Month: September 2010

Saturday, September 11, 2010

NOTE: This is a repost of yesterday’s entry. I learned that entering text in the tumblr iPhone app results in the wrong format… I also wanted to fix, edit, add links, etc…

I just wrapped up my third annual teaching session at Gay City University. “JACKS: Exploring the JO Club Phenomenon” is my class on JO clubs and what they are, kind of the thought behind the wankery. I just love these sessions and today was my favorite to date.

I changed things up a bit. For the previous two years’ classes, I basically went through the new member process and held forth about the history of JO clubs and our club in particular.

This year I jettisoned the holding forth (mostly) and went with a questions-based program. A friend shot me a long list of questions he essentially streamed from his consciousness and they were almost uniformly perfect… I added a pile of common questions I get all the time from prospectives and printed them all out with room to write in their own questions. 

I then started the session with only the briefest of introductions and launched into going from one person to the next and commanding them to “ask me anything.” All of the questions were great and led to new questions and answers, and every person in the small class was engaged. It was so much fucking fun…

I had a few members of the club there who were forthright about their membership and shared from personal experience, and there were new faces too. I particularly appreciated one man who shared about being in Catholic seminary, around men who had abstained from all masturbation and what their character was like, how mean they became, at least the ones he believed to actually be abstinent… 

There was good discussion of whether masturbation is “sex” even when solo. I got the usual fudging of that issue, and I talked abbot what happens in the body during sex, how the same chemicals fire off in the brain and body during masturbation as do during intercourse, so the body is having sex even if the head is calling it “just jacking off." 

I went to do more of this. Lots more. I’d like to really develop as a teacher. I’m going to try teaching a software course next month, and I want to keep developing Jacks classes, and finding places to present. 

I feel turned on from the top down about this. I love anything that turns on lights in my head and teaching definitely does the trick. 

Now I really want to develop this… I think I should go chat with Allena, director of CSPC, and see how I might present classes through them, which would be awesome because I would be presenting to a much more savvy audience, with a lot more awareness than the average JO-curious guy. It would certainly up my game, and spread awareness of the club… Hmmm…

Friday, September 10, 2010

I’m not the only person who inhabits multiple realms. The design of our institutions encourages us to divide ourselves into different personas that are appropriate to the moment and the place and company. I have a hard time discussing my jack-off club with anyone at my corporate workplace, and I resist the desire to do so because, well, duh… I want to keep my job and not offend the wrong persons.

One of the most heinous labels one can get in formal environments is the dreaded, “inappropriate.”

Okay… massive time-shift…

Stepping back a few decades… I remember being attracted to males from a very early age and, like many gay kids, perceived that this was inappropriate. I therefore took the common tack of suppressing this innate desire and deny it to myself. I started to put on a fake self to protect myself from the displeasure of others who might find my inner reality wrong.

And so was reinforced another lesson in being fake, which so many of us learn from the beginning. It’s not unique to American culture either, since all communities have standards and boundaries for behavior. The only truly uninhibited are the insane, so it is considered a balanced, sane quality to fit in with a crowd, to find a “normal” for ourselves.

When the pressure of a teenage sex drive bottled up broke through, I was 17 and admitted to myself I was gay. I immediately wanted the world to know but because my mother told me in solemn tones, “Don’t tell your father,” there would remain a stash of artifice in my life, at least until he passed away six years later. So at 23, I officially had no one else to hide from. I was out from that moment on and would never hide again. 

In high school, I belonged to several cliques. Choir, newspaper, radio, theater, all were different groups that defined themselves by their groups, but there was very little crossover, except for me. On the groups pages of my Senior yearbook, I’m all over the place… though not in sports. I was also a druggie since I got high and dropped acid back then. I’d been pegged as a fag well before coming out, since I studied ballet starting when I was 14.

