have a boyfriend. God, I want a boyfriend." I made a lot of bad decisions about who I should date, who I should look for for a long-term partner. I overlooked guys who were totally in love with me, or fixated on me. I overlooked guys who didn't meet my very middle-class, very bourgeoise, very mundane version of what sex and desire looked and felt like. Looking back on myself, I feel like a real loser. Why didn't I try something daring, someone who didn't match what turned out to be a male version of what my parents wanted for me?

I am now in what many consider "gay middle age." Straight folks think of me as young. I am 36 years of age. Gay men (not lesbians) think of me as old. I am past my prime. Is prime aged 19? I have the fat of years of good meals, great wine and mixed drinks, and too many nights watching TV and reading novels. My lover loves me even though I don't line up in some straight-forward way with the gay.com and Details magazine version of what masculinity looks like. He adores me. He laughs at my jokes. He is kind, considerate, thoughtful. And all of those things do not in any particular way line up with sexuality and desire.

I end up desiring illicit sex, t-room trysts, bad boy bath house hot hose sex. I was raised evangelical christian, but I turned out to be the bad boy that your parents couldn't even think hard enough to warn you against. I've done more than hundreds of men, again and again. And now I am at that stage of life that I am trying to deal with the loss of my youth, though I am not even half way through that loss, but also celebrate and love what I am, what I've been given. Where is it in my learning that I have the tools to deal with these emotional, psychological, identity crises? The sad truth is, for all the learning one gains it has little leverage against the crushing emotional weight of ones self-perception.

The good news is that I have that same intellectual insight, and I am able to think long and hard about the choices I make, instead of chasing tight, beautiful young boys who only see me as someone who is 15 years older and 15 years nearer to death than they are. I need to believe that the trade-offs that we make are not so much trade-offs, but movements between spaces of opportunities. The opportunities for sexuality, pleasure, love, intense desire are different and just as fulfilling as those that I had at 19. I wish I could train my chest, and the autosomatic reactions that my body has to those presentations, to believe that what I psychologize is true. But it is true. Gay culture needs to work hard to expand its terms of sexuality and desire. We need to stop taking our money and using surgery to make our bodies simulacra of 19 year olds. It's time to cum and suck and fuck and cum with the bodies we have, rather than the idealizations we are told we should have. Misery and depression are our lot, otherwise.

I often think of the misery and depression inflicted on those who read blogs by guys who seem to embody the very idealizations that they themselves would attribute to cultural norms and media representations. How daring is it to desire thin, fat-free goth boys? How cutting edge is it to embody muscle culture in its many forms, kitsch or otherwise? How interesting is it to be fascinated by someone's words, but really driven by the fleeting digi-pic of him glancing stage right?

I am curious as to why I didn't understand the beauty and sexuality of those guys who I rejected when I was young. Now that I am older I see them, mesmerized by a certain luminescence.

I roll over. I stroke my boyfriend's slight, spare tire. I run my hand lightly over his strong shoulder. I kiss the back of his neck. He is warm and breathing lightly, steadily. I love the fact that he loves me, though I am not 19. I feel sad, slightly longing for the desire I felt when I was 19.