Without a tedious recounting of my decade of drug abuse, my decade of recovery, my years of finding what I wanted and gaining my life back, but there are almost no places where I am not expected to play a role, and to spare my associates in that arena the discomfort of who I am and what I value elsewhere.

Today, I have these specific realms in which I exist, and there is little crossover between them. Listed in no particular order…

• Home
• Husband
• Work
• My choir
• The gym
• The jack-off club
• This blog
• Online cruising sites

I could also list Twitter and Facebook, since I tailor the content there to those I know follow me in one but not another.

At home, with the husband, I talk about everything, though generally just in the moments when he’s fully available… we both have our work obsessions that tend to force out other interests for a while… but I hide nothing from him.

The goal, for me, is to be who I am in all realms, although I may not be practicing the same activities in one as in the other. It means I have to be aware of the “me” driving all of these activities, and not be the activities themselves.

So when I’m talking to new members about the club, I’m the same me who talks to account managers in the office, and the same me who talks to my mom about my step-dad’s health, and the same me who holds my husband in bed… I can honor different sets of rules but not confuse the rules with the ruled.

The things that define my self are the things in which I invest my self. If I’m really attached to things and processes and outcomes, the division between those things and my self becomes hard to distinguish. It follows that to be more authentic in more places, I need to be less invested or at least less attached. Being more authentic means being more available to what and who is there at any given moment, so the more I can let go of work, and worry, and busy-ness and social issues and politics and whatever story of the day is clamoring for my mind, the more I’m just me.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

I may have over-promised when I committed to a blog entry a day… just a tad.

But I am loving this process of developing a blog, learning what writing regularly feels like, finding an honest voice as a writer.

So in the face of high-volume demands from the many realms of my existence, I’m letting myself off the hook for slipping to every two or three days for the blog.

This week’s itinerary:

• Today is work, then managing the opening crew for tonight’s Jacks event. 
• Tomorrow is work and then seeing preview night for my husband’s new play. 
• Friday is work and then opening night for that play. 
• Saturday is my JACKS seminar at Gay City University, where I’ll be teaching a 75-minute class about JO clubs. 
• Sunday is the TeamRCJ Meetup, a gathering of the Jacks’ volunteer force to socialize, organize and talk business.

I know an itinerary isn’t a blog entry (for me) and it’s not intended as an excuse for not writing anything juicy… Among all that busy-ness is plenty of inspiration for writing and I plan to do that. 

Promise.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

I looked up from the fog of penis pleasure at one point during today’s event, during one of the few moments I was actually playing and not working, and I just saw these two loosely-connected groups of men about 20 feet away, about ten men altogether, and they were in various stages of orgasm, one after another. I think four or five of them came over the course of a few minutes, mostly standing… I saw a lot of smiles, heard a lot of sighing, gasping, moaning and I thought to myself, “I just love this club.”

I was in something of an altered state at the time, as Jim was giving some very devoted and expert attention to my cock, which was very slick with lube and very much pulsating at the sixth or seventh edge of the day…

I have a bit of a routine at the club, which can happen when one does something frequently. I vary the routine a lot from event to event (I’ve never felt I was in a rut) but my usual M.O. is to play with various members, almost always playing with the newest members if they’re interested (I really want them to want to come back) and I will spend significant, dedicated time focusing on each guy fully for a while, and edge my dick over and over, taking breaks when my knees or feet start to ache or I need a drink of water. I’ll play with a few guys at each event in this way and after a period of riding the delayed-orgasm roller coaster, I will let loose with a big, edge-worthy volley of semen and then either go rest, or stick around for a while to help my friends get off, if that’s what’s happening…

And sometimes, I get caught in a trap my body started springing on me some eight or nine years ago. I call it “edging gone wrong.”

I believe the clinical name is “retarded ejaculation” (which inspires me to giggle like a 4th grader). It happens on occasion… I will take myself from zero to nine over and over again, barely forestalling the ten of full-on orgasm and ejaculation. But after a few times, I realize I’m just not going to cum… I think it’s one of those fucking shitty things about getting older I’m supposed to just accept.

It’s just that once I really want to cum, I won’t. I will get maddeningly close, be feeling myself sliding up to the precipice and then it’s as if someone nailed my shoes to the edge because no matter what, I just don’t go over.

This has happened several times over the past decade. Sometimes I go through a stretch of time where I will repeatedly have these “ejaculatus interruptus” experiences, and it’s really frustrating. It can happen in a Jacks event or at home with my own hand, or with my husband, which is the most difficult circumstance… But none of them are really terrible… It’s frustrating, but only briefly so. I do get over it quite soon.

So today, I facilitated several emphatic culminations, but was stuck at nine at precisely the wrong moment… When I was the last one in the room, with just a small cadre of men nearby, warm pools of their bodily fluids glistening on their torsos… I had a blast witnessing and participating in the lead-up to that spunky afterglow, but I hadn’t made my own liquid contribution… 

And I really wanted to. Really.

It was still very big fun. One of the cadre had exhibited a vocal enthusiasm that I don’t think I have ever quite heard echoing through a Jacks event before. I was so impressed… It was not in the least bit manufactured for our benefit, but seemed primal, genuine. I love it when men feel free to let themselves experience intense pleasure with others, especially when I’m one of the others taking it in.

I feel a genuine heart-warmth so frequently with the Jacks, and often when I’m just observing the members playing and enjoying themselves. It really makes me want to go to a JO club that I’m not running, so I can just appreciate what someone else made possible, so I can be one of these happy men and not imagine that it is somehow a reflection on me, even a positive one.

So I loved the event as much as any other, regardless of never reaching “ten.” While I usually cum like a fountain at the club, I know that it’s not why I’m there… not just to get off. My deepest satisfaction comes from giving pleasure, not taking it myself. And if guys really love seeing me cum, it’s their pleasure that satisfies me, not my own.

Even so, I really need to cum right now. I have a touch of the blueballs right now, and I don’t think I want to wait until Wednesday’s event… This shouldn’t take too long…

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Frequent Question Number 19: How many guys are usually at one of your parties?

Answer: Usually somewhere between 50 and 75. The average these days is about 65 guys per event.

Reaction: 65?! That’s a lot of guys!

Typical Followup Question for Number 19: “Um… do you ever hold smaller events??”

I understand how we all get trapped in our expectations, fantasies, nightmares, daydreams, delusions and prejudices. We have this incredible parade of scenes running at full-bore all day. The time we spend obsessively focusing on mindless tasks can be something of a relief because it is mindless. It takes us out of this diarrhea of the mind we all have…

It’s a universal human habit to form these thoughts into stories and believe in some of them. I think most of our lives are in our heads, especially our relationships. We are mired in stinking thinking 24/7 and… it seems that is just the way we are. It’s perfectly normal, perfectly human to believe in the stuff we think up, even if it generates fear and superstition and wrong ideas that provoke bad judgment…

The Tibetan Wheel of Life is a representation of the condition of humanity, the Karmic Wheel of birth, death and rebirth. It’s an awesome set of ideas set in pictures and one of them is a monkey swinging from branch to branch, which is understood to represent (among other things) the restless nature of the mind, our tendency to grasp one idea and swing on to the next to grasp another and another and another…

I set myself up long ago as the go-to guy for questions about the club and group JO in general. I mainly did it because when I first started out, it was easiest to just answer questions myself and I never got a volunteer to take it on for me. I mostly get asked where events are held, how to join, what to bring, if it’s anonymous, what are the guys like, will I be too fat? WIll I feel too out of place? Is my dick too small? Am I too old? 

The questions people ask are always clues to who they are. I do my best to be positive, calm, clear, matter-of-fact, and not rushed when I take a phone call for the club, and the “how many guys" question is absolutely reasonable. Of course it is.

The shock at how many guys attend a typical event tells me a lot about a guy. He’s probably nervous, so I do my best to just be relaxed and let him know that he doesn’t have to touch or be touched by anyone unless he chooses to be. I can also tell he’s probably never been to a bathhouse, because most bathhouses get more naked bodies than we do any night of the week. He may also not end up comfortable in a large group, so it may be an indicator that he will not like the club…

Of course, you don’t play with all 65 men at a typical event any more than you eat everything at a smörgåsbord. Most members, new and experienced alike, play with somewhere between one and four guys per event, although some of us to sample more variety (I tend to average a little more than four, but I’m usually there for most of the event) but we also gravitate to specific partners who have the right chemistry for us, and are likely to orgasm with just one guy (although group orgasms happen all the time, it seems like a personal connection is naturally preferred for many Jacks. Not all of course, but many). So it’s not surprising that guys often ask about smaller events. I just tell them that we don’t. We don’t have the resources to host small events, but also, it is not what the club is about, which is a social sexual experience.

Also, many men will park themselves somewhere and not move around a lot. They stick to one sofa, or lean against one wall, or lie back on a bed for an hour or more, waiting for the appropriate playmates to find them. We also have the red band system (a signal that means, "Don’t touch my cock”) so a few men are strictly watching and enjoying the view during solitary play.

I would say the only real problem with the number of men is the natural tendency to get distracted by all the variety of naked, masturbating men. Most of us get off by our own hand or that of one buddy, maybe two, but it can be a real challenge to focus on the matter at hand when your eyes are being pulled this way and that, and when it’s so easy to move on when your penis needs a break. If you’re with a buddy who can stay focused in the moment, and on one partner, he can be turned off by the constant darting of eyes as we get distracted by every shiny knob that passes into our field of vision…

I advise newbies, generally after their first event, to not try to pig out at the smorgasbord, but to take their time until they find someone who pushes their buttons, and then ignore the parade and let themselves get lost in the moment of timeless focus with one or maybe two fellow members, either accepting or giving pleasure. The presence of the other men in the room can actually become an erotic background to intimate one-on-one connections… which may sound strange in the context of a sex party with five or six dozen horny men…

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Every time I’ve asked, “How do you identify your sexuality?” I get roughly the same answer from the members of my jack-off club:

• 65% identify as gay
• 25% identify as bi
• 10% identify as straight

I’ve asked this question many, many times over the past five years and the percentages always come in right around there. It’s remarkable in its consistency and it raises a lot of questions for me—questions about that 10% of men who identify as straight…

I’m not a sex researcher, although I have the same access to sex research that you do. I am a 52 year-old man who runs a jack-off club in an unusually progressive community in the USA. I’m someone who jacks off with hundreds of men a year, someone with an open mind and a lot of opinions… just like you, probably, at least on that last point…

In any case, I have a certain broad body of personal experience. You might call it clinical evidence. You’d be wrong to call it that, but you could…

Do I personally accept that these guys are, in fact, straight? That’s not an easy question and I have an uncontrollable urge to nuance the answer (in other words, avoid answering). I really want to try and be honest here, so I’ll just say again, that this is just my opinion and I am completely open to being proven wrong…

I accept that these men have a right to identify as they choose, but I don’t always trust the perceptions of anyone, particularly about themselves. Humans are remarkably adept at self-deception. We don’t see each other or ourselves clearly, except, on occasion, when we really fall in love with each other, and not always then either.

I have lived peacefully with the identity of “gay” for almost 35 years now, but I know I would be open for sex with a woman if conditions were right, and I even occasionally desire a woman sexually. It’s rare but it happens, so you could say I am bi or perhaps a Kinsey 5.8… I don’t believe that sex with a woman would alter my innate craving for intimate male contact, but I know I could enjoy sex with a woman, as I did when I was 15, 16 and 17, before I gave it up for cock. To be fair, I have to cut straight guys the same right to explore, to have diverse tastes, to be curious…

Guys are a lot easier to have sex with, a lot easier for a fellow man to understand, and I personally love cock. My response to women’s breasts and vaginas and the shapes and smells of women is pretty much indifference… particularly since I don’t have much curiosity left to satisfy there. I did that and I feel pretty satisfied that I’m not really interested. I know I crave men, so it’s easy to identify as gay.

But we gay guys know that straight guys don’t have to “come out.” They don’t ever have to hide that they want sex with women. That’s the key experience that ties all the disperate queers together, the common thread of having had to hide, having started from that condition of shame, and having to ultimately accept what we have suppressed. We have a lot more that divides us than unites us, but this is The Major Biggie in the world of common-experience for The Gay. We know the closet, and ultimately, we know it as the enemy of happiness.

I believe that a “straight” guy who craves cock is either closeted gay or at least “has a touch of the bi,” as Dan Savage puts it. Bi men get to be excited by men and women. They get to crave who they crave. For a closeted man, the problem is expressing the suppressed side of his desire. He is then invariably filled with fear, paranoia and then shame. They start out with lust just barely winning out against terror long enough to get off, and then, as lust inevitably retreats in its characteristically fleet fashion, they are left with remorse… and watching that cycle playing out again and again drives me fucking crazy…

Because I have this private club, with strict rules about confidentiality and discretion, specifically because I want members to feel safe—safe to play, safe to enjoy, safe to express a specific desire, safe from disease… well, safer—but it is also a perfect opportunity for a closeted man on the down-low to cheat. I don’t support that, but I’m not going to take any action to stop someone from what I suspect may be cheating, because these things have a way of inflicting their own punishment on a man. 

I have this club, and if a guy who has identified as straight all his life is exploring his attraction to men, or his attraction to masturbation with other men (which works better in a JO club) I am happy that the Jacks offer an opportunity to see what it is like, but I know perfectly well that if he is hiding this activity from someone he is in an “intimate” relationship with, it’s actually better for him if he doesn’t like it, if the experiment fails, at least, it’s better for his relationship…

I know that there are many men in my club who have wives, children and secrets. It’s not my job to make them honorable men, but I wish I knew better how to encourage honor in the context of our sexual experiences. There are a few men in the club, I know of six personally, who have wives who know about and even support their husbands’ same-sex attraction and exploration. There have been two members I’m aware of who’s wives actually pick them up on occasion from the events. Something in their relationships allows that honesty to thrive and inform their own relationship. I admire these women a hell of a lot.

When I first encounter a self-identified straight man at an event, I support him individually as a man, neither straight nor gay, but just as a guy exploring himself, which I believe is a good thing. What I wish for all the members, and really for everyone, is to be willing to move steadily toward a truer, more honorable existence. Just try to be more true and keep trying because you’ll never get all the way there…

Do I believe a guy can want to jack off with another guy and still be straight? Really? I guess it depends on how much he wants it. If it’s an interesting idea and he easily gets distracted by other ideas, maybe never follows through or follows through and doesn’t return. yeah. He’s a straight guy. If a guy feels like he’s missing something without another man to masturbate with, no. He just doesn’t really know what gay or bi mean.

And if he has fought with himself or negotiated all kinds of justifications and subterfuges to do this, well… I have a hard time seeing this as a passing fancy. To go through all that a man goes through to touch and be touched another man sexually, that looks like evidence of “need” as opposed to “want.”

But… I respect everyone’s right to identify however they do until they identify another way, and then it is still their right. I think there really are a couple of actual straight guys in my club, but most of the guys who identify that way, just haven’t recognized yet that they’re experiencing the only closet that really matters: the one in which you hide from yourself… 

All just my opinion, and I could be wrong (as the clever but total asshole Dennis Miller said) but fair warning: I’m not done chewing on this bone by a long shot…